Stealing for Keeps (Frost Lake High Book 1)
Stealing for Keeps: Chapter 10

“He is so hot,” Sophie cries as Austin takes the field, clapping her hands and then holding them up to her mouth to yell. “Go, Austin!”

I glance over at Lacey and roll my eyes. “Someone needs to get her a thesaurus. That seems to be the only adjective she knows.”

For the past hour, I’ve had to listen to Sophie, Amanda, and the rest of the soccer girls talk about Austin and what they’d like to do with him or have him to do them in more detail than I needed. At one point, he lifted the hem of his shirt to wipe his face, and the screams they let out have my eardrums still ringing.

“Cut the girl some slack,” Lacey says with a smile, stare leaving the field only long enough to grin at me. “Her vocabulary may be limited, but you have to admit she’s right. The new guy is easily top three of the junior class, maybe of the whole school. Plus, he has that new guy mystique.”

“I don’t have to admit anything,” I grumble, feeling a teensy bit jealous at all the attention he’s getting.

Lacey’s laugh gets lost in the noise as the blue team scores. My gaze manages to go directly to the guy in question. He and Rowan high-five as they jog up the field.

“Who scored?” I ask.

“That was Rowan,” Lacey yells over the crowd.

The buzzer sounds, ending the first half. People around us get up to grab concessions or move around.

My best friend straightens the big bow on top of her head. “So what’s going on with you two anyway?”

“Who?” I ask, glancing at Andie and Brandon next to me.

“You.” Lacey elbows me with a giggle. “And New Guy. He’s obviously into you.”

“What do you mean obviously? We barely talk.”

“Yeah, but he’s always watching you.”

“It’s true. Brandon and I were talking about that yesterday,” Andie pipes up. She has a matching bow in her hair and a shiny new gold hoop in her nose. She pulls it off well.

My face heats, and an uncomfortable feeling stretches across my skin. “He’s just a flirt. Nothing is going on.”

“If you say so,” Lacey singsongs. “We gotta go. Yell loud for us, okay?”

“You know it.” I tip my chin at her. “I’m only here for the cheerleaders.”

Her grin widens as they head down the bleachers. The squad doesn’t usually cheer during soccer games, but tonight they’re doing their routines on the field during halftime, then they have to go to the carnival, where they’re running a cotton candy stand.

Brandon and his friend Miles scoot down the bench closer to me. Someone walks by with a plate of nachos, and the smell of cheese wafts around us.

“Ooh, that smells good.” Miles sits taller, leaning toward the food as it goes by. He stands and rubs his stomach. “Be right back.”

“Get me some too,” Brandon calls after him.

The two of them have been eating nonstop. Hot dogs, candy, chips. I have no idea how either of them could still be hungry.

“You’re a bottomless pit,” I tell him with a smile.

“Coach says I need to add some weight.”

Brandon plays hockey. He grew a few inches over the summer, and he’s tall and lanky. Probably not ideal when you’re being slammed against the boards.

With the row in front of us empty, I prop up my boot on the bleacher. Brandon glances down. “How much longer do you have to wear that thing?”

“Two weeks.”

“That’s not long.” His face brightens. “Can you go right back to skating, or do you have to rehab and stuff?”

My stomach swirls with sorrow and disappointment. I consider giving him a vague reply, but then I remember what Lacey said about sharing my feelings with people. “The doctor said I could get back to regular exercise, but he warned me that if I continued pushing myself like before, I’d risk doing permanent damage.”

“Oh.” His dark brows slant. “Shit. Claire, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Wow. You’ve been skating competitively since…forever.”

“Since I was six,” I say, then try to smile through it. “The break has been kind of nice.”

No, that’s total bullshit. Aside from sleeping in and having a laxer schedule, which admittedly has been nice, I’ve been bored out of my mind.

I loved skating with all my heart. It was all I ever wanted to do. And sure, it ate up all my time, but there was nowhere I loved more than being on the ice. Now it’s gone.

I still wake up every morning thinking about my routines and what I need to work on, and then seconds later, it all comes crashing back. Technically I will be able to skate again when the boot comes off, but not like before. The doctor warned me that going back to that level of intensity would just cause more injuries that would eventually compromise my everyday activities like walking.

Brandon nods slowly, his lips pulling into a half smile. “Yeah, I can see how that might be kind of cool. And hey, now you’ve got time to do lots of other fun stuff.”

The cheerleaders start yelling from the center of the field, Lacey’s voice clear through the others. I turn my attention to them. “Yeah. Exactly.”

Yes, lots of other fun stuff. I just haven’t figured out what that should be yet.

* * *

By the time the second half starts, my foot is tired from sitting in one position. I get up and walk over onto the grassy area next to the bleachers where the self-professed Knights fan club stands and cheers and, during normal games, razzes the other team.

A group of senior girls are giggling and talking about one of the guys on the field, only I don’t realize it’s Austin until he runs by us.

“I heard he dated a college girl back in Arizona.”

“A girl in my physics class said he was on the cover of some soccer magazine.”

“Sexiest Soccer Player Alive?”

They all giggle.

The desire to roll my eyes is so large, but then the people around us erupt into cheers and drown the girls out. On the field, Vaughn holds one hand up as his teammates rush to congratulate him on the goal. My attention goes to Austin. The look of annoyance on his face as he glances up at the scoreboard makes me feel for him. Vaughn is hard to beat.

In the final minute of the game, the white team is up by one goal. Even the people in the bleachers are on their feet. Nervous energy has me tapping my thumb against my thigh. It’s been so long since I competed, but I can feel that last-minute surge that I’d get just before I’d step on the ice. For a moment, I’m lost in memories of skating. The lights, the music, the feeling as I let go of everything and just lived for those few minutes where nothing mattered except the routine.

I swallow around the lump of emotions as I push away the likely truth that I’ll never get to do that again.

Someone grabs my arm, and I glance over as Lacey comes to stand beside me.

“Hey, I was looking for you.” She holds out a cone of cotton candy toward me. “Want some? I made it myself.”

Her happy grin loosens the sadness, like it always does. I don’t know what I’d do without her.

I take a handful, and we turn back to the game. She yells, “Go, New Guy!”

I hear someone else around us say, “Pass it to Disco!”

People seem to know and like him despite him having only been in Frost Lake for five seconds.

On the blue team, Eddie has the ball stolen as he tries to go around Vaughn to the goal. The crowd lets out an “Oooo.”

“Looks like that’s it,” Lacey says.

The words have barely left her lips when Austin comes out of nowhere and steals the pass Vaughn sends to one of his teammates. Everyone in the crowd goes wild. Austin dribbles, fakes around a defender, then another. It’s impossible to look away from him as he weaves through opposing players. He’s far enough back, and there’s just enough time left on the clock that they could probably set up another play, but Austin is headed toward the goal, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to pass off to anyone.

Vaughn catches up to him, and it’s like no one else on the field exists. I hold my breath with the rest of the crowd as they battle. I’m pretty sure Austin takes an elbow to the jaw, but he doesn’t back down. He fights back, pushing around Vaughn until he finally gets a clear shot and kicks it toward the goal.

I want to close my eyes, but I can’t. There’s no way that’s going in. I haven’t seen anyone pull something like that off except maybe Vaughn. My ex-boyfriend might currently be on my shit list, but his talent on the soccer field is unmatched.

Barrett jumps to the left inside the goal, but the ball flies just beyond his fingertips.

“Gooooooaaaaaaaaal!” The announcer’s voice booms over the loudspeaker.

“Oh my gosh!” Lacey jumps, latching on to my arm and forcing me to bounce with her.

Cheers for New Guy and Disco, a few for Keller, ring out all around us. No matter what they call him, all eyes are on Austin. His face is pure joy as Rowan bear-hugs him, and then the rest of the team piles on.