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“Yours sounded like it really happened.” She made me feel like pulling my story out and reading it over. She also made me wish we were somewhere else, somewhere I could test the vibes between us. I guess that meant she was right about dirty minds.
    We didn’t get into it any further that day, though. Sasha announced that she was going to call her dad to come get her and Nathan and I sat there arguing about where to go next. There are only three places in the mall that don’t bore me: sports stores, entertainment/electronics stores, and the place we were sitting just then. Nathan, on the other hand, could spend an hour in the bookstore or trying on watches and holding his wrist up to me for approval.
    I don’t want to make him sound like a stupid stereotype or whatever. He wasn’t obsessed with clothes or anything, he just enjoyed whatever he happened to be doing at any given moment in time—even if it meant eating bad fast food at Courtland Place with two people who usually ignored each other. Nathan and I had known each other since we were eleven and had played on the same hockey team for the last three years. Me, him, and Keelor, that’s how it was. You play the game with someone for long enough and you know exactly what they’ll do next on the ice. That’s the way it was with the three of us up until this year when Nathan surprised us by packing it in. Said he didn’t love the game the way he used to.
    Keelor, the Courtland Cougars team captain, took it kind of personally. To tell the truth, so did I, but I figured Nathan had other things on his mind. See, I’d noticed some things about him by then. He’d never come out and said anything, but I’d caught him giving other guys the look. It was always lightning-fast, but I’d seen it often enough to know it meant something. I suspected that Keelor had caught on too. So there were three of us walking around not talking about that because sometimes it’s just easier not to, I guess.
    The only other thing I remember about that day was Sasha leaving. Her dad called back and let her know he was out in the parking lot. “So I’ll see you guys at school,” she said, getting up and staring down at Nathan and me.
    “See ya,” I said, forcing myself not to look at her T-shirt again.
    I watched her drop her cell phone into her pocket, turn, and walk away. At the time I figured we probably wouldn’t really talk again anytime soon. I thought it was one of those moments in life when you get a glimpse at a possibility just as it disappears. It was too bad, I guess, but I can’t say it actually bothered me much. I barely knew Sasha Jasinski, and nice-looking girls in tight T-shirts were everywhere in June.

 
    three
    The last week of school was too hot to think. I felt restless in my skin. Like summer had started without me. We were all impatient that week. Keelor, Gavin, and the rest of the guys lingered in the hallways, bouncing off the walls and each other, talking in the kind of loud voices that sound annoying when you hear them coming from someone else. Part of that was a pre-party rush. Dani was having one of her infamous sleepovers on Saturday, which meant no climbing through windows after dark. Her mom, unlike the rest of our parents, had the enlightened viewpoint that unisex sleepovers were nothing to be afraid of and that we were all, in fact, a lot more innocent than we looked.
    I was more innocent than I wanted to be, that was for sure, even after countless unauthorized coed sleepovers at Gavin’s, Keelor’s, or Vix’s. The first of those parties had begun as a casual midnight hockey game over at the arena. Victoria had come up with the inspired after-hours visitation idea—giving you some understanding of how she got her nickname, Vixen. She was after Keelor mostly, but she liked to party in general, if you know what I mean. Anyway, it was a good idea, as long as no one got caught. All we needed was someone’s basement (or similarly private space)