Curve Ball Read Online Free PDF Page A

It’s just that I’ve never been seen like this , before.
    This is intense. I want to tell him to stop, but he isn’t actually doing anything wrong. I can’t tell him to stop when he isn’t doing anything wrong. It will only draw attention to something that’s only in my imagination, as with the spider in my hair and the boob-looking and the feeling that I’m being crushed by a sexual tension that doesn’t actually exist.
    It’s best to just keep avoiding it. Keep avoiding it. Here, look at me, avoiding it!
    ‘I was just snorkelling.’
    ‘Is that what you call the thing you were doing? Huh.’
    ‘Don’t insult the thing I was doing! Making a dangling hook of your body is really hard, OK? As is barely touching the water with your goggles.’
    He laughs for that, and I’m grateful. Until I remember that spontaneous laughter and bantering like this has all the hallmarks of flirting. Dear God, are we flirting?
    ‘How are you even holding your body like that? I’m betting you have secret muscles in your boobs. I’m right, aren’t I?’
    ‘Dude, that’s you. You have boob muscles. Look at them: you could model a Wonderbra with those things. They could double for pillows.’
    Yeah, this is definitely flirting. I can tell, because it’s the opposite to whatever me and Frank used to do. Once, we had a conversation about whether or not peanuts are really legumes. It seems hard to believe, now, as I fall down some internal stairs and into the mess of Steven Stark.
    Did I just talk about his boob pillows?
    I think I did.
    ‘I genuinely can’t tell if that’s a compliment, an insult, or a by-product of your manboob terror. Either way, I’m probably going to smush them against your face, now.’
    ‘No you’re not.’
    Oh my God, I think he is.
    ‘Just hold still. You’ll barely feel a thing.’
    ‘Is that what you told your last one-night stand?’
    ‘OK, you’re seriously going to get it, now.’
    ‘No, don’t. Don’t, I take it back. I take it back!’ I say, but it’s too late. My efforts at deflecting him with semi-insults only make him more determined – as though I enraged a bull. I questioned his manliness and now he’s going to get me in a kind of headlock.
    No, really. That’s what he does. He jumps on me and gets me in a headlock, like he used to do when I was 12 and deserving of noogies. I almost expect him to start knuckling my hair, even though I know this version of playground antics is not quite as innocent as it should be. I can’t really tell myself otherwise, when he’s practically humping my cheek with his gigantic chest muscles. A nipple nearly pokes me in the eye. Below the surface, our legs tangle briefly.
    And then after a while he’s just kind of – hugging me. Only it’s a strange, breathless sort of hug. I can feel his chest rising and falling, and deeper down, the crazy thud of his heartbeat. Of course, I’ve no clue why it’s crazily thudding – I don’t think he wrestled with me that hard. But it’s an oddly comforting sound, either way.
    It makes my own rattling heartbeat feel less insane.
    ‘Yeah, you like my chest now,’ he says, and then I realise what I’m doing: I’m just sort of resting on him, even though we’re both upright. And even stranger – I don’t really care all that much. He started it, anyway.
    ‘I did admit that your pecs are like pillows. What do you expect me to do?’
    ‘Nothing. I’m glad you’re doing this.’
    He sounds so excruciatingly sincere for a second that I almost ask “are you really?” Before I catch myself, and throttle back. “Are you really?” is a much too timid question to go with. It sounds so full of daft hope, in my head.
    I can’t do it.
    But I can at least remain where I am, which is definitely progress. It’s not flinging a pizza at people, or shaking his hand as though I’m a T-Rex. And I don’t feel weird when he does some other nice thing.
    ‘Want me to help you snorkel?’ he asks –