Playing the Player(7)

I splashed water at him as hard as I could.

“Bro-ho!” he yelled, sending a wave of water my direction.

I grabbed him around the neck and we went underwater, shoving each other and kicking. I heard the lifeguard’s whistle and we broke apart, rising back above the surface, laughing.

Lindsay the lifeguard glared down at us from her plastic throne. “Come on, you guys. Knock it off.”

“You know you love it,” I called up to her. “Watching two hot, half-naked guys wrestle.”

She bit back a smile, then turned away to focus on the little kids. Lindsay and I had been a thing once. For a week or so, last summer. At least, I think it was last summer.

“Let’s eat,” Alex called over his shoulder as we swam back toward our pool chairs.

The sun baked our skin dry while we ate our burgers. Mine was a double-cheese. Alex had a veggie abomination.

“Want my advice about Bird Brain?” Alex asked around a mouthful of his sawdust burger.

“Nope.” I spoke around an even bigger mouthful of fries.

He ignored me. “Be nice to her. You’re stuck with her for the whole summer. You might as well try to make it as painless as possible.”

I swallowed my fries. “When I am ever not nice to girls?”

He shot me a look. “Let’s just say you have…degrees of niceness, when it comes to girls. Trina’s way down your scale. Sort of like you’d help her up if she fell down in front of you, but you wouldn’t notice when she tripped over you in the first place.”

I took another bite, chewing slowly while formulating my argument.

“Also,” he continued, “you might actually learn something from her extreme organizational skills.”

“That’s crazy talk,” I said. “I know how to be organized. I just choose to spend my time doing other things. And of course I’d notice if she tripped over me.” Because that frigging binder would explode and I’d have critical paper cut injuries from the notebook shrapnel.

Alex leaned back and closed his eyes. “I don’t know why I bother giving you advice.”

“Me, either,” I agreed. “I do just fine without it.”

He snorted next to me. “Really? What about when I advised you not to invite Samantha to prom?”

Ouch. Sam had turned into Super-stalker, calling me night and day for weeks leading up to the prom, and for weeks after the prom, too. I’d ended up changing my cell number.

“Okay, so maybe I should have listened to you. Usually my stalker radar is pretty good.”

“Not that time.” He slurped his soda. “And then there was the memorable ski weekend with the Worthington twins.”

I cringed. The weekend had started out great. I’d gone skiing with Alex’s family. The twins’ parents had been out of town, but they let the girls use the ski condo. When we ran into them on the slopes, they’d invited us to hang out at their place. It had been awesome, until their boyfriends showed up.

How was I supposed to know the twins were dating college guys? And that they told them where they were staying? Alex and I had pretended we were a couple so the guys wouldn’t beat us up.

“Okay, dude. I get the point, but you’re not exactly a saint,” I argued.

“I never said I was,” he said. “But the difference is I actually care about the guys I’m with.” He sighed dramatically. “You know me. I’m a sucker for love.”

I pointed a french fry at him. “See, that’s your problem. You’re too much of a romantic. And look what happens. You get your heart broken.” It was true. I’d been there for him every time. One broken heart was enough of a lesson for me. I wasn’t dumb enough to risk that again.

Alex was quiet for a moment. “Maybe so. But in between the heartbreaks? When I’m in love? It’s awesome. You should try it sometime.” He paused, then shot me a grin. “Man ho.”

“Sap.”

“Bro-ho.”

“You’re addicted,” I said. “To the drama. To the crazy highs and lows.”

“Cynic,” he retorted. “Just wait. One of these days, it’ll happen to you.”

“Wanna bet?”

He rubbed his chin. “Why yes, I believe I will take that wager. Fifty bucks says one of these days you’re going to fall. Hard. And you won’t know what hit you.”

I shook my head. “No way. No how.”

“You’ll see. Some day you’ll be the dork spelling out ‘I love you’ in chocolate chips on a huge cookie for some unlucky girl.”

I gaped at him. “Who would do something that lame-stream?”

He ducked his head, looking sheepish. “Me. For Tim. Last year on Valentine’s Day.”

We laughed, then he sat up straight all of a sudden, shoving his burger aside. “Okay, here’s a safer bet. You think you’re man enough to get Trina to lighten up?”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Define ‘lighten up.’”

He rubbed his chin. “Dancing in the streets. Setting her binder on fire.”

I winced. “Even I couldn’t make that happen.”

“Chicken.”

I couldn’t resist a challenge. Besides, I’d never met a girl who didn’t eventually succumb to my charms…at least my physical ones. “Deal. By the end of summer she’ll be partying like a rock star. Or at least not handing out boycott flyers on every corner.”