Love Storm (51 page)

"Are you going?" she asked in return, setting down her pencil and propping her chin up on one fist.

"Nah," I said. "I heard Gavin was going to ask you."

"Huh? Gavin? Oh," she said blankly. "I see."

"Would you have said yes?" I mused aloud. I didn't really care either way…of course I didn't care.

"Uh, no, I don't think so," Winter said, smiling slightly. "Should I be watching my words here or something? I'm wondering if these are some trick questions and if the answers are going to get back to Gavin one way or another."

I grinned. "No, they're not trick questions, and they won't get back to Gavin unless someone stuck some bugging devices on us like in the CIA spy movies."

Her smile widened. "Well I suppose we'll just have to trust that the CIA doesn't think of us as threats to national security."

"You are, I'm not," I said charmingly.

"Hey! Shut up," she said, reaching forward and pushing my shoulder, though she was chuckling. "Just wait until I get you out on the tennis court. You won't be insulting me then."

"Are you implying that I'm not good at tennis?" I asked, pretending to be offended. "How dare you? I'll have you know that I'm French Open material."

She smirked. "Oh really, Mr. Crowne?" She leaned forward.

"You know it, Ms. Bruin," I replied also leaning forward.

"Okay," she said challengingly, dark eyes sparkling. "Let's test your tennis IQ. Since you brought up the French Open…where is it played?"

"Roland Garros," I said immediately.

"Damn," she said, frowning. "How'd you know that?"

"Next question, please," I smiled.

"Okay…what's ad in?"

"Hmm," I murmured thoughtfully. "I believe that happens during a deuce when the server has just won a point, and if he or she wins the next point the game is theirs."

She shot me a look that clearly said, 'You suck.' "And poaching?"

"When you approach the net in a diagonal direction to make a volley."

"What racket does Roddick use?"

"Babolat."

"Ugh, okay," Winter said, determined now. "What forehand grip does Marat Safin use?"

"What?" I exclaimed. "That's not fair. No one knows that kind of stuff."

"I do," she informed me sweetly.

"Only tennis freaks know those details," I chuckled. "Okay, you have me. What forehand grip
does
Marat Safin use?

"Semi-Western," Winter said promptly with a victorious grin.

"And what forehand grip does Winter Bruin use?" I laughed.

"The classic Eastern," she said. "Semi-Western is so weird. You have to like…twist your hand almost all the way around." She tried to demonstrate by curling the fingers of her right hand around her left wrist. "Kind of like that, with your base knuckle on the second bevel. It's really weird. I don't know how people play with a grip like that." She wrinkled her nose in that cute way of hers. "And now that we're talking about sports, how's cross country going? Gav told me there was an invitational this past weekend."

"Yeah," I said. "It was down south at Monterey Bay. I had to drive down there. Took forever."

"And how did you do?" she asked, eyes serious now.

I couldn't help but smile. She was the one person in the world who would actually ask a question like that because she really wanted to know the answer, and not just to make small talk. "I did alright, I guess," I said.

"Okay," she said sarcastically, giving me another look. "I'm not deaf you know. Everyone's been saying how you're our cross country team's star runner, and I always hear your name on the announcements during the sports section, saying how
wonderfully
you did at your meets. So, I'm going to ask you again: how did you do?"

I laughed. "I did alright," I repeated. "I came in first, okay, happy now? Tyler Collins was right behind me, and Nathan Eichler was right behind Tyler. So there."

Winter shook her head. "When did
you
learn to be modest?" she asked, smiling wryly. "Tyler Collins and Nathan Eichler are
seniors
. They're
fast
seniors. And you came in before them –"

I held up a hand.

"Okay, okay, two seconds right before them or whatever," she rolled her eyes. "My point is, you can still keep up with them. That's pretty damn impressive." She sat back in her chair now and stretched her legs forward so they were under my chair.

"Thanks," I said earnestly, placing my forearms on the top of the chair and resting my head on top of my arms so I was looking at her sideways. I yawned. Man I was tired. I watched Winter through half-closed eyes, not wanting to completely shut out the beautiful image sitting in front of me.

"Are you tired again?" Winter said. "When did you go to bed last night?"

"Mmmm, like 11," I lied.

"Are you sure?" she said skeptically.

"Yeah, pretty sure."

"Zack," she said warningly.

"Okay, okay, it was…a little later than 11," I said. She was too good at telling when I was lying.

"What time?" she insisted.

I opened my eyes fully and stared her down. "A little later than 11," I repeated.

"Zack."

"Winter."

"
Zack
."

She was scowling at me now. "The truth, please. A specific time."

Shoot, I give in to her way too easily. "Two," I mumbled. It had actually been three thirty in the morning, but there are such things as little white lies.

"
What?!
" She was shocked. "Two?! Are you
joking
? Why did you go to sleep so late?"

"Couldn't fall asleep," I muttered. That, at least, was the full truth.

"Jeez," she said. "Promise me you'll go to bed earlier tonight. You can't go to sleep at two in the morning and live through a whole school day. It's just not possible. Promise me you'll go to sleep earlier?"

"I'll try."

She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"Okay, I promise," I said. "Better?"

"Yes," she said. She seemed about to say something else, but the bell cut her off. She gathered her stuff and I went back to my desk to get my books. I waited for her at the door.

"Another school day," she sighed dramatically. "When will it end?" She looked heavenward.

I chuckled. "It's a conspiracy."

"I
know
," she groaned. "Seriously."

"Okay, I'm gonna go now. I told Brock I'd find him so he could take a look at my history notes. He was absent yesterday. But I'll see you later?"

"Yeah," she said. "Later."

And we went our separate ways.

-Winter-

My mother has recently acquired a new hobby. Unfortunately, it is at my expense. Her new hobby is yelling at me.

For example: Tuesday evening I walked through the door at 8pm, tired but extremely happy. Our tennis team has just played a match against our school rival and we had won. Rebecca and I had creamed our opponents, 6-2, 6-0, and the whole team had gone out to Round Table to celebrate our Branner victory. Not to mention I had had a nice conversation that morning with Zack during Calculus.

"Winter, is that you?" my mom called from the kitchen. She came out as I was taking off my shoes at the front door and putting my car keys in the front pocket of my backpack.

"Yup. Hi mom," I said cheerfully. I was too happy to even realize I should have expected a sense of foreboding. "Guess what?"

"You're late for dinner?" she suggested sarcastically.

"Oh…yeah, I'm sorry about that. But guess what? We won against Bellmont!" I laughed. "Isn't that great?"

"Let me think," my mom said dryly. "You went out afterwards to eat with the team." She didn't look very pleased.

"Um, yeah," I said, my face falling. "We won. So we went out to celebrate…" I trailed off. "Is something wrong?" Ugh, bad question. From the look on her face the answer was obvious.

"Yes, something is
wrong
," she replied crossly. "Why didn't you call us? You had your cell phone, didn't you?" Her voice was rising. "Well, didn't you?"

I nodded slowly. "It…it was out of batteries," I said. It wasn't a lie. "I forgot to recharge it yesterday."

"Winter, when are you going to learn responsibility?" she snapped. "What if something had happened? What if you had gotten in a car crash? You wouldn't be able to contact us because you forgot to charge your cell phone."

"Well I'm sorry," I retorted angrily. "Are you just mad I didn't come home for dinner? Is that it?"

"Yes, that's part of it," my mom half-shouted. "I make dinner every night and nowadays you're not even home to eat it half the time. You're always out with someone, and I think if you're going to be out you at least owe your father and I a phone call."

My jaw dropped. "I'm not always out with someone!" I exclaimed. "I'm home for dinner almost every night! It was just today and once last week that I went out with the team! Gosh, mom, I don't think it's fair that you're yelling at me for this," I said bitingly. "I have to do my homework." I hoisted my backpack up on my shoulders and made to go up the stairs.

"Not so fast, young lady," my mom said.

"Mom," I said. "I come home victorious from a match against Bellmont and all you can do is shout at me and find fault with everything I do? I don't appreciate that. You didn't used to do this!" I was already halfway up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" she yelled. "Come back here! I'm not done talking to you!"

"Yelling at me, you mean," I glowered. "I'm tired of getting yelled at! You did the same thing yesterday and the day before, and the day before that! If it's not disrespect, it's responsibility, or time management, or spending more time at home, or working harder in school! I'm sick of it! If you want me to spend more time at home the least you could do is stop badgering me about everything I do! No one's perfect, okay?" I had gotten to the top now, and looked down at her. "And I try to make you and Daddy happy, you know? I do my chores, I try my best in school, but you don't see any of that! All you see are the bad things!"

I retreated into my room, fuming, my earlier good mood completely gone. All she could do was nitpick. She couldn't ever be happy for me anymore, could she?

So that's a taste of my mom's new hobby. It started up at the beginning of the school year and I've had to endure about two months of it now. Maybe she's going through menopause or something. Even my dad has been in on it a little, and he's usually a really easy-going person.

For the next few days it was a little quieter at home. To my mom's credit, she was right about one thing: time management. What with tennis, my AP classes, and not to mention that stupid Latin class she was making me take at Kirkland College, time seemed to always be short. By the time I got home everyday I was physically tired from tennis, and mentally tired from a boring, monotonous day of school. The classes weren't exactly hard, per se (though my classmates seemed to be struggling a bit), but the copious amounts of homework were time consuming.

Fact: junior year sucks.

And there was something else that kept bothering me. I had never gotten an explanation as to why Zack had stopped sending me letters.

And another thing: why were all these random guys coming up to me and striking up conversations? Wednesday morning Nick Cotter approached me at brunch time – you might remember him as one of the guys who asked me to Morp last year. Nick's not a bad sort, really; he's fairly intelligent and has good taste in girls. I'm not saying he has good taste because he asked
me
, but looking at his past list of girlfriends, they were all nice girls that I don't mind talking to. He's actually quite the Ideal Boyfriend, who brings flowers and chocolates and whatnot, the kind of boy you would bring home to meet your parents. Nick Cotter is very sweet. Kind of
too
sweet, in my opinion, but then again, that's just me.

Anyway, it was a more or less pointless conversation. It went something like this:

"Hey Winter." He flashed me a smile.

"Hi Nick. How's it going? We haven't talked in a while." Of course I had to smile back because you really can't
not
smile when someone seems that happy, though I didn't feel like doing it – I was still trying to forget that yelling match I had had with my mom the previous night.

"Yeah, I know. It's going pretty good," he nodded. "How's the tennis season going?"

"Pretty good," I said, "We won against Bellmont yesterday."

"Awesome," he grinned. Did I mention yet that Nick's also a very standard Californian? "A victory against Bellmont is always good stuff."

"Yeah…" I trailed off. What was I supposed to say now?

"'Kay, I gotta run, but it was nice talking to you again," Nick said. "Later."

"Later," I agreed as he jogged off.