Rock Bottom Girl(55)

“Lucky shot,” one of the Sophies grumbled.

Libby wiggled her eyebrow ring at the girl.

They got really quiet on her second shot. Libby trapped the air ball under her foot, executed a neat little 360, and put the ball in the lower right corner.

“Who the hell is this chick? Carli Lloyd?” one of the girls grumbled.

By her third turn, everyone was watching with bated breath. I decided to give Libby a little room for the dramatic and floated a ball to her. With a precise snap, she banked it off her forehead, directing it under the crossbar and into the back of the net.

That earned some applause from the easier-to-please members of the team.

I shot Vicky a smug look, and she tipped an imaginary top hat at me.

I’d designed the entire practice to play to Libby’s strengths. Her controlled dribble was the fastest, her footwork the cleanest, and, by my count, she was twelve for twelve in shots on goal. The entire team was taking notice, and the muttered bitchiness was quieting.

“She’s so fucking good,” Vicky hissed at me. “Do you think she likes us?”

“God, I hope so. Is it legal to bribe high school athletes?” I wondered. There was just one more test. “Okay, gang. Let’s scrimmage for the last fifteen minutes before we turn you lose to wreak whatever havoc you wreak on a Thursday night.”

I divvied them up varsity vs. JV and put Libby on the JV team. In less than five seconds, Libby had snagged the ball from forward Natalee and was running toward the goal as if she was being chased by an army of zombies. The fast ones. Not the limping ones.

“Holy shit,” Vicky whispered next to me.

Libby juked, jived, and danced her way through the varsity defense until it was just her and the goalie. One graceful little nudge from her foot sent the ball sailing past Ashlynn. The whole run had taken less than fifteen seconds.

Angela was speechless. Morgan E. offered Libby a high-five as she jogged back to center field.

I restarted them with a kickoff and kept my fingers crossed. There was one last thing I needed to see from Libby. One essential piece of the puzzle. This was my team, and there was one thing I valued more than talent and skill.

The varsity team kicked off and worked their way down into the JV’s penalty box, but a sloppy move by Ruby gave the defender a chance to clear the ball. She cleared it to center field, not exactly ideal, but Libby plucked it out of the air and turned toward the other end. Again, she systematically beat her way through the midfielders and started picking apart the defense.

Vicky and I watched, holding our breath, Vicky’s fingernails digging into my arm.

Just when I thought Libby would dodge her way around the last defender, she passed the ball to little, speedy Rachel, who was hovering just outside the play. Rachel was so shocked she reacted purely on instinct and nailed the ball into the back of the net.

“Yes!” Vicky and I were jumping up and down hugging each other. We would have made quite the spectacle of favoritism, but the JV team had already tackled Rachel and Libby to the ground in celebration.

“Oh, shit. Guys, try not to celebrate so hard,” I called. “Did you see that?” I slapped Vicky’s arm.

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” Vicky said, still jumping up and down.





“Sooooo…” I said, trying desperately to play it cool. I was driving Libby home after her victorious debut as a Culpepper Barn Owl.

She looked out the window, the picture of teenage boredom. “So?”

“What did you think of the team? Do you want to play?” I held my breath while she took her sweet time answering.

We were getting closer and closer to her house, and I didn’t want to let her out of the car without an answer. But that might be considered abduction, and if I had two civil lawsuits pending, I should really keep the felonies down.

“It was okay,” she said.

“You’re killing me, Morticia,” I said, losing my fa?ade of cool.

“Look. You should probably know that I was kicked out of my last foster home for being violent.”

I blinked. Considered. Culpepper High had been desperate enough to hire someone banned for life from Homecoming. I too was that desperate. “Eh. Doesn’t matter,” I decided. Besides, she didn’t read dangerous or violent. Libby read too smart for her own good. I liked that about her.

“You’re so weird.”

I snorted. “Libs, you have no idea.”

We rode in silence for a minute.

“I wasn’t actually violent,” she confessed finally. “My seventeen-year-old foster brother kept accidentally walking in on me in the shower until I told him if he did it again I would pin his ears back with a staple gun. The kid had gigantic ears. And overprotective parents.”

“That sucks.” I knew what it was like to be-bop through life with a dark smudge of judgment against me. Sometimes people only saw the smudge, not the person. “I still want you on the team.”

“I believe I was promised candy,” Libby reminded me.

“Glove box.”

She shot me a look of suspicion and then opened it. A stack of Taco Bell sauces and a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup fell out.

“Well, since you held up your end of the bargain, I guess we have a deal,” she sighed.

“Yes!” I pumped my fist into the roof of the car. “Ouch!”