I grabbed my harness and tried to fit it over my shoulders while hightailing it across the field to the drum line. Panicked about getting caught on the forty-yard line when DeMarcus called us to attention, but elated about the way Angelica and I had resolved our differences in a nonviolent manner, it occurred to me only gradually that “You like everybody” might have been a dig rather than a compliment.
And it wasn’t until I’d almost reached Will that the other shoe dropped. I thought he was in the wrong place next to Travis. Then I remembered I was the drum captain at the end of the line now. And I realized that Angelica had said no to dating Will. My mission to get her back with him had been a complete failure. What if I was stuck as drum captain forever?
Just as I reached my place, DeMarcus must have made the motion to start practice. Will played the riff that the rest of the drum line echoed, snapping the band to attention.
I held my breath. I wasn’t in trouble. But I felt like my body, not to mention my brain, was still rushing across the field.
“At ease,” DeMarcus called.
As I exhaled and everyone relaxed, Will immediately whispered, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to step on your toes, playing your riff like that.”
“You didn’t!” I exclaimed.
“You did that for me before and saved me from getting in trouble, so I thought I’d return the favor.”
“I know!” I sighed, so frustrated in my first few hours of being drum captain that I could hardly stand it. “Look, this is going to be completely insufferable if we’re tiptoeing around each other. Let’s make a pact that whatever happens for the rest of the year, we will always have each other’s backs.”
“Deal,” he said, sticking out his hand.
My palm touched his. We gripped hands. He slid his fingers down my arm. We touched elbows. “And then like this,” I suggested, linking arms with him. It was a badass secret handshake if I did say so myself.
“And now we’re flirting,” he scolded me.
I wiped my hands on my shirt. “Ew, flirt germs.”
I’d hardly gotten this out of my mouth when Will played the riff again. Ms. Nakamoto had finished giving us instructions, which obviously had been very interesting to me, and DeMarcus was calling us to attention to run through the show. This time I realized what was happening in time to echo the riff with the rest of the drums, just like I used to, but damn. This drum captain thing required a lot of concentration and did not agree with me.
It wasn’t until we’d played through the entire halftime show, and my ears were ringing with the ending squeals of our trumpets, who really were awesome if you were listening to them rather than looking at them, that Will asked, “What did Angelica say?”
“She said no. But you have to challenge me for drum captain, because at least I tried,” I burst out. I’d been worrying about how to say this through three numbers and a drum break. Clearly I’d needed more time to think it through.
“No way,” he said. “You promised you would convince her to give me another chance.”
“Blugh,” I said, shaking out my arms. My shoulders were sore from wearing the drum harness so long without a break. I looked past Will down the line of drums. I was only one person higher in the line than I’d been yesterday, but from this perspective, the snares seemed to continue forever like they were reflected in two mirrors pointed toward each other.
“Don’t give up so soon,” he said in the tone of a basketball coach in an inspirational TV movie for preteens. “Tell you what. You and I will go out for a few days, just to make Angelica jealous. That will get her interested in me again.”
I snorted, remembering how flatly she’d rejected his offer of reconciliation. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”
He said, “It worked on you.”
I felt my face flush red underneath my hat. He must have known how attracted I was to him, but I thought we had an unspoken rule that we wouldn’t mention it. My soul seemed as bare to him as my body had been on my bed our first night together.
But he was right, wasn’t he? Dating would make Angelica jealous if she felt anywhere as strongly about Will as I did. I’d sworn him off, promising myself our flirtation meant nothing and I didn’t want him or anyone as a boyfriend. And one glance at him lying on the beach with his hand on Angelica had transformed me into a scheming freshman.
I jumped as Will played the riff, calling the band to attention again. This time I completely missed echoing him. If I kept this up, Ms. Nakamoto would kick me out of the drum captain position on my own lack of merit. But I had more pride than to leave that way. It was throw a challenge or nothing for me.
I was hopeless.
“Say yes,” he whispered, standing stock still at attention and moving only the corner of his mouth as he spoke. “Get Angelica back for me, and I’ll challenge you. Think how carefree you’ll be as a civilian again.”
“Don’t talk at attention.” I sounded so silly trying to throw my weight around like a drum captain that I almost laughed at myself.
But by the time we’d played through the show a second time and Ms. Nakamoto had sent the band to one end of the field to learn the drill for the pregame show, I’d made up my mind that Will was right. I was lucky there was nothing I could mess up today other than the call to attention. Sometime soon, Ms. Nakamoto was sure to send the drum line to the parking lot to rehearse on our own, and I would spend an hour ordering people around, convincing them to hate me, and generally inviting Armageddon.
“All right,” I told Will calmly as we walked toward the goalpost together, though my stomach was turning flips.
“Great,” he said just as evenly. Most of his face was hidden by his shades and hat. His cheeks and chin shone with sweat. He betrayed no emotion other than disgust at the heat. “But we’re not confiding in anyone that we’ve engineered this. You can’t tell Harper and Kaye. That’s going to get back to Angelica. Kaye will hop over here wanting to know how the plan is going before she remembers she’s not supposed to say that out loud.”
True. Or I would leap to the sidelines, eager to update her on the same thing. Will was observant. I would just tell Kaye and Harper that Will and I were giving dating a trial run, which wasn’t too far from the truth. I didn’t like discussing bad news anyway. Pretending there was no “cockamamy scheme,” as Harper had called my thwarted plan to throw the drum challenge, sounded like the perfect way to deal with my problems.