The whistle sounded and they attacked, tossing Sulman to the ground like a sack of air. He was no match for the two of them together.
Josh had put on a solid twenty pounds of muscle since the beginning of the summer training season and, thankfully, started a growth spurt that had him eye-to-eye with Arlo. That wasn’t all that was right with his world. Freshman and sophomore years were over, he was moving on to his junior year, he was on the varsity football team, and Aubrey would be starting as a freshman in the fall. Josh’s grades were top notch, football was going great, and he was being pushed to consider running for class president. Arlo Tonturian and Kevin Sulman, his two best friends, would be graduating after this year, and he’d most likely be made captain of the team for his senior year. With any luck, he’d get a football scholarship and have a full ride for undergrad before he started the long slog through medical school.
Everything was perfect. Absolutely perfect. And there was one thing that was going to make it even better.
Tonight, he had a date with Aubrey.
The date.
His mom and dad were out of town. He’d sworn up, down, and sideways he wouldn’t have anyone—“That means Aubrey, too, Josh, especially her”—over to the house. But fuck that shit. He wasn’t about to lose this opportunity. He wanted their first time to be perfect, special, and he’d be damned if he was going to let an empty house go to waste.
He was buzzing with anticipation. Literally felt his skin shivering. Arlo and Kevin knew what was up; they’d been teasing him all afternoon. “Don’t you want to wait for prom? Won’t that make it the most perfect night ever?”
“Fuck off,” he’d told them with a grin. He didn’t care if they wanted to tease him. He knew they would stand by him, thick or thin. They loved Aubrey as much as he did. She did that to people. You couldn’t help yourself from falling in love with her.
Everyone except his mom. Daisy continued to despise Aubrey with a passion. He could never figure out why. He knew the surface reasons: she’d hated Aubrey’s real mom, hated that Aubrey was a foster child, that she lived in a bad part of town (Daisy was a complete snob; anything that wasn’t considered a feeder neighborhood for the country club was immediately labeled “bad”), that she didn’t have money, like that was a fourteen-year-old girl’s fault. Money was vital to Daisy, and she always wanted to be richer than she was. Appearances were everything to her. Coveting was her favorite pastime. She took keeping up with the Joneses to previously unknown levels.
But the true reason for her enmity eluded him. Aubrey had never been anything but sweet and respectful with Daisy, a little shy even, but she’d been treated like hell for years.
Not like he was going to ask and open that can of worms. He just did his best not to mention when he was going to be with Aubrey, and he called her instead of her calling him. Daisy wasn’t mellowing, but she was calming down a bit. Slightly. She could still go nuclear at a moment’s notice if caught at the wrong time.
Daisy didn’t seem to realize that Josh was tied to Aubrey in ways even he didn’t completely understand. She’d just shake her head when she looked at him getting ready to go out, carefully shaved and combed and tucked, and spit venom at him. “That girl is trouble, Josh. She’s no good. She’s going to drag you down with her one of these days.”
Thinking about the animosity between his mother and Aubrey upset him, and he missed an easy tackle. He forced it from his mind and tried to focus on football.
He didn’t think practice was ever going to end, but it did, finally, and he hit the showers and dressed as fast as he could. He needed to pick up a few things for their night together, and he only had an hour before she was supposed to come over.
Arlo had secured him some beer, but he drew the line at buying his friends’ personal protection. Josh needed to stop at Walgreens and pick up condoms. Aubrey was on the pill—the school nurse gave them out like they were raspberry Pez—but Arlo had told him that the first time was often hard on a girl and a little extra lube could go a long way toward making things easier.
Arlo had deflowered enough virgins around school that Josh didn’t question the advice, but scooted to the back aisle and looked for the words spermicidal lubricant on the Trojan box. Only Trojans would do—big ones, he had that clear in his mind, at least.
The pharmacist narrowed his eyes at Josh but didn’t say a word, rang up the purchase and put it in one of those white plastic bags that were so thin they were practically clear. The ones that fairly screamed, Look, look! I have something private and embarrassing inside me!