Blaze Read online

  I have no idea what to even talk about with such a fine specimen of male fineness. He’s sitting so close I could reach over and touch him. It might be kind of hard to explain, and a little weird, maybe, but still… possible.

  At first I’m relieved when he turns in his seat to discuss the game with the boys. Thankfully, there’s no pressure to pull off an actual conversation. But as Superturd speeds past farm after farm and his coach-chat turns into a lengthy discussion of the team’s “next strategy,” I start to feel a bit ignored. It dawns on me that if the entire ride passes without a single interaction between the two of us, it will solidify my nonexistence in Mark’s universe. If I don’t do something drastic soon…

  “COWS!” I call out as we pass a field of cattle. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven!”

  “Wha—?” Mark swings around to face me. “Did you just count those cows?”

  I grin and call out, “That’s twenty-one, plus seven, which gives me twenty-eight. I’m win-ning.”

  “No fair,” whines Dylan, “You have front seat advantage!”

  “You lost shotgun rights for ogling my sister’s boobs.” Josh defends me and humiliates me all at once.

  I glance over at Mark and blush. “So,” he smiles and gives the bill of his hat a quick lift. “Cows?”

  My heart starts badda-thumping again.

  “It’s a stupid thing we do on these long drives. Whoever sees a herd first gets to collect them and add them to their total score.”

  Ajay chimes in from the third-row seat, “But we’ve expanded it to include all farm animals. Cows, horses, goats, even chickens.” He pauses to slurp one of the orange wedges he scored from Mrs. Schmidt. “Blaze is winning, but Dylan has ten and Josh has thirteen.”

  “Ajay, that’s disgusting!” Andrew yells. “You just spit orange pulp on my arm.”

  “Yeah, Ajay, don’t spit,” Dylan says lewdly. “Andrew prefers you swallow.”

  “Easy, Dylan,” Josh pipes in. “Try to keep your pervy fantasies to yourself.” Which gets the other boys laughing and teasing Dylan.

  Mark gasps, and I’m about to tell him how Dylan’s sexual fantasies are just an ongoing joke with us, but Mark is busy pointing. He calls out, “Ooooh! Sheep! I call sheep!” There’s a huge flock of them in the field we’re passing, and I grimace as Mark starts counting. “One, two, three, four…”

  I ease pressure on the gas as he counts faster. “Ten, eleven, twelve…” I urge Superturd to drive faster, “sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…” I glance down and see the needle creeping toward 90 miles per hour as Mark creeps closer and closer to my score, “twentyonetwentytwotwentythree…” The minivan starts shimmying with the effort until, finally, I reach the treeline and Mark has to stop counting his sheep.

  “Whew, that’s twenty-eight,” he says smugly. “How many do you have again?”

  “Twenty-eight,” I growl. I never lose a game of Cows. Ever.

  “All right, coach!” Josh calls out. “My sister never loses.”

  “I can see why,” he laughs. “How fast were you driving?”

  “What?” I say innocently. “That’s called driver’s advantage.” I look around desperately for some cows, any cows, even just a single cow to get me back on top. Nothing but massive cornfields whizz by on either side. I shouldn’t really mind losing to someone as hot as Mark. I just can’t bear to have my ass handed to me in front of the boys.

  Mark leans forward in his seat, obviously scanning for a herd of cattle. I must distract him. “Sooo, soccer, huh?” I say.

  “Yup, love soccer…” His brows pull together as he continues his quest for cows. By now we’re both sitting up, our bodies leaning forward in anticipation.

  “Team looks good,” I try again.

  “Yup.” My ploy to distract him with a soccer-centric conversation clearly isn’t working. He adds, “So, what’s the deal with you and the comics?” As if I can be distracted so easily.

  “Read ’em, draw ’em. Yup, I sure love comics…”

  I glance over, and Mark pretends to press his face into the windshield. “Where’s the cows? Where’s the cows?” he says and grins at me.

  We both burst out laughing. I lean back in my seat, and he shifts his body in my direction and casually raises his left knee, opening his legs toward me. Which only makes the proximity of what lies under his thin shorts seem more undeniable. I focus intently on the road ahead. My mind is no longer thinking of cows.

  “Seriously, is ‘Blaze’ your nickname because you’re so into comics, or maybe because you drive so fast?” I glance toward him, and he narrows his eyes. “Or are you a closet pothead?”

  “Blaze is her actual name.” Josh leans up between the seats, reminding me that Mark and I aren’t alone. “Dad was really into Ghost Rider as a kid, so he named her after Johnny Blaze. Mom got smart by the time I came along, and that’s why I got a normal name.”

  “Why don’t you play your DS?” I suggest kindly, then shoot my head around to emphasize, “Josh!” in my evil older sister voice.

  “I’m good.” Josh leans his elbow on my backrest. I reach back and knock Josh’s elbow so he does a face-plant against my seat.

  “Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands in surrender. “Ajay’s using the outlet back here, I need you to plug me in.”

  “Fine,” I say and wait for Josh to hand me the car adapter for his game.

  “I’m playing Sonic Rush,” Ajay says. “Wanna sync up?”

  I glance in the rearview mirror, and Josh gives me a troubled glance before turning around in his seat to face Ajay. Andrew and Dylan huddle around to watch the rousing DS battle on the teeny-tiny screens. It suddenly feels as if Mark and I are alone, which makes me remember to be nervous all over again.

  “So, Blaze, huh?” Mark tips his hat back and bops up and down in a solicitous way. He is actually flirting with me, I think as I flip my blonde ponytail off my shoulder. And more amazing still, I’m flirting back.

  “Yeah, it hardly suits me.” I face forward and blush as sweat lubricates my grip on the steering wheel.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he says. “I imagine there’s a burning flame in there somewhere.” With my peripheral vision I catch him glancing at my chest. Instead of getting grossed out, like I do when Dylan peeks, I feel a ka-POW! surge in my lower belly. Flustered, I squint out the windshield.

  “Yes!!” Half the back seat lets out a cheer over something Sonic Rush–related, and Mark turns around. As he’s distracted, I allow myself a look of shock over his attention. I blink quickly as my mind screams, He’s totally coming on to me. Doesn’t he know about Su-per Virgin Girl? Chastity of Steel? Nobody comes on to me! By the time he turns back around, I’ve managed to rearrange my face into a normal expression.

  “I used to rock at Sonic.” Mark laughs. “So, you never answered me. What’s with this great attraction to comics?”

  “Oh, well, my dad really got me into them.” Without meaning to, I start talking nonstop, telling him all about Dad’s prize collection of comics. From there, I launch right into telling him about how he took off to become an actor in New York City.

  “Any chance you saw that episode of Law & Order where the guy seems all straitlaced, but meanwhile he’s killing college girls and throwing them into the Hudson?”

  “I’m not sure, maybe?” Mark shrugs. “Sounds familiar.”

  “Well, anyway, my dad played that guy. He’s pretty good. He’s been in a bunch of stuff.”

  “Sounds cool. Much better than my dad, who could probably be the sicko throwing bodies into a river in real life. He’s a psycho. But at least he’s out of the picture.”

  Mark says it like it’s no big deal, but I feel sad for him. An awkward silence settles around us. Nothing like bringing up a guy’s deadbeat dad to kill the mood. When I glance back at the boys, I catch Josh give me a look of relief. At least he’s happy I’m blowing things with his coach.

  “So,” Mark says finally, “what superhero would y
ou want for a father?”

  Happy for the topic change, I launch into geek-girl mode. “Well, my dad’s pretty cool already, but Captain America does have that hyper-honorable thing going on. Then there’s the Silver Surfer showing mercy at the cost of his own freedom, not to mention Daredevil and all his charity work…” Mark seems amused by my excitement, but I can’t turn it off. My alter ego Virgin Girl! won’t let me shut up.

  I’m working my way through the various incarnations of the X-Men, selecting the most awesome mutant powers, when Mark suddenly interrupts me. “HORSES!” he calls out in triumph. “One, two!”

  “AAAA-aaa!” I wail and the boys emerge from their Sonic-trance to mock me.

  “That’s…what is that? Thirrrrrrrty?” Mark sings, “I have thirrrty!”

  “And how many do you have, Blaze?” Ajay asks. “Was it tweeenty-eeeight?” The entire minivan is suddenly filled with taunting boys, and I curse myself for allowing Mark to get me distracted.

  “Okay, okay, simmer down back there,” he says. “The two of us were in the middle of a very serious conversation about superpowers.”

  Josh says, “Nice strategy, Coach, getting her to talk about comics. But you should know you’ll never get her to stop now.”

  “Aw, Josh, lay off your sis,” says Andrew. “And A-jay, would you mind controlling your bodily functions?” Groans fill Superturd as the boys pull their T-shirts over their noses, making sweaty cotton gas-masks.

  “Man,” says Dylan. “I can taste that one!” Ajay smirks proudly, his thumbs still stabbing his DS.

  I glance at Mark, sufficiently mortified to have him witness my pathetic world. Adolescent boys, video games, and fart jokes. Add to that my blatant comic book obsession, and you can see a few problems with the whole seduction scene I have happening in my minivan right now.

  “So, if you could have any superpower…” Mark says, and I roll my eyes, thinking, I’d turn back time, wear something a bit more girly today, and maybe ditch the sweaty gang of cretins behind us.

  “Marvel Girl is probably my favorite superhero. You know, the original Jean Grey?” I say. “But if I had to pick one power it would have to be flight. What about you?”

  He thinks a moment and says, “I never really followed superheroes. What are some of my choices?”

  “Oh, you don’t have to pick a particular hero.” I forget to hide my inner fangirl. “For instance, Ajay would be sort of like Magneto, with control over electromagnetic radiation to enhance his gaming abilities.” Ajay looks up from the DS to grin at me in the rearview mirror. “Dylan would shrink himself into a human fly. Like Ant Man, but without the cybernetic helmet for communicating with insects.” I laugh as, behind me, Dylan pretends to style his buzz-cut. “He wouldn’t want to get helmet-head.”

  “Blaze thinks it’s so I can spy on the girls’ locker room.” Dylan leans forward, pushing his glasses up on his nose for emphasis. “But really, it’s only to consume fewer of the earth’s precious resources. I want to leave a smaller carbon footprint.”

  “Yeah.” Josh laughs. “You’d love to leave your teeny carbon footprints all over Catherine Wiggan’s cleavage.”

  Catherine Wiggan, aka Wiggles, is the school’s resident large-breasted slut, and I need to keep talking so Mark doesn’t get lost thinking of her. “Josh would, of course, have super speed,” I say. “Like Quicksilver or Flash.”

  “He almost does already,” Mark says, dipping the bill of his hat to Josh.

  Josh lifts his chin. “Thanks, Coach.”

  “Andrew here won’t participate because he thinks wishing for superpowers is pointless.” I scan for cows as I continue. “Although once, when we were totally lost, he did say he’d like the power to communicate with global positioning satellites.”

  Mark laughs. “That would be the game against the Timberwolves that we almost had to forfeit?”

  “We made it on time.” I pout.

  “Barely.”

  “Well, I forgot Ajay’s inhaler that day and had to go back for it just in case, so we got a late start.”

  Mark turns around and looks at Ajay. “You need an inhaler?”

  Ajay just shrugs as he bows over his DS.

  “Ajay!” I shoot. “You never told your coach you have asthma?” Ajay is tall for thirteen, and to look at him you’d never guess he’s asthmatic, but he must have a complex or something because he hates when anyone brings it up. I’m pretty furious he hasn’t even mentioned his condition to Mark. “What if you had an episode and I wasn’t around?”

  “Aw, come on, Blaze!” Ajay hunches down further. “I haven’t used the inhaler for almost a year now. Besides, you’re always around.” He meets my gaze in the rearview mirror. “Where else you gonna be?”

  I cringe at that. We’re far enough along in the season for Mark to have noticed I don’t exactly have a life of my own, but honestly, I don’t need Ajay pointing it out. I sigh and tell Mark, “So, anyway, that’s the gang. You pick and choose whatever superpower suits your needs.”

  As I wait for Mark’s answer, I watch the fields on either side of us thinking, not even a single stinking chicken. We’re close to home, and the game officially ends at my first drop off, which is Ajay. I can’t lose at Cows. Especially when Mark’s only been playing for the ride home.

  I get the flash of an idea just as he says, “Well, if I had to choose only one superpower I suppose…” I turn to look at him and am startled by how light his gray eyes are, “it would have to be the power to heal.”

  I swerve a bit and turn my attention back to the road. “Healing? Really?” For the first time, wanting to fly seems like a selfish, self-serving superpower. I want to change my choice to healing too. To help others. But honestly, deep down, I still really want to fly.

  Mark shrugs. “Maybe that could free you up from lugging around Ajay’s inhaler.”

  I smile from the inside out as Andrew calls, “Hey, Blaze, where you going? You dropping coach off first or something?”

  I see the other boy’s heads shoot up collectively. Josh says, “I know exactly what she’s doing.”

  Dylan gives a wolf-whistle. “Looking for a little alone time with the coach, Blaze?” And I make a mental note to murder him later.

  Josh leans forward. “Not that.” He eyes Mark warily.

  “No way,” says Ajay as all the boys look out the front windshield. “Coach, you should probably know…”

  Pressing my foot on the gas, I coax Superturd to hurry its plump minivan ass up. I strain forward against my seatbelt.

  “I can’t believe she’s resorting to this,” Dylan says excitedly.

  “What is it?” Mark asks, “Another farm?” He scoots to the front of his seat, ready to claim another herd. “I think I remember someone having emus down this way. Do emus count?”

  “No Coach, you gotta listen,” Ajay says, but I cut him off.

  “What Ajay is trying to say is… GRAVEYARD!” I call out in victory. “Sorry, Mark, your herd is dead.”

  “What the—” Mark looks at me like I’m crazy.

  “Oh, I killed your herd,” I explain lightly. “Whoever claims a graveyard first can wipe out someone else’s animals. Did I not mention that rule?”

  “We tried to warn you, dude,” says Ajay. “She’s super-competitive.”

  “Hey, no fair,” Mark says. “I didn’t even know.”

  “Take it up with the committee, my friend,” I say. “Boys? Can we get a ruling on that play?”

  “Blaze wins again,” Dylan says. “But you really almost had her, Coach.”

  “That’s the closest anyone’s ever come,” says Josh, eyeing me skeptically.

  Mark laughs. “Okay then, I’d like to declare a rematch.” He aims his gray eyes my way. “Any chance I can grab a ride for the Aliquippa game next week? I’m saving up to get a new tranny for my pickup.” I can’t believe he wants to ride with me again. He goes on, “I caught a ride with Mrs. Schmidt this morning, and I still feel queasy from the sm
ell of all those orange wedges.” Mrs. Schmidt takes her role as soccer mom very seriously and is always armed with an orange wedge or a Dixie cup of Gatorade at the slightest hint of parching.

  “I’d take oranges over the smell of Ajay’s ass any day,” says Josh.

  “We can drive you,” I say, feeling a bit queasy myself. “You guys may manage to whip Aliquippa, but I wouldn’t count on you ever beating me at Cows.”

  “We’ll have to see about that.” Mark flashes me a grin that gives me tingles, as though Superturd’s seat-warmers are suddenly functioning again. Like Mark’s super-healing-power wish is already working magic on my minivan.

  “I still think we should host ourselves a little coed soirée,” says Josh, pronouncing soirée in his fake-snooty voice. “My friends would love to rub shoulders with your friends.”

  “Ick!” I shudder as I serve dinner for the two of us. “I can imagine Dylan trying to rub more than shoulders. Amanda might think his pathetic boob obsession is cute, but Terri would probably clock him.”

  “Dylan’s a big talker, but you know he’s completely intimidated by girls.” Josh waggles his eyebrows. “Especially seventeen-year-old girls who are totally hot.”

  “Aaaaand, there’s reason number one-hundred-thirty-seven why my friends and your friends will never comingle.” I stab at the mound of spaghetti on my plate. It’s a little mushy, since I was distracted by my social studies homework and overcooked the pasta again. I tried to jazz up the canned sauce with a little oregano and the overall effect is… well, edible anyway. “We are not having a party this weekend. Period.”

  “Come on, Blaze, how often do we get a chance to have an unsupervised par-tay? We could make history among our peers.”

  I scowl. “We get the chance about every other weekend, and who will care about us making history if Mom comes home from the hospital and murders us? She’d totally know how to make it look like an accident, too, ever think of that?” Mom has an overnight shift twice a month, so Josh and I have this discussion fairly often.

  “I’m just saying—you’ll be a total hero with the guys if you hook us up with a little face-to-face time with your friends.”