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Now I feel like I’m Mitch’s daughter. He takes me to a food stand where he gets a hotdog for himself and fries for me, and then we make our way over to join the rest of the audience.
It isreallyhot near the stadium lights. I keep pulling at the neck of my jumper but the air is so still that it isn’t helping. Now that I’m going tohaveto expose my stupid little revenge ploy it doesn’t seem like such a good idea.
“You wanna take that off?” Mitch is watching my tussle with the jumper with a dubious expression. “I’ll hold your fries.”
I surrender. I hand him the fries and shed the jumper, sighing at the relief of having it off my skin.
“Jesus Christ!”
It seems that Mitch cannot be trusted to hold my fries. The fries are everywhere. They’re on the ground. They’re on my jumper. Mitch is looking at me with such a dismayed expression that it confirms that this top was an excellent choice. He picks my jumper off the floor, not even bothering to wipe it off.
“Put this back on. Right now.”
I pluck the jumper from his hand and then drop it back to the dirt.
“River, what the fuck are you thinking?”
Wow, he really is like a dad.
“Tate cannot see you like this,” Mitch says. “In fact, Tate cannot seeother peopleseeing you like this. He’s going to go insane.”
I narrow my eyes at Mitch and everything becomes clear.
Mitchknows.
I never told my momanything,but from Mitch’s expression I know that he knows.
And that makes his concern even more absurd.
“I can wear what I want Mitch,” I say as I collect my droopy little fries from the dirt and put them back into the carton.
He has his hand over his mouth like he’s trying to decide which neuro-pathway to take in his man-brain. A or B.
“After Tate’s race I want you to put that back on,” he says, his voice stern and authoritative. Then he turns away from me without another word, waiting for the race to begin.
I can’t tell which one is Tate because everyone on the track is riding a big black bike, but when I hear Mitch yelling I realise that he’s right behind the lead. Mitch is shouting something about “cat and mouse” as the bikers skirt precariously over the twisting bends, and then when the first racer speeds over the finish line Mitch is vehemently fist-pumping the air.
I watch as Tate takes off his helmet. His hair has stuck against his forehead in a sweaty tousled mess and his perfect smile is visible all the way from here.
I turn around and head back to Mitch’s truck.
I’ve only been walking a minute when I hear it.
“Hey, I know you –whoaaaa, how’s it going?”
I look up and I’m met with the sight of Tate’s friend from the house the other night. Caulder. So he must be one of Tate’s motorbike buddies.
His shirt is off – it really is hot under these lights – and he’s wearing heavily branded biking pants. There’s a rigid V slicing up either side of his abdominals, and, most obviously of all, Caulder’s eyes are magnetised to my chest.
“Hey,” I say, putting my hand on my hip. It feels different talking to a guy who isn’t at school with me. He doesn’t have any preconceptions and therefore I can be whoever I want to be.
“Hey,” he says again, before blinking hard and looking up. “Caulder,” he blurts out, hand outstretched. Obviously he doesn’t remember telling me his name.
“River,” I say, and I brush past him, leaving him hanging.
“Hey, wait!”
I smile as I hear him chase after me. Tate is going tolooooovethis.
