Page 29 of Summer Breakdown
“You don’t have to buy a chair. We have one.”
Frankie shrugs. “We can do whatever you and Lani want, but my heart will feel better if the club gets one. It would just be for her, to avoid germs and stuff, but I think I would be happier if there were a spare. Her own one is cute—the pink is adorable—but you’d have to clean it all the time, and I don’t want her to be held back because I’m too scared for her chair to get bashed.”
“Isn’t it touch rugby?”
“Yeah,” Frankie replies, smiling down at the ground. Jasmine wishes they were closer so she could lift her face up again. “But what about germs? Have you seen how gross some kids are?”
Jasmine snorts. Then her chest wriggles. She’s not used to anyone making accommodations with Lani. If someone got a kit because they paid the join-up fee, but then didn’t want to go anymore, that would be fine. What if Lani doesn’t wantto go, but she has to because they bought an expensive chair for her?
“Tell me something,” Frankie says, and when Jasmine looks at her, there’s a small smile on her face.
“Tell you what?”
Frankie shrugs. “Whatever you’re thinking about.”
“Can I pay for the chair?”
“No.”
“Frankie,” she whines. “You didn’t even hear me out.”
Frankie laughs quietly. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“I don’t want Lani to feel pressured to join if she doesn’t want to because you got something expensive just for her.”
“I didn’t get it for her,” Frankie says, picking at the side of her book.
Jasmine frowns. “You said no one on the team needs one.”
Frankie shrugs.
“Then who did you get it for?”
Frankie looks at her lap, a small smile on her face. She looks up at her once, a light blush on her cheeks.Oh.Jasmine’s about to be fooled thrice before she’s even left the grounds. Jasmine faces the field again, chewing on her lip. Frankie copies her, but Jasmine can feel her looking at her regardless.
CHAPTER NINE
ThewhistleblowsbeforeFrankie’s daydream about kissing someone with curls can fully form. She didn’t even make it halfway down her chest before Zach hit the floor like a sack of spuds in her peripheral vision. Frankie doesn’t wince. It’s the fourth time in as many minutes that he’s lost the ball. It’s not entirely his fault; Johnson was nowhere to be seen. Ezra is halfway down the field, still recovering from a tackle he should be able to get over. The other player is the size of a ten-year-old girl. Ten-year-old girls are bad-arse as fuck, but they shouldn’t be able to take Ezra down at his fucking knees. Frankie chews on her lip and pulls out her phone.
Frankie: should I start dating?
It’s too fucking hot. That’s all she can think about, even though they’re fourteen to twenty-eight with Durham.Durham.
It’s not the end of the world, but she’s trying to make sure the team don’t think of games like that. Beating Durham wouldn’t have advanced them to the championship, but it would mean they weren’t embarrassed for the next forty-eight hours until they think of the next match. They’re early in the season, but no part of her wants it down to the wire.
Cam: ask her out
Frankie: who?
Cam: Jasmine!!!
Cam: ask her why she didn’t wanna kiss you and then fix it and then ask her out
Frankie doesn’t like withholding things from Cam, but they haven’t discussed relationships in months because Cam is dating Andrew, and everyone with half a mind hates Andrew. Cam is ridiculously smart, so Frankie’s got no idea what’s going on there.
Some people (Zach, who is a gossip, and Mali) think they rarely talk relationships because Ezra is in love with Cam, but Frankie warned him when he started looking at her when they were teenagers that she wasn’t getting in the middle of it. Cam is her best friend, and Ezra is her brother and probably also her best friend. Whatever they did or didn’t do, she didn’t want to know about it. Unless they get married, and then she’ll be at the top of the aisle one way or another.
The whistle blows, and Ezra is on the ground. How have they still got half an hour of this shitshow left? She checks her watch, and they’ve only got eight minutes. Huh. How did she get through an entire half and not realise? She retraces her steps, wondering if she remembered to take her pills this morning. They won’t react that quickly, even if she forgot, but sometimes it helps to blame something.
