Center Ice by Cate Cameron Page B

feel that way I wanted her to keep thinking of it that way. A date, not a hook up. Something that might be the start of something. That’s what I was hoping she was seeing tonight.
    “You know a lot of people,” she said after we’d made several hops. “But who are you really friends with?”
    “The team,” I said without hesitation. “Winslow, and Coop—I haven’t seen him yet, but he’ll be around somewhere. I’m pretty tight with most of them, I guess.”
    “But we haven’t been hanging out with them tonight?”
    No, because the team was at the center of all the speeding vehicles my frog was trying to avoid. But that wasn’t something I wanted to explain to Karen, so I just shrugged. “I spend a lot of time with them already. It’s nice to have a change.”
    So, there it was. I lied to her. Not a big lie, but I was hiding something I shouldn’t have been hiding, and it didn’t feel good at all.

Chapter Thirteen
    - Karen -
    Tyler and I roamed all over the beach, until everything turned into a blur of unfamiliar faces, a cacophony of new names, and too many subtle interactions and reactions for me to begin to keep track of. He repeated the phrase “my friend” with the same special emphasis to practically every guy we met, and it began to get on my nerves. Was he making it clear that he wasn’t really interested in me? I mean, I’d thought the hand-holding meant something, but maybe he was just touchy-feely? I wasn’t as flashy as most of the other girls, that was for sure. I felt mousy, my dress too conservative compared to their outfits, my hair too simple, my makeup more appropriate for the gym than for a party. Maybe the hand-holding didn’t mean as much as I was hoping it did; maybe he just wanted to keep track of me in the crowd.
    He eventually released me when I had to go to the bathroom. I walked to the concrete building with a couple other girls, and I listened to them talking as we stood in line. They’d apparently come to the party with each other, but were hoping to leave with guys, preferably hockey players.
    “Too bad you already scooped Tyler up,” one of them said to me. She didn’t sound hostile, just resigned. “I almost had him last spring, and I was totally planning to close the deal tonight.” She shrugged. “Oh well. Next time.”
    “He’s worth the wait,” the other girl said. “I would absolutely go back for second helpings of him.” She turned to me. “You’re going to have a good time.” Their laughter was somewhere between giggles and cackling, and I was incredibly relieved when a stall door swung open and I was able to take the excuse to get away from them.
    I bolted the thin metal door behind me and tried to figure it out. Mostly, I tried to think of a way for them to have been talking about something other than what I thought they were talking about, but I couldn’t do it. One of those girls had come to this party with plans to have sex with Tyler, and the other one already had , and would be happy to do it again. No shyness, no broken hearts, just…sex.
    With Tyler.
    I went through the motions in the stall, my mind far away, and when I was done I bent over a sink and splashed water on my face, trying to cool down. Was this what Tyler was expecting from me? Casual sex, no attachment, no real feelings, just…what had the first girl said? Closing the deal .
    I saw one of the girls come out of her stall and head for the sink, but I didn’t wait for her. I’d only had two beers over a couple hours, but I suddenly felt dizzy, and my brain wasn’t working properly. I wasn’t a virgin. I’d had a serious boyfriend in the spring, and we’d ended up having sex a few times before having a stupid fight and breaking up. He’d been cute, but nothing like Tyler. If Tyler expected sex tonight, was I prepared to go through with it? I wasn’t ready for it, psychologically, but maybe that didn’t matter. If sex was what it took to keep him in my life, and if I