Major Crush by Jennifer Echols

out casually from A llison that she didn’t have plans with me? I knew the thing to do was be firm, stand my ground, and turn him down nicely.
    Otherwise he’d keep asking me out. But I didn’t know how to do that.
    Besides, Drew was standing there. I thought he might politely leave us alone for a minute. Then I could turn Barry down. Barry would still be mad, but at least I wouldn’t embarrass the crap out of him and give the trombones something else to make fun of him about.
    Drew said, “She’s dating Walter Lloyd.”
    “You are?” Barry asked, eyes wide again.
    I am? I thought.
    “I didn’t know that,” Barry said. “I knew you were friends with him, but … Isn’t he a year younger than you?”
    I nodded.
    Barry plucked his trombone from the grass. “Okay, then. Y’all have fun. Break a leg.” He jogged across the field to the rest of the band.
    Drew turned to me and smiled. “You’re welcome. Now, let’s practice the dip a few more times so I can really get the feel of you.”
    We stared at each other.
    “That’s not what I meant.” He squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. “Every word out of my mouth this afternoon—”
    “I know. Me too.” I laughed so he wouldn’t feel so self-conscious. Which was kind of hard to do, when I was more self-aware than I’d ever been in my life.
    He opened those beautiful dark eyes and grinned at me. “You know what I mean.”
    Oh, yeah. “I know what you mean.” I just wished he really meant it the other way.
    He put his hand there and his leg there—gently this time. He dipped me slowly, with control. Holding me steady, he shifted his hands a little.
    If I didn’t know better, I would have said he did enjoy touching me, after all.
    “I’m not dating Walter,” I breathed.
    “I know you’re not,” he said, his lips close to my lips. “I was just trying to get you out of dating Barry. That is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
    I struggled until he set me on my feet. “Then why’d you tell Mr. Rush in his office that I was dating Walter?”
    “Oh. That was just to make you mad. You know, before we suddenly became chums.” He nudged me on one shoulder with his fist, chumly.
    “You didn’t want to go out with Barry, did you?”
    “No,” I said emphatically. “A nd I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But I also didn’t want to lie to him. It seems under-handed.”
    Drew shrugged. “Then why didn’t you say something?”
    “I was too stunned by your rude interruption.”
    “Oh, come on.” He put his hands on me and dipped me slowly, gently. “Barry only asked you out in front of me so you couldn’t say no. He knew you wouldn’t want to embarrass him. One underhanded trick deserves another.”
    “But it’s going to get around the whole school that I’m dating Walter. What if I wanted to go out with someone else?” Too late I realized that I probably sounded like I wanted to go out with Drew.
    Which I did.
    “What if you did?” he asked evenly, holding my gaze with his dark eyes.
    “Then he wouldn’t ask me out now.”
    Drew smiled. “Maybe he would.”
    I wanted to know how this mythical boy could ask me out. Would he brick his girlfriend and her twin sister up in the instrument storage room like in ‘The Cask of A montillado’?
    Maybe Drew was just flirting with me, pointlessly, for fun. Maybe he did like touching me during the dip, even though it didn’t mean anything to him. That was cool. I could enjoy a football season of flirting with Drew and touching Drew. If I didn’t die of heart palpitations.
    Or heartbreak.
    He set me up standing. “It was meant as a favor. Just take it as a favor and say, ‘Thank you, Drew.’”
    “Thank you, Drew. May I have another?”
    “Drum majors,” the band called across the field. It was time to run through the halftime show, and Mr. Rush was motioning us over.
    “Horrible drum majors,” someone else called. “Hey, really bad drum majors.”
    The laughing look in Drew’s eyes