There's Something About Sweetie(85)

There were chants of “Encore, encore,” but Andre came on the stage and said that, in the interest of time, there’d be no encores. (He got booed bad. Sweetie didn’t envy him.)

As she made her way off the stage, a man came up to her holding the giantest bouquet of pink peonies—her favorite. “Sweetie Nair?” he said (he pronounced it like it rhymed with “hair,” but she didn’t even correct him because FLOWERS).

“Yes?”

“These are for you.” He smiled and thrust the bouquet at her, got her signature, and left.

“Oh my God!” Izzy said beside her, her eyes like giant brown beacons. “Who are those from?”

“I think I know,” Suki mumbled. “Let’s just be glad Antwan has Kayla, uh, ocupado, or she’d take those from you and get the entire crowd to stomp on them.”

With slightly trembling hands Sweetie opened the card: The only flower that seemed to even remotely match your beauty. Got these in advance because I knew you’d enrapture everyone … just like you did me. Obviously. —A

Biting her lip to keep her emotions from engulfing her, Sweetie looked over to where Ashish had been sitting. His seat was empty.

She pushed the flowers at Izzy. “Here. Keep them. Or throw them away. I gotta go.”

She pushed her way past everyone and stepped outside into the cool night.

There was a bench outside, around the side of the building. Sweetie went there, shivering lightly in the breeze. Her eyes were brimming with tears, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. Her mascara would smear and make her look like a raccoon. So what? She sat on the bench and stared off into the distance at the halo caused by the streetlights down the road.

“Mind some company?”

She turned to see Suki and Izzy loitering a few feet away. She waved them over. They sat on either side of her in silence. Izzy had the giant bouquet of flowers still, and she set them by her feet.

“You were amazing tonight,” Izzy said. “No crappy-arse boy can take that away from you.”

Sweetie managed a small smile. “Aww, thanks, Iz—”

“And you’re an amazing athlete,” Izzy continued fiercely. “He can’t take that, either. You’re totally going to kill it at the big meet next Friday.”

“Hey, girls.” They all looked up at the female voice to see Kayla walking toward them.

Sweetie wrapped her arms around herself as Kayla squeezed in beside Izzy and the giant bouquet. “What happened to Antwan?”

“I told him my girl needed me. Sisters before blisters, am I right?”

Suki snorted. “Did you just call boys ‘blisters’?”

“She’s right,” Izzy said, rolling her eyes. “They’re irritating and painful and unneeded.”

Sweetie laughed weakly. “Thanks, guys. I’m glad you didn’t let me come out here alone.”

Izzy put her hand on Sweetie’s just as Kayla said, “Of course we didn’t let you come out here alone. Now the only question is, do we put itching powder in Ashish’s shoes or in his jockstrap?”

“I ain’t touching either of those things,” Suki said.

Sweetie shook her head. “I just don’t get it, you know? That card in those flowers … it’s so incredibly sweet. And everything we’ve shared … I felt like it was all real.”

The girls were silent. Then Suki said quietly, “Do you feel up to telling us what happened?”

Sweetie filled them in on the gist of everything. They were silent while they took it all in.

“He said he really likes you while at the same time he was obviously planning this ridiculous thing with Celia behind your back?” Izzy said. Her voice was quiet, dangerous. The thing about Izzy was that she was the sweetest, most innocent one of the four of them. But if you crossed anyone she loved, she turned into Princess freaking Xena. She grabbed the giant bouquet and stood. “Come on.”

They all stood with her. “Um, where are we going?” Kayla asked as they followed her to the parking lot.

“I’m going to shove this bouquet up Ashish’s—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sweetie said. “Really.”

“Okay, so I agree that the shoving is unnecessary,” Suki said. She grinned suddenly. “Would be fun, though. Anyway, I think Izzy’s onto something with the confrontation thing.”

“I just want to go home, honestly,” Sweetie said. Suddenly she felt very, very tired.

Kayla turned and took her by the shoulders. “Sweetie,” she said, her dark-brown eyes glittering under the streetlights. “This jock totally took you for a ride. He thought you were gullible enough to fall for his lies, and then he decided he wanted to hook back up with his ex while telling you that she’d broken his heart so badly he couldn’t emotionally connect with you. He’s scum. Are you really going to let him off that easy? Do you really want him to have his little hot-and-heavy date in Bedwell with zero consequences because he bought you some expensive flowers? I mean, I know that’s not why you want to go home, but that’s exactly what he’ll think.”

“Guys like Ashish are used to getting their way. They think that because they’re hot and they can slap a ball around, they can get away with everything short of murder.” Suki’s black eyes sparked with anger. “Come on.”