Offsides - A Forbidden Summer novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Rest Day

Nate corners Katie, a sunburn lotion scene gives Devin his first touch of her skin, and a voice note from her mother sends him out of the room.

"Great goal," Nate said from the screen door, still smiling. "Hell of a shot."

"It was," said Devin.

His voice was perfectly level, and his hand had left my stomach so smoothly that Nate could have missed it.

Nate hadn't missed it.

He tied Biscuit's leash to the porch rail and looked at me over his shoulder.

"See you at practice Wednesday, Coach," he said. "Katie."

Then he walked down the back steps with his hands in his pockets, whistling.

Devin stood up, put the pillow over the front of his jeans, and went down the hall to his room without a word.

I heard the door shut.

Tuesday was a rest day, with no matches, and I spent it at the garden centre, where my best friend works.

Mara Windle has short red hair and a green apron and the ability to tell when I'm lying from forty feet away.

"You look like you got hit by a truck and enjoyed it," she said, holding a flat of petunias.

"I didn't sleep."

"Why?"

"I was watching the replays."

"Of what?"

"Of the goal," I said, which was true enough.

Mara narrowed her eyes. I picked up a bag of potting soil to have something in my hands.

"Fine. Don't tell me. But your phone's been buzzing for ten minutes."

It was Nate, with seven texts.

The sixth said, "We should talk. I'll wait outside."

He was parked by the front gate, leaning on his truck with his arms crossed over his team polo.

I walked out to him with the soil still in my arms.

"Hey, Kate," he said. "I wasn't going to say anything."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I saw you sitting on my coach's lap with his hand up your shirt." He said it quietly, but he said it. "And that's your mother's husband."

"My mother's in Denver."

"Does she know that?"

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a question."

I put the soil down on the hood of his truck, very gently.

"Nate. You and I broke up four years ago because you told the whole school I cried at my grandfather's funeral."

"That was a joke."

"Here's another one," I said. "You say one word about me to anyone, and I tell Devin you've been parking outside his house at night."

He blinked.

"I haven't."

"Your truck was at the end of our road on Saturday. I saw it from my window."

That was a lie. I watched the color leave his face and knew it didn't matter.

"You're bluffing," he said.

"Try me."

He opened his mouth, closed it, and drove away much faster than the sign allowed.

Mara was standing in the doorway with her arms folded.

"I'm not asking," she said. "But I'm very much going to ask later."

That night I went out to the back porch with a red face and a sunburn.

I'd spent the afternoon with my shoulders in the sun and no sunscreen, and now my back was tight and hot under my shirt.

The porch light was on. Devin came out with a glass of water and stopped.

We hadn't spoken properly since the goal.

"You're burned," he said.

"I know."

"Lie down on your stomach."

I stared at him.

"There's aloe in the bathroom. Or you can wait and peel for a week." He put his water on the railing. "Your choice."

I lay down on the porch swing on my stomach, with my chin on my arm.

He came back with the bottle and sat on the edge of the swing beside me.

"Shirt," he said.

I pulled it up to my shoulder blades.

The gel was cold, and then his hands were on me, and they were warm.

He started at the top of my back, between my shoulder blades, and moved down one slow stroke at a time.

His palms were broad and a little rough.

I had been touched by him through jeans and cotton and layers, but this was my skin, and my bare back, and I felt every fingertip.

My breath caught, and I heard him hear it.

His hands stopped.

"Sorry," he said. "Is that too hard?"

"No."

He started again, and he was slower this time.

He reached the small of my back and rested there for one second longer than he needed to.

I turned my face into my arm so he wouldn't see it.

"There's no match on," I said. "That's against my rule."

"Because you're burned, Katie," he said, but his thumb moved in a small circle just above my waistband, and neither of us pretended that was about the burn.

My phone buzzed on the boards of the porch, and my mother's voice note came up on the screen.

"Hi, baby," my mother's voice said, bright and tinny. "Long day, wanted to say good night. Be nice to Devin. Love you."

Behind her there was a long, low sound.

The hands on my back were gone.

Devin had stood, and he'd picked up his glass, and I'd never seen a man's face close so fast.

"I'm going to bed," he said.

"Devin."

"Put more aloe on in the morning."

The screen door banged behind him.

I lay there with my shirt still pushed up my back and the night air on my skin.

He stopped in the doorway, with his back to me.

"Semifinal's Thursday," he said, without turning around. "You sit on the couch. Next to me. Your own cushion."

I pulled my shirt down, slowly.

"Make me," I said.

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