Page 2 of Stealing for Keeps
Vaughn Collins. Junior soccer star, most popular guy at Frost Lake High School, and my ex-boyfriend.
His blond hair is striking in the sunlight. He’s tall and broad, bigger than most of his teammates filing out behind him. They shoulder duffel bags and carry soccer balls. At FLH, soccer rules. They’ve won state the past two years, in large part thanks to Vaughn.
“Need me to run interference?” Lacey asks, voice tightand clipped. She’s the bubbliest person I know, but if you hurt someone she loves, watch out.
“No. It’s fine. I was bound to run into him eventually.” It’s been nearly two months since I talked to him. I have had a lot of time to wonder what this moment would be like. I imagined playing it cool or walking right by him and not even seeing him. Instead, anger rises up inside of me. Anger that I want to unleash on him.
“Stay strong,” my best friend says, voice so stern that it makes me laugh a little.
“I’m not getting back together with him.” No way.
“Good. You deserve better. He’s…” Her words trail off as I walk away.
I can only focus on one thing right now, and that’s the boy across the field who has just spotted me as well.
I cross toward him slowly, but his long legs eat the space faster, and I’m standing in front of him before I’ve figured out what to say. The anger I was clutching so tightly slips through my fingers, letting in some of the hurt and confusion I tried my best to bury.
Vaughn and I were together for two years. He moved to Frost Lake in the fifth grade, and we became instant friends. We had so many things in common. My parents had just divorced, and his had split up when he was younger. I was passionate about skating, and he never went anywhere without a soccer ball in hand. While our classmates were trying a variety of sports and activities, we already had a single focus.
Our parents both expected a lot of us too, and we struggled with wanting that pressure and despising it at the same time. We understood each other. Even before we were a couple, we shared a bond I never had with anyone else. Iguess that’s why his decision to dump me right after I had already lost skating turned my world upside down.
“Hey,” he says casually. He takes me in with those dark blue eyes, stare trailing down slowly over my small black shorts and bare legs before flicking up. “What are you doing here?”
Why couldn’t he have gotten a regrettable haircut or suddenly become unattractive? It would make it easier to ignore the fluttering in my stomach.
I look away from him and back at Lacey, tipping my head and motioning toward our sign-decorating station. She’s glaring hard, but she still looks sweet and harmless. “I’m helping Lacey make signs to decorate the school for next week.”
“Right. I can’t believe summer is already over. We have our first team meeting today and a light practice.”
His dad, Coach Collins, appears outside with a coffee cup in one hand and a clipboard in the other. I want to chuckle at the thought of Coach C and light practice in the same sentence, but I hold it in.
Mostly I’m mad, but there’s this small part of me that wants to show Vaughn I’m fine and pretend that him breaking up with me while I was dealing with everything else didn’t hurt. And then there’s the fear that I might do something really embarrassing like start crying.
“So only three hours instead of five?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral.
One side of Vaughn’s mouth pulls up a fraction higher. “You know my dad. It doesn’t count as a workout until at least one person threatens to quit.”
The reminder that I know his dad so well because I spent so much time hanging out at their house is the finalstraw. I don’t want to do this with him, pretend like everything is cool and nothing has changed.
“Right. Well, I should—”
“It’s good to see you,” he says, cutting me off and stopping me before I go. “I’ve been meaning to text.…” His voice trails off, and he looks a tiny bit guilty. “You look good.”
Two months without so much as a hello and he wants me to believe he had any thoughts about texting me? He must read my disbelief.
He breaks eye contact briefly and looks to the ground. “Things were really busy. I did think about you though. How was your summer?”
The reminder of how “busy” he was further annoys me, and that anger I walked over here with resurfaces. His busy schedule is the whole reason he broke up with me. He was going to be gone all summer with his dad, attending and working at soccer camps around the country. Vaughn didn’t think it made sense to be in a relationship when we weren’t going to see each other. I think his exact words were,“I can’t commit to you and soccer.”
I was blindsided. We’d always supported each other, and as soon as I was no longer able to chase my dreams, he seemingly decided I was no longer capable of understanding his need to chase his.
“It was great.” I’m overselling it. The first three weeks, I sulked until Lacey forced me out of the house and reminded me we only had two more summer vacations together before graduation. But there’s no way I’m admitting to him that I wasted any of my vacation being sad about our breakup when he obviously didn’t shed any tears over me.
“Hi, Claire.” Coach Collins approaches with a smile that crinkles his eyes. He’s a hard-ass to his players, especially hisson, but he’s always had a soft spot for me. And he has this posh British accent that makes everything he says sound a little more exciting.
“Hey, Coach C.” My tone is far happier as I greet him than it had been with his son. Just because Vaughn is a jerk doesn’t mean I have to hate his father.
“How’s the ankle?” He glances at the boot.
