I paused the TV again and stared at him, stunned as the UF quarterback. I couldn’t imagine my goofy brother doing something like that.
And then he Matt-ified it by saying, “It worked, if you know what I mean.”
I did know. “You’re such a douche.”
“I may be, but I know you want that girl, for some strange reason. And I know what you have to do to get her.”
I unpaused the TV. He was right about me wanting Amanda, of course. I wondered if he was right about the other thing too.
Problem was, if he was wrong and I left a trail of rose petals leading up to her car, she might break my nose.
But maybe you had to be in it to win it.
As the Gators definitely weren’t tonight.
I watched the Gators flounder (figuratively) and fumble (literally) for another hour, and I knew I had to make a big gesture. But before that, I was going to make some smaller ones.
The first was, I went to her volleyball game the next day. This might not seem like a big deal, but no one in our school went to girls’ volleyball, even if it was a choice between that and sitting home watching reruns of Say Yes to the Dress. The game wasn’t even listed on the school’s website. I had to ask around.
I took Mom, and we sat there in a crowd that was basically everyone’s parents, and we cheered every time anyone did anything, but especially at anything Amanda did.
After the game, Amanda came over, because she couldn’t ignore my mom waving and cheering. “Hey,” she said.
My mom was all excited. “Hey, you were great.” They’d lost in straight sets.
“I’m just tall. If you’re tall, you have to play volleyball.”
“Tall and incredibly athletic,” I said.
Amanda glanced at the scoreboard. “Well, volleyball’s not really my sport.”
There was this silence where I figured if anyone wanted, they could have heard the small voice in the pit of my stomach screaming, “Help me! Help me!” and just as Amanda was about to excuse herself, my mom said, “So, how’s your dad?”
“Oh, he’s a lot better,” Amanda said. “He’s taking blood pressure meds and watching his diet. Not too happy about it, but I threatened not to let him go to any of my games if he wasn’t careful. Wouldn’t want to excite him too much.” She was gesturing animatedly as she said all this. I hadn’t seen her happy in a while.
“Oh, look, here he is.” My mother pointed out Tim, who was walking toward us with Casey, engrossed in her phone. “I was just about to tell Amanda you three should come over for dinner one night. I have a great recipe for ginger salmon with brown rice—very healthy.”
“My mom’s on a health kick lately,” I said. “You should be thankful she doesn’t want you to eat the quinoa.”
“Oh, I love that stuff,” Amanda said, “but my father hates it. He calls it dirt.”
Tim and I exchanged a glance at that.
Mom asked what would be a good day for them, and Tim suggested Friday night after practice. “Then we could go over Saturday’s roster.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Don’t you have a date with Sydnie?” Amanda asked.
I glanced at her. I figured she had to have heard that Sydnie and I broke up. News like that didn’t go unmarked at our school, especially with Sydnie’s mouth. But maybe she wanted details. “No, I broke up with Sydnie a few weeks ago.” When she didn’t ask why, I added, “I decided she wasn’t really the person I wanted to hang with.”
She nodded.
“And what about you?” I asked. “No date with Darien?”
She looked down. “Same.”
“Okay.” Tim clapped his hands together. “Sounds like we’re all dateless and free Friday at, um, seven?” He looked at Mom.
“Sounds good,” she agreed.
17
Over salmon, we mostly talked about the food. And college admissions. Because that had become my life.
After dinner, Mom suggested a board game.
“Monopoly, maybe?” I said, because I wanted to keep them there as long as possible.
“I don’t have six hours,” Matt said. “How about Cards against Humanity?”
“With a little kid and our parents?” Amanda said. “No thanks.”
“Who’s a little kid?” Casey said.
“Me,” I said. “I’m super immature. How about Taboo? Me, Tim, and Amanda against the two of you?”
I chose the game because Amanda and I always won as a team. The object, if you haven’t played, was to get your team members to guess a word written on the card. Trick was, the person giving clues couldn’t use any of five “taboo” words on the card—the most obvious clues. So, if the card word was lifeguard, you had to get your team to guess it without being able to use words like “pool” or “save.”
It was hard—unless you had such a long history with your team members that you could practically read one another’s minds.
Our team’s first word was “seagull.” I looked right at Amanda and said, “Mrs. Wynne at the Seaquarium.”
“Seagull!” Amanda screamed, laughing because we both remembered the birthday party at the Seaquarium, the one where Tori Wynne’s mom got pooped on by a seagull.
Next was, “Nolan put them up his nose.”
“French fries!”
“Right. Made me want to . . .”