While Barry watched, Drew came close to me and put his hand there and his leg there. “This feels so awkward,” he said. He turned to Barry.
“A re you sure?”
Barry twirled his finger in the air.
Drew flipped me backward and lost his hold on me. I landed square on the powdery white goal line. A smattering of applause drifted across the field from the band.
“Touchdown,” Drew said. “You only need one foot in the end zone.” He held out his hand.
A s he hauled me up, I said, “That’s the fourth time I’ve fallen on my butt today, and in some way you’ve caused all four.”
He pretended to count on his fingers, which almost made me laugh. Then he started doing math in the air with an imaginary pencil, which did make me laugh.
Barry looked from Drew to me and back to Drew. “A re y’all getting along or not?”
“Of course,” Drew said.
“Perfectly,” I said, dusting my butt.
Drew and Barry started toward me.
“That’s okay,” I said. In a move that I never would have fathomed myself needing to do, I put up both hands to keep two senior boys from touching my butt.
In truth, I probably would have been able to stand Drew touching my butt. Barry, not so much.
“Let’s try it again,” Drew said.
“Great,” I said. “We might as well try it with me on top.”
Barry’s eyes flew wide open. I realized what I’d said, and steeled myself for Drew’s comment about liking it when the girl was on top.
Drew was not Walter. He just laughed. “I weigh a hundred and ninety pounds. But yeah, let’s try it.”
“I weigh one-ten. Let’s not.”
He put his hand there and his leg there. He flipped me backward even faster this time, and immediately lost his balance. But he didn’t lose his hold on me. He fell with me. On top of me. Hard.
I couldn’t breathe. Oh, God, I couldn’t breathe.
He took his weight off me but hovered close over me. “Inhale,” he said.
I held up five fingers.
“I know. I’m glad we’re not going to the prom together.”
Barry leaned over me. “You’ve killed her.”
“She’s tough,” Drew said.
Mr. Rush’s face appeared beside Barry’s. “A re you okay?” he asked me with genuine concern.
I nodded and gasped, forcing air into my lungs painfully.
“I just knocked the wind out of her,” Drew said.
Mr. Rush slapped Drew on the back of the head. “You pay attention, Morrow. There’ll be hell to pay if you hurt my drum major. I’ll have Clayton Porridge out in the middle of the football field, doing the cancan.”
“The cancan is surprisingly difficult,” Barry said. “It takes a lot more coordination than Clayton Porridge has.”
Mr. Rush gave Barry the brain-melting stare.
Barry shrank. “I know this because I played Little League baseball with Clayton Porridge.”
Mr. Rush kept staring.
“Sir,” Barry added. He looked to Drew for help.
Drew rubbed the back of his head. “Thank you for your guidance, sir.”
“Smart-ass,” Mr. Rush said to Drew. He stalked away.
I croaked, “I don’t like this game.”
Drew held out his hand to me and hauled me up again. A cross the field the band cheered like I was an injured football player who’d just recovered.
Barry stared at my hand in Drew’s. It did seem like Drew held my hand longer than he had to before he dropped it. But then Barry said, “I know what the problem is. Drew, you’re left-handed.”
“So?”
“So, you need to turn everything around the other way, a mirror image of what you’ve been doing.”
Without warning, Drew grabbed me.
“I said I don’t want to play this gaaaaame,” I said, but suddenly he had me leaning backward, just like Barry had. I wasn’t about to fall down, and he wasn’t about to fall on top of me.
His dark eyes were so close to me. I could almost feel his eyelashes brush my face as he blinked.
“That wasn’t too painful,” he said. A nd I did feel his breath on my cheek.
Oh, wow. I wished we could stay this way forever. Okay, he would probably get a cramp eventually. But I wished he would keep holding me, looking down into my eyes as if he really enjoyed touching me.
A t the same time, in the back of my mind, I knew I should say something so he wouldn’t think I’d been brain damaged in our fall. Finally I managed, “Easy for you to say. You didn’t get the life crushed out of you by Notorious B.I.G.”
He pulled me up and set me back on my feet. Then he whirled around, grabbed me, and dipped me again, like he was practicing getting his pistol out of his holster fast for a gunfight.
“Ooooooh, aaaaaah,” floated across the field from the band.
“By George, I think you’ve got it,” Barry said.
Drew ignored Barry at first. His dark eyes seemed to search my eyes for something.
Then he pulled me up to standing. “Thanks, Barry,” he said. “I think we’re good to try it on our own. Grandparents Day is right around the corner, and we’ll get you something special.”
I understood that Drew was dismissing Barry like he’d dismissed Mr. Rush. Barry did not seem to understand this.
Barry asked Drew, “So, what are you and the twin doing Saturday night?”
Drew dropped my hand. Poof, there went our romantic interlude. Thanks, Barry, my ass!
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Drew said. “I guess we might park in front of the furniture rental store and watch TV.”
This seemed pretty uncreative of Drew. Sure, the movie theater had only two movies at a time to choose from instead of fourteen like the theaters in big cities, but we did have a movie theater. A nd there was always the bowling alley.
I tried to catch his eye to give him a questioning look. No luck. He stared off toward the press box at the top of the stadium. Which was weird in itself. Drew always looked people in the eye. It was part of his drum major intimidation routine.
It occurred to me that maybe he’d made up this date for my benefit. It was bad that he and the twin were going parking! It was good that they were parking in public, where down-and-dirty necking would be highly unlikely. Was he trying to tell me he wasn’t serious about the twin, and there was hope for me?
Oh, good Lord. I was such a dork. He wasn’t going to ask me out. He didn’t like me that way. We weren’t even friends. I’d made sure of that with my stupid comment when I got out of the truck.