There's Something About Sweetie(21)

Dang. Busted. He spun around slowly. “Oh, just to Oliver’s. Shoot some hoops.”

Ma glanced at the clock on the wall. “At eight forty-five on a Sunday morning?”

She had a point. Ashish had been known to ask her if she was trying to “off him” when she woke him up before noon on the weekends. “Uh, yeah. It’s just … you know, I couldn’t sleep. And so I just texted him and …” He trailed off as Ma stepped closer, her nostrils flaring.

“Are you wearing cologne? And gel in your hair?”

“Um … kind of?”

She raised one eyebrow, crossed her arms, and waited.

“Ma …”

“Ashish. Just tell me the truth. Are you meeting a girl there? One of your cheerleaders?”

Ashish sighed. At least he wouldn’t have to lie. “No, I’m not meeting a cheerleader or any one of those other girls you and Pappa don’t like, okay?”

She studied his face and then nodded. “Okay. Do you want some breakfast before you go?”

“Ah, no, that’s okay, Ma. Thanks.” He was actually too nervous to eat, he realized. Weird, considering he had no idea what Sweetie even looked like, beyond the fact that her mother apparently thought she weighed too much. After that phone call, he hadn’t even bothered to ask Ma for a picture.

He could pull her up on his phone, he knew. She was probably on some social media website—and hadn’t Ma mentioned she’d been in the local paper recently for some sport or another? But Ashish decided to wait anyway. He wanted to see her in person for the first time, this girl who’d already defied his expectations.

The track at Piedmont was large, though not quite as luxurious as the ones (yeah, plural) at Richmond. Ashish parked behind the chain-link fence surrounding it and hopped out of the open side of his Wrangler. The day was cool and dry, and the wind ruffled his gelled and coiffed hair. He felt a slight flutter in his belly; the first such feeling he’d felt in forever. And I don’t even know this girl, he thought. He did know she wasn’t afraid to take control, though, and that he really, really liked.

She wasn’t there yet. He walked past the fence onto the track and looked around. It was empty this time of day. His phone beeped, and Ashish fished it out.

Ready to race?

He spun around and saw her. She’d just gotten out of her car and was walking toward him in track pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Her hair didn’t look doused in coconut oil. Even at this distance, he could see the sun sparkling off its shiny black waves. She had it up in a high ponytail, and it bounced slightly with every step she took. As she got closer, he noticed other details too.

Her skin was smooth, the creamy color of that moonstone bracelet he’d bought Ma for Mother’s Day last year, a shade or two lighter than his own. Her stride was confident, her full hips swaying with every step. She smiled.

Ashish blinked. So she wasn’t the kind of girl you saw in Sports Illustrated. She wasn’t the kind of girl he or any of his friends had ever dated. But even he, in his demojoed state of mind, could see that there was something about her. Something magnetic, something that had him closing the gap between them even though he’d told himself he was going to play it cool, dammit.

“Hi,” he said, telling himself not to gaze too long into her hazel eyes and then doing it anyway. He held out a hand. “I’m Ashish.”

She took it. Hers was soft and small, and he felt his grip automatically loosen. “Sweetie.” Squinting in the sun, she looked up at him. Wow, she was as tiny as Ma. “You ready to race?”

Right. She’d said that in her text, too, hadn’t she? “Race. As in …?” He looked around the track.

“Yep. Come on. We’re gonna do a four-hundred-meter dash.”

Ashish looked at her, frowning. “Uh …”

“That’s one full lap around the track.” She began to walk toward the starting line, and he hurried to follow.

“Okay, but … why are we doing this again?”

She looked at him seriously. “To get it out of the way.”

Ashish waited, but there didn’t seem to be more forthcoming. “Get what—”

“You’ll see,” she said, taking her place. She gestured to the marker on the adjacent lane where he should stand. “Okay, when I say ‘go,’ that’s when we start running. Ready?”

He opened his mouth to ask again but then shut it, nodded, and turned around. He copied her stance, butt in the air, hands on the ground.

“One, two, three—GO!”





CHAPTER 8





Ashish took off like a rocket. He was just wondering if he should slow down, give the girl a chance, when her shadow encroached on him. He barely had time to look over his shoulder before she was zooming past him, the look on her face telling him she was in Balltopia. Or, in her case, Tracktopia.

Balltopia was a term Ashish, Oliver, and Elijah had come up with to describe that feeling of pure adrenaline, pure bliss, that came with really kicking butt on the court. You were so in the zone, you needed a different zip code. Nothing could shake Ashish out of Balltopia when he was in it. He hadn’t been there for a couple of months, thanks to Celia, but that was another matter.

He almost wanted to stop and stare at Sweetie. He wanted to drool over her total Tracktopia face. He wanted to get back to Balltopia so badly, but in the past three months he’d only been able to graze around the circumference.