Read Meet Me in Manhattan (True Vows) for Free Online Page B

more than a hundred students sat
along the polished wooden benches that extended out from one
cinderblock wall, and a fair number of them were unfamiliar to
Erika. She surmised they were from the visiting team's school.
    Allyson, Erika, and the others climbed halfway up the bleachers
and settled in a row on an empty bench. Down below, the gym
floor was covered by a large blue mat with a broad circle printed
on it. "The wrestlers have to stay inside the circle," Allyson told
her. "They lose points if they step outside the circle. See?" she
added, turning to the other girls. "I know more about wrestling
than just how cute the guys look with their rippling muscles on
display."
    Rippling muscles on display. That sounded like fain to Erika.
    A few more students trickled into the gym and climbed onto
the bleachers. The visiting team filed into the gym through a
locker-room door and Erika gave them the once-over. She paid
less attention to their physiques than to whether they looked
mean and tough and capable of trouncing the Mendham High
School boys.
    Maybe. Maybe not.
    Their fans in the stands greeted them with a cheer that sounded pretty anemic. A few dozen fans couldn't very well roar
like a stadium full of crazed football lovers. Their cheers echoed
off the hard walls, the high ceiling, and the steel rafters spanning
the gym overhead, and then were swallowed by the much louder
cheering of the Mendham fans welcoming their team as they
marched proudly from the locker room into the gym.

    Erika recognized a couple of them-that huge guy at the end
of the line was in her English class, and he looked a lot more fit
in his uniform than he did in the baggy, droopy clothes he wore
to class, which seemed chosen to conceal his enormous bulk.
Erika had always assumed he was fat. He wasn't exactly skinny,
but he boasted more muscle than flab.
    At the opposite end of the line, leading the team in, was a
short, skinny boy, an underclassman, Erika was pretty sure. She
couldn't think of any seniors as small as he was. Unlike the uniform of the heavyweight wrestler, which stretched as taut as an
overinflated balloon on his hulking frame, the featherweight
wrestler's uniform puckered slightly under his arms. The uniforms reminded her of pictures she'd seen of men's swimsuits in
the Roaring Twenties. Narrow shoulder straps, a U-shaped neckline that revealed a serious lack of hair on the chests of the
Mendham wrestlers, the form-fitting fabric ending at mid-thigh.
The singlets were so snug on most of the wrestlers, they looked as
if they'd been painted on.
    Ted Skala looked damned good in a singlet, she noted.
    She'd known he was a wrestler. One of the team stars, in fact.
Unlike some of his teammates, he didn't have a compact, powerful
build. His limbs were long and lean, his shoulders bony. Because
he was thin, his muscles seemed more clearly defined. He stared
straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge the cheers of the Mendham
fans as he moved with his teammates to the home-team bench.

    "They don't wear regular sneakers, huh," she whispered to
Allyson.
    "I think those shoes are more flexible."
    The shoes the wrestlers wore resembled high-tops without the
padding and the thick soles. Not very flattering, but Erika supposed that if she and Allyson were there to ogle, she could focus her
ogling higher, on the wrestlers' sturdy legs and solid torsos. Or, in
at least one wrestler's case, on his lean limbs and bony shoulders.
    An announcer called the first wrestlers to the mat-the tiny
featherweight boys. They scampered around inside the circle,
grabbing each other, twisting each other, flopping, flipping. One
was on top, then the other. Despite their diminutive size, they
were obviously strong, using leverage and agility. When Allyson
cheered, Erika cheered. When the other wrestler seemed ascendant, she scowled. The referee hovered over them, whistle in
mouth, watching their moves almost