Ryan Hunter Read online

  “Hey, Sandy.”

  “No girlfriend again?” It sounded like a mix of accusation for the lie I had told her and delight about finding me still single.

  I didn’t want to give her false hope, and more importantly, I didn’t want to spend the next hour fending her off again, so I grabbed the first familiar girl I saw and pulled her to my side. “Sorry to disappoint you,” I told a baffled Sandy. “But I just came over to get my girl.” I tilted my head to see who my girl actually was and found myself nose to nose with Cloey. She lifted a delicate brow at me but was cool enough to handle the moment. “You ready to come back to the table with me, hun?” I said through a grin.

  Cloey caused me a second of panic, but then she smiled. “Of course, baby. Let me just tell the girls that we’re moving. And that you agreed to pay for a round.”

  I gritted my teeth behind a tight smile, but the rescue was worth it. With my arm still around Cloey, I walked her over to our table in the back, knowing that Sandy would stare after us with those disappointed navy blues.

  Cloey played her part a little too well. She overdid it when she wrapped her arm around my waist and shoved her hand into the back pocket of my jeans.

  “Hands out of there, Summers,” I growled, but kept her tucked to my side.

  “Why? You have a sexy ass, Hunter.” She laughed and pinched my butt cheek before she moved her hand out of the pocket and up to safer grounds.

  The guys had found chairs for the ladies, and I was more than happy when I could let go of Cloey and slump back into my seat.

  “Wow, this looks like you’ve been expecting us,” she said as they all sat down. “What’s up?”

  “There’s something we want to discuss with you,” I replied.

  “Really? And here I thought you only wanted to use one girl to escape another.”

  I grimaced. “Yeah…thanks for that.” Then I ordered sodas for all of us, and we told the girls what we had in mind.

  All of them were intrigued by the idea, especially since they didn’t have a girls’ team back in Grover Beach. The most they could play soccer was in gym class, and only when their teacher had a good day.

  “I know of a few girls at school who would love to be on a team,” Brinna said. “If you don’t mind that they aren’t all going to be seniors next year.”

  “It’s actually only Sasha, Tyler, and myself, who are going to be seniors on our team,” I pointed out. “So you don’t have to worry.”

  “Cool. I can text a few girls back home and we can all meet up when we’re back. How many girls do you need for the co-ed team?”

  “I guess it makes sense to split the team in half, so eleven players would be good. If there are more who want to join, we’ll have to hold tryouts.”

  The evening wore on a few more hours, before we finally left the bar together.

  “Everybody grab a girl,” Alex said over his shoulder with a grin as we passed Sandy and her lionesses by the bar.

  I wanted to tuck Cloey under my arm again, because she was walking next to me, but the blonde gave me a grim look. “Take Brinna,” she snapped, then she hooked her arm through Tony’s and cast him a flirtatious smile. “I want to be his girlfriend for the walk out.”

  Mitchell raked a hand through his blond hair and let loose a shit-eating grin. “Sorry, Hunter.”

  He didn’t have to be. Brinna was as good a match as anyone, and I released her as soon as the door had fallen shut behind us. However, Cloey clung to Mitchell’s arm the entire way home. Later, I got an update from Frederickson on the flirting that had apparently been going on all evening, and which I had completely missed.

  Summers and Mitchell? Now, why did that thought make me grin to myself?

  Back at camp, I threw a quarter into the soda machine in the hall, just to get a chance to see how Tony and Cloey would part tonight. Knowing Cloey, I was sure she’d go for a kiss, and if she did, this could finally be my chance with Liza. If Tony was taken, she’d sooner or later realize that he wasn’t the only boy in the world.

  I took a swig of Coke, watching them from the corner of my eye. To my total frustration, they didn’t kiss. They didn’t even talk about meeting the next morning at soccer training. All they said was “Goodnight,” and Cloey added, “Sleep tight, Anthony.”

  Tony waited for me when she was gone and, together, we climbed the steps to the boys’ dorm. I didn’t touch on the topic, and neither did he.

  Chapter 2

  CLOEY SUMMERS WAS the female equivalent to me. Heading from one fling into the next, enjoying uncomplicated relationships that lasted about two to three weeks maximum and left us free of any ties. I was perfectly aware of the term womanizer or school hottie that most of the girls used in combination with my name, but while I didn’t want to be bound to anyone because the girl I wanted walked clueless in front of me every day, totally unaware of how I felt, I didn’t understand what kept Cloey from having a deep and meaningful relationship.

  She’d flittered through half the guys at soccer camp by the time we evacuated our dorms after the five weeks were up, and she had certainly made a name for herself because of that. There were only few of us who were immune to her flirting, but Tony Mitchell definitely didn’t fall into that group. It would be a lie to say I didn’t hope for them to hook up, even though he was my friend and deserved better. But she’d been the first girl in like forever that he seemed to be interested in apart from Liza, and I couldn’t help getting my hopes high whenever I saw the two of them together. I would never hit on any friend’s girl. But if Tony was with someone else, he couldn’t claim Liza Matthews as his own any longer.

  On the train it was us four again: Alex, Frederickson, Tony, and me. We had all tanned nicely from playing in the sun and were fooling around like horny cocks, bragging about how the girls would be at our feet when we got back. But the truth was, only Frederickson really meant it, because I…well I had stopped plucking girls from every corner of the school’s corridor some serious time ago. Tony was texting like mad with Liza, and Alex Winter had finally come out with why he had been so low-key around the fairer sex during the past five weeks. There was a girl on his mind, too. A special one. And he intended to make her go out with him eventually, even though she’d rebuffed him twice before school had been over. Her name was Simone, and I thought I remembered her from the parties I sometimes threw. Parties at which I’d always hoped to see Liza walking through my front door, but as it was, Tony had never passed on my invitations. He said she was too nice to be dragged into a hellhole like my house on a Saturday night, but I was sure he was just scared someone else could hit on her and she might like it.

  I glanced at my friend who just punched in another text message. He was surely telling Liza that we’d be home in about two hours, and she probably sat in her room, biting her nails because she couldn’t wait to see him again.

  “Are you two making out over the phone or what?” I mocked and kicked his tennis shoe with the toe of mine.

  Tony glanced up, having this innocent What? look in his eyes.

  “You sent Liza over twenty messages in the past half hour,” Alex said, backing me up with a sneer. “What’s so urgent that it can’t wait until we’re home?”

  “Nothing.” Tony cleared his throat and tucked the cell into his pocket. “I was just giving her an update about the past few days. Since Hunter wants to meet with the others about this co-ed thing right when we get back, she’ll be in a terrible mood when she hears it.”

  “Dude, give it a break and just make her come along with you. I don’t see why you’re being so complicated and wasting all that money on text messages,” I said. But the truth was I was jealous, and more than just a little bit. I wished I could text back and forth with Liza like this on the ride home, have her all euphoric to see me again, and wrap her up in a tight hug, which Tony would doubtlessly do when he walked over to her house in a little while.

  “She won’t come. She hates soccer, and when I mention your name,
her face usually turns into a grimace.” Tony smirked. “No offence, Hunter.”

  “None taken,” I muttered and turned to stare out the window. Liza was probably the only girl in the universe that was resistant to my charm. Goddammit! But then, she hadn’t seen much of it so far, anyway, since girls of friends were a no-go for me, which made me tone down the flirt-factor automatically. It could all change with Cloey, though. A bubbly spark of hope lit in my chest. It made me feel stupid, and I struggled to get that feeling under control. I glance sideways at Tony. “What about the Summers chick?”

  “What about her?”

  “You two have been hanging out a lot during camp.”

  His lips became a thin line. “Yeah. So what?”

  Damn, we hadn’t talked about her in all this time, and now that I thought of it, we hadn’t because whenever someone mentioned Cloey’s name, Mitchell changed the subject. “So, is there something going on between the two of you?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Why don’t you want to answer?”

  Alex bumped his shoulder into Tony’s. “Because this dude is in love, and it’s not with the sweet Matthews girl.”

  Tony shoved him back. “Knock it off. I’m not in love with anyone.”

  “Then why are you so touchy all of a sudden?” Alex asked.

  “And so defensive,” I added.

  “I’m not. You’re just idiots.”

  Okay, we couldn’t contradict that, but Tony’s secretive love life interested me more and more. And then it hit me like a hammer on the head. “It’s because of her!”

  He quirked his brows at me. “Huh?”

  “It’s Cloey. Not me. She’s the reason why you don’t want to bring Matthews along. You don’t want the girls to meet, that’s it.” Heck, I almost sneered at my friend because of my ingenuity.

  And suddenly something weird happened, with which none of us boys had reckoned. Anthony Mitchell blushed a pretty girlie pink.

  “Oh my fucking God!” I slapped my brow. “So you have something running with the chick. And you’re scared to tell little Liza.”

  Tony raked a nervous hand through his hair. “She won’t understand it,” he whined, and it didn’t help that at this moment another text from Liza came in.

  I knew it was an asshole move, but this time I couldn’t resist. As soon as he fished the phone out of his pocket, I grabbed it and opened the text. Tony jumped at me, but I held the device out of his reach and wrestled myself free.

  “We can do whatever you like. Go for a swim? We haven’t done that all summer. But then, you were gone all summer, you scamp,” I read out loud, and the other two repeated, “You scamp!” in the gayest way one had ever heard. We laughed our asses off.

  “Give it back. You’re such an infantile, Hunter.”

  “Infantile!” we repeated again and stuck our heads together like the three Stooges, already holding our stomachs from laughing. I was too weak to withstand Tony’s attacks, so I let him have his cell phone back. God knew what he texted Liza back then. Likely, that he was trapped in a train compartment with the leftover Kindergarten of Grover Beach.

  When the train stopped at our station, we grabbed our bags, jumped off the coach, and into the warm Friday afternoon sun. I stretched my back and cracked my neck, which had gone a little stiff during the ride. Then I scanned the place for a delicate brunette with apple green eyes. She hadn’t come, not even to pick up her best friend and childhood love. Not seeing Liza for half of the summer and staying sane had been a challenge. Not seeing her now was torture.

  But school was only three weeks away. I would be a man and bear the time with a grin. Or so I told myself.

  The guys and I bumped fists and shouted goodbyes to several other friends we’d made at camp. Then we fanned out to find our rides home. My dad would pick me up today, but before I found him, I ran into my friend, Justin. He had a broken little brother by his side. Well not everything of Nick Andrews was broken, only his right wrist, which didn’t bring me any money, but it made me feel bad for him. It had happened only three days ago, and we all had wondered if he’d make it home sound for once. No such luck for the boy.

  Justin came over to me with a grim expression, but before he could say anything I cut him short. “Dude, I wasn’t even near him when it happened. He slipped in the shower. How could I have prevented that from happening, huh?”

  He considered that for a second, then a grin curved his thin lips, and we went through our handshake ritual which ended with a fist pound on each other’s shoulder. “What’s cracking?” he asked as he and Nick walked with me to the parking lot. Then he leaned in closer, so that only I could hear his taunt. “Did a nice babe come along and blast the Matthews girl out of your head?”

  I grinned back. “Did you run a truck over your sacred BMX?”

  “Nah,” we said simultaneously and laughed. Then I slapped his little brother on the shoulder and told him, “See you at Charlie’s in a bit,” before I left my friends.

  My dad was waiting by our black Ford Chrysler. I gave him a brief one-armed hug, dumped my bag in the truck, and climbed into the passenger seat. Though this year’s summer soccer camp had been epic, it was nice to go home at last.

  Mom must have been waiting like a lynx behind the door, because the moment I opened it, she caught me in a bear hug that knocked the breath out of my lungs.

  “Mom,” I croaked but hugged her back and laughed. “Mom, let go. You’re hurting me.”

  “Yeah, she missed you awfully, son,” my dad told me as he squeezed through between the door jamb and my mom and me.

  “Five weeks. You have no idea,” Mom said with a bright smile, then she stroked my cheek and kissed the other. “This house is way too empty with both kids gone.”

  Ever since my sister ran off at age twenty, okay she didn’t run off but only moved to San Luis, I had become the sole center of my mom’s love. While Rachel had quit university to marry a bar owner, I was the good kid, who still lived at home and intended to get into my father’s business one day. He had a veterinary practice attached to our house and let me sneak into his work from time to time. I liked animals, and helping him with taking care of the furry patients was cool.

  When I made it out of my mom’s possessive embrace, I emptied my duffle bag into the wash and rushed upstairs to shower off the smell of a long journey. With a towel loosely wrapped around my hips, I shaved, put on some Axe Temptation, and rubbed my dark hair dry. From my closet, I grabbed a white muscle shirt and baggy pants then shoved my feet into black skater shoes. Next to my bed stood my graffiti style skateboard. I stared at it for a few moments then decided to leave my car in the garage for one more day and use this ride instead.

  Mom’s eyes widened when I came down the stairs into the hall with the board clutched under my arm. “Are you going out again? You barely had time to say hello. And you didn’t tell me how camp was.”

  “Yeah. I have a meeting with the guys from the team in—” I glanced at my watch. “—fifteen minutes.”

  “Will you be back for dinner then? I was going to make a seafood plate tonight.”

  My mouth spread into a huge smile. She knew I loved fish and shrimp prepared in all different ways and she usually prepared this meal for special occasions. Like when her beloved son would come back from camp after five long weeks. There was only one thing to say to this. “I love you too, Mom.” I kissed her on the cheek. “I won’t be long. Just a couple hours, I promise. Then I’ll tell you everything about camp at dinner.”

  The kiss was my ticket to go out. She could never deny me anything when I was the sweet boy who wasn’t ashamed of telling his mama that he loved her.

  Outside, I dropped the skateboard to the asphalt and headed to Charlie’s café.

  As I stepped off my board just in front of the low fence, I recognized some of the kids who had gathered around a few tables in the shadowy garden area. The place buzzed with activity this Friday afternoon. I left my s
kateboard by the entrance with a couple of others and headed toward the group to take a seat at one end of the table row. Brinna was right, there were quite a few girls interested in playing soccer. I didn’t expect this craze.

  When Charlie came to take my order, I asked for a lemon juice and something to write on. A few minutes later, the tall, early balding man brought me two white sheets of paper and a pen, together with my drink.

  Tony wasn’t there yet, so a tiny flicker of hope remained, that he’d bring Liza after all. I took a sip of my juice and glanced over to Cloey in this white dress that looked like it was painted on her skin. Thinking again, it probably wasn’t such a good idea to introduce the girls today.

  “All right,” I said to get everyone’s attention after I’d put my glass down. “It’s cool that so many of you came today. But since we can’t take more than eleven players into the new team, we’ll have to find a way to make a choice. Usually, it’s a tryout for the guys, so I was thinking to arrange one for tomorrow morning. Does any one of you have a problem with that date?”

  There was some headshaking and mumbling that tomorrow was fine.

  “Great. I’ll put each of your names down on this list then, and if you know of anyone else who’d like to play with the Bay Sharks, tell them to be at the soccer field around ten.”

  I knew most of the girls present because they either were in my classes or I had dated them once or twice in the past. When I was done with writing the list and lifted my head, my heart knocked seriously hard against my ribcage. Tony had just walked up to us, and with him was the most beautiful girl in the world.

  Holy Jesus, how much had I missed the sight of her this summer. As always, her shiny green eyes caught my attention first. Looking at them made me think of the bowl with Granny Smith apples my mom always placed on the coffee table. Her beautiful hair was tied into a high ponytail and only a few strands slipped out in the front, framing her heart-shaped face.