Read Like Jazz for Free Online Page B

each other on everyone’s contributions to our team victory.
     
    *
     
    My mother was late in picking me up that evening. It wasn’t possible to know when a match would be over, especially away matches, and sometimes I had to wait around until she could come get me. I read under a lamppost as I waited, sitting on a three-foot wall bordering the parking lot. When the brakes of a bicycle startled me, I glanced up to see a front tire a few feet in front of me and Kip Dawkins straddling his bike, smiling at me.
    “Hey, Cazz.”
    “Hi.”
    “What are you sticking around for?”
    “Waiting for my mom. You?”
    “Just finished working out. How’d it go against Primrose?”
    “We won,” I said with a grin.
    “Sweet! Good work. I hate those stuck-up pricks.”
    “I’m sure they say the same thing about us.”
    “Yeah. Probably.” Kip stopped talking and I resumed reading.
    “Cazz?”
    I looked up.
    “You going to Homecoming?” Kip asked.
    “Uh, no.”
    “Want to go?”
    Along with Sarah and a few other students, Kip was in both my AP Earth Science and AP English classes. He got consistently good grades, played football and baseball, and was one of the cutest boys in school. And it sounded suspiciously like he was asking me to go to Homecoming with him.
    “What?” I asked, lamely.
    “Do you want to go to Homecoming with me?”
    “Uh…dances aren’t really my thing. I’m not…I’m not much of a dancer.”
    “We don’t have to dance if you don’t want to. It’ll be a huge party with lots of people and good music. Should be fun.” He smiled. “What do you say?”
    “Kip, I’d hate to be a wet blanket. You should take someone who’s into it.”
    His smile evaporated. “You don’t want to go, or you don’t want to go with me?”
    Both, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “If I was going, I’d love to go with you. Honestly, it’s just not my kind of thing.”
    “It’s Homecoming. I thought girls lived for this kind of thing.”
    I chuckled. “Wearing fancy gowns and pretending to be Cinderella?”
    His smile returned. “It does sound kind of dorky when you put it that way.”
    A car pulled into the parking lot and we glanced over. “My mom,” I said, rising.
    “Tell you what. Think about it over the weekend and let me know Monday. Deal?”
    What a sweet boy. I’m sure it’s hard enough to ask a girl out, let alone leave the door open after being turned down. “Deal.” My mom pulled the car around about ten feet away, and I started toward it.
    “Cazz.”
    I turned back to Kip.
    “It wouldn’t be right for the prettiest girl at Claiborne to sit home on Homecoming.”
    I tilted my head and furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. She isn’t. She’s going with Dirk and will probably be crowned Queen.
    “So say yes on Monday.” He grinned.
    I quickly closed the final steps to the passenger door and shut it behind me, securing my escape.
    During the ride home, my incipient frustration with Kip’s tenacity grew into full-blown annoyance. Until that last bit about the prettiest girl, I actually thought I’d give his proposal some meaningful consideration. After all, going to the Homecoming dance wouldn’t kill me. It might even turn out to be somewhat enjoyable, depending on the company and the entertainment. But as with most compliments, his struck me as being insincere. A calculated thing designed to manipulate me. Like many of the recruits I’d met during the numerous events my father took us to or held at our various houses, Kip’s compliment was aimed at taking something from me.
    The young army recruits wanted sex. Period. And they were very persuasive in trying to get it. In the past three years rotating through school after school, the one constant when it came to my interactions with them was the sheer volume of compliments heaped on me. You’re so pretty. You’re so beautiful. Your eyes are incredible. And so on.
    Twice, once at fifteen and once at sixteen, I’d made