Gone

“What the hell?” I mumbled as I walked down the hallway on Monday with Manny. I sniffed again and furrowed my brows in confusion. “Why does it smell like chicken nuggets?”

“Because it’s lunch block,” Manny answered with a slight tone of irritation. When I cocked an eyebrow at her, she continued, “Fourth period…?”

“It’s only the start of third period,” I corrected. “So why would they have started cooking two hours early?”

“I don’t know. And you know what else I don’t understand?”

“What?” The second the word left my mouth, I cringed and let out a long sigh. I’d walked right into the set up. Again.

“Why my best friend in the whole wide world won’t tell me why she was kissing Liam Payne at the party on Friday.”

At first, I’d felt guilty every time she played the Best Friend Card. I probably should have owned up to what happened, how I’d been seconds away from committing the worst mistake of my life before I was lucky enough to have Manny intervene. But after the five hundredth time of her trying to get me to tell her, I was just starting to get annoyed.

“I didn’t kiss Liam!” I snapped, maybe a little too loudly for our mostly-isolated part of the hallway. “Nothing happened, so drop it.”

Manny’s trimmed eyebrows pulled together. “But something almost happened, and that’s still worth mentioning.”

“It doesn’t matter. I still don’t like him, so even if we had kissed, which we didn’t, nothing would happen.”

“Now you’re just being stubborn. It’s clear that you’re attracted to him. Just get over it and shove your tongue down his throat.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes as I disappeared into my English classroom without saying anything in parting.

It really irritated me that Manny kept bringing up the situation. I was trying as hard as I could to forget about it, and every time I got close, she revived all the images again, destroying any progress I’d made.

I would have given anything in the world to forget the feeling of Liam’s hair running through the fingers, the fluttering of my stomach as our faces moved ever-closer, and the sweet smell of alcohol swirling between us.



“C’mon, guys!” I shouted, clapping my hands together, watching my team take laps around the field. I normally wouldn’t have made them do so many, but five of the kids had looked somewhat sluggish during drills, and I needed to wake them up.

And to my surprise, Liam was bringing up the rear, even though he was probably the fastest on the team. Besides me, of course.

“Payne!” I screamed. “Move your feet! Let’s go!”

His jaw locked, his lips moving rapidly, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out he was cursing me with everything under the sun.

So in response, before I could stop myself, I yelled, “Still hung over, Payne?”

His regular cocky smirk pulled up one side of his mouth as he replied, slightly breathlessly, “A little. What about you?”

The sign of disrespect made the blood rush to my face. As leader of my team, I had to be a role model of sorts for the younger players, which meant there could be absolutely no reference to me doing anything immature or irresponsible. It took away a layer of the amount of respect they had gained for me, and if that respect dwindled too much, our coach would have to start attending practices again, making soccer no longer a student-run sport.

“I feel great,” I replied enthusiastically. “Because I didn’t drink.”

He glanced over with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, looking all too prepared to make some kind of a witty response. But when he saw my harsh, all-business glare, he shut his mouth and picked up the pace, passing to player in front of him.

Ten laps of the field later, I let all the sweaty, exhausted players retire to the locker rooms. I could tell that some of them hated me in the moment, but they’d appreciated it when they noticed their endurance improving.

“Hey, Frankie,” Liam called as I grabbed my water off the ground on the sidelines, flipping open the top and taking a swig.

“What?” I replied without turning around.

I could hear him jogging toward me, and I didn’t have to glance over to know when he finally made it to my side. His body was radiating heat from the workout, and his breathing sounded much more like panting.

“Are we going to talk about what happened on Friday?” With his voice quieter, his accent was much more obvious, and I had to focus on ignoring it.

“Nothing happened,” I reminded him nonchalantly. “Manny interrupted.”

“But something almost happened.” He took a deep breath, probably trying to steady his voice and sound more serious. “Just admit you have feelings for me so we can put this behind-”

“Me?!” My voice cracked as it shot through about five hundred octaves. “Have feelings for you? I don’t think so, buddy.”

“Oh? And am I supposed to believe that you didn’t drink, too? Because if you were sober, and you were seriously going to kiss me, then I have to think that maybe, deep down inside, you might like me a little.”

“Like you?!” I struggled to keep from scream-laughing in his face as I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Babe, I like you as much as I like getting a colonoscopy.”

Liam cringed a little, though it was clear he was trying to hide how he felt about the simile. “So you were drinking.”

“It doesn’t matter what I was doing. You can’t announce that shit to my team. I’m a role model. They can’t think of me like another student who does dumb things, because then they won’t respect me. If this team is going to be cohesive, we need a leader, and that leader is me.”

Liam let out a sigh. “I don’t know why you’re resisting this.”

“I’m not resisting anything. Now can I change out of my sweaty clothes?”

He went to nod, but then a smile lit up his face, and he said, “No. I have a proposition for you.”

I groaned, throwing my head back and closing my eyes with irritation. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”

“Play me.” When I cocked an eyebrow at him, he clarified, “This Friday, our day off, on this pitch, at seven. If you beat me, I’ll leave you alone and respect your authority, and you never have to talk to me again. But if I win, you have to go out on a date with me, of my choosing, and we end it how I want to.”

I narrowed my eyes and struggled not to punch him out. “Fine. But we’re not ending the date the way you want to because I know you’ll want to fuck, and I’m not going to have sex with someone on the first date.”

“Virgin?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I’m a slut. There’s a balance.” Scoffing and rolling my eyes, I started to storm away. “Be on your game at practice tomorrow, or I’ll make you regret it!” I yelled loudly enough to make sure he heard me, although my back was to him.

“Sir, yes, sir!” he replied in that accent. His tone was so incredibly cocky, and I knew he thought that he had the challenge in the bag. He thought that he’d basically just cinched a date with me, where he’d be able to take me wherever he wanted without me being able to say no.

But he had no idea how hard I’d play. If I had a say in the situation, I was going to whoop Liam Payne’s ass so hard that his parents back in England would feel it.