Free Aftershocks by Monica Alexander Page B

time.”
    “You know it.”
    “How about I meet you guys at eight and we grab dinner?” he asked then. “I’ve got this massive craving for tacos, and I hear there’s a realy good place just two doors down from your store.”
    “I do like tacos,” I said, picking up a pair of white flip flops that were on the verge of faling off the shelf.
    “Okay, then it’s a date. I’l see you at eight.”
    “You are such a dork,” I said, wondering when it was that he made time to see his girlfriend when he always seemed to be hanging out with everyone but her. Maybe they weren’t that serious.
    As I hung up the phone, I located a new shipment that was probably the hoodies that Luke had been referring to. I grabbed the box and headed back out to the sales floor where Luke was showing Sophia some decorative stickers to go with the board she was buying. I shook my head, smiling to myself, as I started to unpack the box.

    Chapter 7
    The next day I was walking out to the parking lot after school feeling relieved that the weekend had finaly arrived. I was looking forward to sleeping in. The first week of school had been a smack in the face after having three months off, and I was stil trying to get back into a good groove of balancing studying with everything else – which pretty much meant work, Wyatt via phone and Connor.
    As soon as I hit the edge of the parking lot, I heard my name being caled. I turned around to see Connor striding toward me with his backpack slung over his left shoulder. I stopped to wait for him and stepped into stride beside him when he reached me.
    He put his arm around my shoulder in a friendly sort of way and said, “So, I was thinking that today, we should start your education.”
    I had no idea what he was talking about and shot him a questioning look in return.
    “Footbal,” he said, like it was the most logical thing to say.
    “Footbal?”
    “I’m going to teach you about the game. It is so sad that you don’t know anything about it. Did you grow up under a rock?”
    After the first day of school and my scoffing at our lunch conversation, Connor had asked if I liked footbal when we were grabbing coffee on Wednesday. I’d shaken my head, taking a sip of my latte, hoping he wasn’t going to start talking about teams and sports. Our conversations had mostly been about pop culture – music, movies, books – and I wasn’t prepared to add sports to the list.
    My knowledge in that arena was just this side of limited. My father and Aaron watched and talked about sports year-round, and I had gone to countless footbal games when Wyatt had played, so I’d been around the game but didn’t have an extensive knowledge to pul from.
    I looked at him in mock disbelief. “I did not grow up under a rock,” I said, copping a fake attitude and crossing my arms. He puled me closer.
    I knew enough about footbal. They played it with a bal and the goal was to score touchdowns. Everything in the middle was somewhat unclear. I usualy just cheered when everyone else cheered. Okay, so maybe I didn’t know very much about the game.
    “So, tel me how it is that you have never learned the finer points of the greatest game played in America?”
    “Um, in my house, that game would be basketbal,” I said, knowing my father and Aaron would be proud of me for defending their sport. My dad had also played basketbal in colege.
    “Basketbal?”
    “Yeah, my brother plays for South Carolina,” I said, proudly.
    “He does?” Connor asked, and I realized that in the week we’d been hanging out, we hadn’t realy gotten into anything personal. We just stuck to neutral topics that we could laugh about. It made me think that I didn’t know Connor as wel as I’d thought I did, and he obviously didn’t know me. He hadn’t met my family, and I hadn’t met his. I didn’t know what his parents did for a living. I just assumed they had busy jobs since they were never able to pick Jordan up from footbal practice in the