With Every Heartbeat

I glanced over and saw another blonde co-ed walking our way. Like Zoey, she was also wearing a shirt and shorts, no bikini in sight. It was the guy walking next to her that had my stomach tightening into knots.

I looked up to the quarterback of our team more than any guy I’d ever known. But today, I wished he was anywhere but here.

Spinning toward Ten, I lowered my voice, “You’re not going to tell him about the picture of Aspen on Belcher’s phone, are you?”

Ten glanced at me incredulously. “Fuck, you think I’m insane? Gamble would flip his shit if he knew people were spreading around topless snapshots of his woman.”

Noel spotted us, and he—along with the girl beside him—veered our way.

“So who’s winning so far?” he asked, obviously clueless about the picture Ten and I had deleted from the baseball player’s phone last night, “Women or men?”

I expected Ten to answer because he was always so willing to talk, but he was too busy staring at the blonde next to Noel, while trying to make it look like he wasn’t. So I cleared my throat. “I, uh, I think it’s a dead heat so far. Hi, Caroline.” I tried to offer a pleasant greeting to Noel’s sister since Ten was being no help at all. He’d gone radio silent. “Are you here to help the competition?”

She smiled back briefly. “I guess so.” Then she shot Noel a brief scowl as if he’d forced her to come with him.

“Which means, I should probably stop talking to the enemy and I head over to Team Girl.” Slapping at her brother’s elbow, she added, “Hope you aren’t a sore loser.”

Noel cracked a grin. “Oh, you’re going down, little girl.”

“Cora’s over there,” I told her helpfully as she started off. “She can help you get set up.”

“Thanks, Quinn.” She smiled at me, glanced briefly at Ten, and then kept going.

The three of us stared after her before Noel grabbed Ten’s arm and whirled him away, back toward the car we were cleaning. “Seriously, we need to work on your staring problem.”

“I can’t believe you brought your sister,” Ten said, sneaking another peek at her.

Noel snorted. “Well, we were supposed to invite a girl to help compete on the female side, and Aspen wouldn’t be caught dead at a campus event. Besides, I wouldn’t let her come. All you assholes would never be able to take your eyes off her legs, and we’d definitely lose to girls, then.”

As if on command, Ten’s gaze went straight to Caroline’s legs as he snorted. “I didn’t invite a chick.”

Noel muttered a curse and pushed Ten about a foot backward. “Eyes in your head, fucker.”

“What?” Ten cried, stumbling along behind Noel. “Why’d you bring her if you didn’t want anyone looking at her?”

I flushed because I’d been looking too, but Noel didn’t scold me. He must’ve known I wasn’t having any dirty thoughts about his sister.

“I brought her because she needed to get out of the house. She closeted herself up all summer long and with classes starting Monday, I was hoping she’d make a friend or two over in girl camp.”

Glancing after Caroline again, I hoped that Cora took her in and befriended her. I wasn’t sure what had happened to Noel’s sister to cause him to uproot her and his two younger brothers from their hometown and move them all to Ellamore at the end of the last school year, but Ten knew about it. I’d caught him and Noel discussing her, worried about how she was healing. The few times I’d met her, she’d seemed fairly quiet and reserved, except I don’t think that was her usual behavior. I think something had beaten her down, and she was still working through whatever haunted her.

When I saw her approach Cora, I smiled. My girl was bright and bubbly. She’d take care of Noel’s sister, no problem.

I got back to work, and Noel joined Ten and me at our station. Other members of the team would float over to greet him, and sometimes Ten. I would occasionally get a head nod or brief, “Hey,” but no one said much else to me except maybe how good Cora looked in her bikini, which perplexed me. Why were they telling me, like I owned her or something? They should tell her if they thought she looked nice. And if they wanted to make me jealous, they were wasting their time. I wasn’t the jealous type.

But I nodded at their praise and kept on in my silent way. I’m pretty sure my quietness skeeved people out. Noel and Ten seemed to be about the only two members on the team who didn’t care that I rarely talked.