His grandmother pats his cheek. “Come up for some cake when you’re finished.”
Oma disappears back upstairs with Opa at her heels, arguing over FedEx and UPS. Levi, meanwhile, lets out a long breath and rubs his eyes.
“Shit,” I whisper. “Is Opa gonna tell anybody what we were doing?”
“Nah. By the time he gets upstairs he won’t even remember because there’s a hockey game on he wants to watch. But yeah, I hope he doesn’t say anything.”
My face heats. “Are you embarrassed by me?”
His eyes pop open. “Of course not. It would just complicate things. People wouldn’t understand. They’d think I’m taking advantage of you.”
“But you’re not…” It’s the other way around. “So what’s in the box?”
Levi rips open the tab. Inside he finds a T-shirt and a crisp white envelope. He hands the shirt to me, freeing up both hands to open the envelope. I unfold the shirt. It says: USA Junior National Team.
“Holy crap!” I say. “Congrats!”
Levi reads aloud from the letter, “USA Swimming is pleased to inform you that you have been selected as a member of the United States Junior National Team.”
I jump into his arms, crushing the letter to his chest, and he spins me around. I kiss him hard.
Abandoning the laundry and his box, Levi tugs me up the stairs. “What are we doing?”
“Going to your house to see if you got a box too,” he replies. First we stop in the den to tell Oma and Opa. They smash Levi in a hug sandwich. Oma wipes tears from her eyes, proud that he’s becoming a swim champion just like her.
“We’ll have to celebrate,” Opa says, patting Levi’s back.
“Let’s throw a party at the pizza place,” Oma replies. She still looks at Levi as a little boy, but it’s sweet.
Levi slips his hand into mine. “A joint party. Let’s go see if you got a box.”
On the drive to my house, Levi massages my thigh with a big smile on his face. But when we arrive and rush up to the front porch, there are no packages on the stoop. I check the mailbox to find a few catalogs and some bills, but nothing from USA Swimming.
“Maybe it came earlier and it’s inside,” Levi says, charging into the kitchen like he owns the place. But there’s nothing there. Nothing except a note from Mom, telling me a pork chop is in the fridge. If a package came for me, Mom would’ve mentioned it or left it with the note about dinner.
“Your box’ll come tomorrow,” Levi says.
I shake my head. There’s no way I got one. My times aren’t there. I drag my feet on my starts. “Sometimes I feel like I am never going to be good enough.”
He squeezes my shoulders. “Don’t talk like that. You’re great.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re already going to the trials.”
“But you know that’s not everything. I’m still nowhere near as good as I want to be—or need to be. I’m praying I don’t bomb out in college.”
“Why would that happen?”
“I’m fast, but not that fast.”
“Levi.”
“I think about it every night when I check the standings on the USA Swimming site. Yeah, I got a trial cut, but there are still fifty guys faster than me. Fifty! A few of them are three seconds faster than I am. Three seconds! I’m fast, but how the hell am I gonna make up three seconds? Will I ever be able to do it?”
I don’t know, but at this point, I worry he has a much better chance than me.
• • •
It’s the weekend between regionals and state, so Levi and I have two practices on Saturday. During the time between them, we decide to check out Georgia’s cheerleading competition in Nashville along with Hunter.
We enter the Vanderbilt gymnasium, where music is pounding and people are clapping, and it’s like every cheerleader in the world has converged on this one spot. It’s a pom-pom supernova.
“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Levi says.
“Why aren’t there cheerleaders in baseball?” Hunter whines. That’s always been his only complaint about his sport. I personally can’t wait to see the routines. I love seeing roundoff back handsprings and flips, not to mention when the guy cheerleaders throw the girls in the air.
My guy friends walk a couple feet in front of me, waving at cheerleaders from other schools. Some give flirtatious smiles in return. I understand why; Hunter looks awfully good filling out his baseball uniform—jersey untucked, gray pants covered with red dirt, and Levi is in his athletic shorts, running tights, and that soft sweatshirt I want so bad. Last night after we made out in his bed, I put it on over my bra and underwear to tease him and told him I’m keeping it. He said I looked so sexy in it, he peeled it right back off me.
Now? I’m pretty sure other girls find it sexy on him.
One cheerleader wearing a tiny black and blue uniform that says Ravens bounces up in front of my friends. “Will you guys be cheering for me?”
“You think I could be a cheerleader?” Levi flirts.
Seeing him smile at another girl sets off firecrackers in my stomach. I’m surprised it hurts so much. Levi and I aren’t together, and I’ve never cared in the past whether he’s been interested in someone, but it seems I am now. I don’t want to imagine him kissing a girl like he kissed me last night. He’s not mine, but still.
I groan under my breath.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter asks me.
“I’m hungry,” I lie, because people believe it when I make that excuse.
“As soon as Levi’s ready, we’ll go to the concession stand.” Hunter gestures at our friend, who is still talking to the Ravens cheerleader. “He seems to be doing okay today.”
“Huh?”
“He’s been acting weird. Shelby’s cousin from Georgia is in town, and I asked him to go out with us tonight, but he said no. But he was interested when I showed him her picture a couple weeks ago.”
Could that have something to do with me? “Really?”
“Yeah. Do you think he’s depressed?”
“Depressed? What? No.”
“Good. It makes absolutely no sense that he won’t go out with Shelby’s cousin for one night. She’s smoking hot.”
“He’s fine,” I grumble, imagining Levi on a date with another girl.
“Something’s wrong with you too?”
“No, we’re both fine.”
Hunter turns to take in my face, blinking.
I pull a deep breath. What made me think I could keep my arrangement with Levi a secret forever? Hunter may not know the specifics, but he understands us well enough to know when something’s off.
If he questions me again, I’ll say I’m sad I didn’t make the US Junior National Team, which is true. It devastated me, even though it was a long shot. Only twenty-five people nationwide made it. The only good news is that when I looked up the team online, Roxy didn’t make it either. I grin evilly to myself.
The concession stand only has greasy pizza and cotton candy, which won’t help me at practice later, so Levi pulls a protein bar from his backpack to tide me over.
I take a seat between Levi and Hunter in the stands near the Hundred Oaks basketball and football teams. I love that all these guys came out to support the cheerleading squad. Levi’s thigh touches mine, but he makes no move to put space between us, even when Noah Thompson, a basketball player I’ve always been friendly with—but Levi can’t stand—turns around to talk to me.
“Did you see the new Bond movie?” Noah asks.
I shake my head.
“Oh my God, you have to see it. First, Bond free jumps from a satellite in orbit above the earth and lands in the middle of Siberia. Then he stows away on a train into North Korea! Then he steals a nuke from the North Koreans! Then he does it with this lady from North Korea on the back of an ATV!”
“What, you gonna tell her the whole movie?” Levi asks.
“I’d rather she just go see it with me.” Noah gives me a not-so-subtle look.
“She doesn’t like action movies,” Levi replies, rolling his eyes.