Page 31 of Better Than Revenge

“Should I have?” The shoes he was holding were regular running shoes. “I don’t even know if I have them anymore.” They were probably somewhere under a pile of clothes in my closet.

“Did Jensen never tell you that kickers usually wear soccer cleats?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Huh. Maybe in the back of his mind he always knew you could steal this from him.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’ve kicked a football once. Not sure I’m stealing anything from anyone.”

A scar ran down his kneecap, and I studied it as he tied his shoes. He brushed his hand once over his knee, catching me staring. I averted my gaze. “What happened?” I asked.

“Partially tore my ACL the practice before the last game.”

“Oh, right.” His injury. I didn’t realize it had been so serious. “You had to have surgery?”

“Yep,” he said, standing, his single-word answer and his body language telling me he didn’t want to talk about it. He gestured toward the back door with his head. “Let’s go see what you got before we hit the weights.”

“Hit the weights?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

“You’ve lifted weights before. I’ve seen you in the weight room at school.”

I hadn’t been in the weight room since soccer season last year. He’d seen me? “I wasn’t sure if it meant something else in kicker terminology.”

His eyebrows popped up like he was trying to decide if I was as stupid as I seemed. “It means the same thing.” He opened the back door, and soon we were out by the net and the shed with a football that he’d put on a small plastic stand on the grass. The ocean and its rhythmic waves made up the background noise.

“Don’t I just drop-kick it?” I asked, looking at the ball.

He leveled me with a stare.

“I take it that’s a no.”

“Tell me you know how this game works.”

I cringed. “I mean…mostly?”

“I have to teach you how to kickandall the rules and regulations of the game you want to play?”

“You don’thaveto do anything,” I said. “This is probably the worst idea anyway. I can leave right now and save us both a lot oftime.”

“No need to overreact.”

“I’m not overreacting. I’m just reacting.”

He held up his hands. “Don’t be mad.”

I looked at his hands and his doe-eyed expression. “Does that usually work for you?”

“Girls aren’t usually mad at me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

He smiled.

“And I’m not mad at you,” I said.

“See, it worked.”

I shook my head and gave a reluctant smile. “I will research the rules and regulations of football on my own. But a few pointers would be nice.”