The Libby Garrett Intervention (Science Squad #2) (26 page)

“And we don’t showboat around like we’re big effing deals,” Dex said.

“Yeah, it’s just about the skating for us,” CJ added. “Not the popularity.”

Dex, Rafe, and I all looked at CJ and cracked up together. “Only because you couldn’t get popularity even if you were the best pro in the world, CJ,” I teased.

“Which you could only dream about, because you can’t skate for shit,” Dex added.

“Yeah, man,” Rafe said. “You aren’t here for the skating. You’re here because it’s shorts weather.”

Just as he said that, Joey’s cheerleader girlfriend came over with her mile-long legs in her super-short shorts and handed me a pocketknife with a screwdriver attachment.

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

I flipped my board over and immediately went to work tightening my loose wheel while the rest of my friends took the moment to watch Joey’s girlfriend walk away.

“Damn, I love spring,” CJ muttered, and we all laughed again.

I bowed out of the conversation then. My board was fixed and I was itching to take it for a ride. With so much on my mind today, I threw myself into the bowl as if I were competing for the gold in the X Games. It was the only way I’d be able to empty my head.

Like always, once I started skating, everything melted away. It worked for about forty-five minutes, and then Libby showed up at the park, effectively jogging my memory and my nerves all at once.

I slid to a stop just in time to hear Joey mutter something to his friend about the crazy cat girl. His friends laughed and one of them said something about her weight, which made me see red. I whirled around, tempted to beat the living shit out of him, but then Libby would have found out they were making fun of her. Instead, I glared at all of them and called out to Libby, waving her over. “Long time no see, Cider Chick! Where’ve you been all week? I’ve missed you.”

Joey and his friends nearly fell over from shock. In fact, the entire park seemed to stop and gape at me, but I ignored it. Sending Joey’s group one last look that promised death if they said another word, I went to meet Libby, where she stood frozen at the edge of the park. She was just as shocked as everyone else. For some reason, that made me smile, and I was able to relax when I finally reached her. “You had me worried that someone had abducted you or something when you didn’t come in to get your cider all week.”

It took Libby a moment to break from her stupor. She glanced behind me at all the people staring, but when I refused to acknowledge the awkwardness, she did her best to ignore it, too. “I was,” she answered. “I was kidnapped by my slave driver of a father. I’m working on making amends. I owe Levi a chance to meet his favorite author, and I needed some serious scratch in order to make that happen. I agreed to work for my Dad until I go to college this fall, and he hasn’t given me a minute of free time ever since. All of the inventory came in for the shop this week. I’ve been unpacking, shelving, cataloging, and pricing all week. I finally staged a prison break.”

That was the best news I’d ever heard. Not only had she not been avoiding me, but she’d been working on her steps still. I hadn’t freaked her out. My stomach finally unraveled from the tight ball of stress it had been wrapped in all week, and I laughed. “So you came to the skate park instead of Jo’s in your precious moments of freedom?”

Libby held up a familiar to-go cup. “Oh, I stopped there first. Josiah mentioned you like to come here after your shift, so I took a chance that you’d be here. Looks like I got lucky.”

She gave me a smile that brightened her eyes and did something to my chest, making it hard to breathe. “You were looking for me?”

“Well, I mean, I was mostly looking for the cider,” she teased.

I threw my hand over my heart. “You wound me.”

She smirked for a moment, then released a long sigh. “My cider didn’t taste as good coming from Josiah, and I realized it was because I missed you, too. So I came to stalk you at the skate park.”

She bit her lip, as if worried that she’d overstepped the boundaries of our relationship, but she didn’t need to worry. If I had my way, there wouldn’t be any boundaries between us. Peeking up at me, she glanced behind us at the busy park and quietly asked, “Think you could show me the secret to not falling off a skateboard?”

Was she really here at the park just to hang out with me? Had she really missed me as much as I’d missed her this week? This seemed too good to be true, but I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. I smiled so big my cheeks hurt, and nodded. “I’d love to.”

When I turned to head back to the skate park, Libby came to a sudden stop, narrowing her eyes on the crowd. After hearing Joey and his friends, I understood her nerves, but she was with me now. She was going to see that that meant something. I was going to make a difference for her.

In a bold move, I took her hand in mine, lacing our fingers together. When she sucked in a sharp breath, I winked at her. She looked down at our hands again, and then her eyes flicked out at the crowd of people starting to stare at us again. Yes, they could all see that we were holding hands, and no, I didn’t give a damn what a single one of them thought. All that mattered was how Libby felt. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll introduce you to some of the guys.” I gave her a look. “The ones who
aren’t
giant sphincters.”

I tugged on Libby’s hand, but she didn’t move. Her countenance had changed again, like it had last weekend in her driveway. Her spunk was gone and she was once again unsure of herself. I understood she felt vulnerable, but she was going to give me a complex if she kept getting so confused every time I made a move toward her. “Libby?”

I squeezed her hand again, snapping her out of her funk a little. She looked up at me with wide eyes. “You really want to introduce me to your friends?”

Not for the first time, I wanted to pound the hell out of Owen Jackson. I tried to keep cool for her sake, though. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I? We’re supposed to be building you a support system, remember? Better to have friends with some of the same interests as you. Dex might even be able to help you with your skateboarding better than me. He snowboards a lot too, so he knows where you’re coming from.”

Determination washed over Libby. Her grip on my hand was clammy, but she pulled her shoulders back as she took a deep breath and gave me a smile. “You rock. Let’s roll.”

I couldn’t help smiling again.
There
was the strong girl I’d always admired so much. Libby was starting to gain some of herself back.

There was a slight lull in the commotion as Libby and I approached the skate park. I knew Libby was nervous, but you couldn’t tell it by looking at her. She’d pulled herself together like a pro. She didn’t have to worry about Joey’s crowd very long, though, because one scathing look from me had them minding their own business.

It was my friends who gave us crap. Dex took one look at our hands, punched me in the shoulder, and said, “I
knew
you had a hard-on for this chick.”

I rolled my eyes while Libby’s doubled in size.

I didn’t deny the accusation. First of all, it was true, and second of all, I wanted to see Libby’s face when I more or less admitted it. “What can I say? She’s a lot better looking than your sorry ass.”

Definitely worth it. Libby was still staring at me when I introduced her. “Libby, this is Dex, Rafe, CJ, and my sister, Kate.”

Of course Kate had come to join us the second I brought Libby over. At least she was able to play it somewhat cool, though. The guys teasing me about Libby was one thing, but it would have been humiliating coming from my kid sister.

Libby was forced to stop gaping at me when the guys started slapping her hand. The moment her attention was turned, Kate elbowed me in the ribs and flashed me a smug smile. I pulled her hair hard enough to make her yelp, and focused back on my friends just in time to see Rafe pick up Libby’s hand and run his finger up her arm. I knew what he was doing, but I still nearly put my fist in his gut. “You have really nice skin,” he said to a shocked Libby. “Got any ink?”

The only reason I didn’t tear her away from him and beat him to the ground was because I wanted to hear her answer. Swallowing hard, she shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about it, though. I want something with snowflakes, or maybe just one really intricate flake, but I can’t decide where to get it.”

When Rafe grinned, I pulled Libby a safe distance away from him. “Don’t even think about it, Rafe.”

Rafe laughed. “Man, you really do have it bad.”

I flipped him off, and he returned the gesture before grinning at Libby again. “Once you figure out where you want that snowflake, princess, you come find me. I’ll hook you up. I could do something killer with snow. That’s an awesome concept.”

“Hey!” Kate whined. “How come you’ve never offered to ink me?”

Rafe snorted and smirked in my direction. “Your brother would kill me, little Katie.”

She scoffed at the same time that Libby gasped. “Are you the one who did Adam’s sleeves?”

Rafe grinned. “Pretty sick, huh?”

“They’re amazing,” Libby agreed. She glanced at me and asked, “So, does he have anything anywhere else besides the sleeves? He won’t say.”

We all laughed, and Rafe shook his head. “A tattoo artist knows better than to ink and tell, but I bet if you got him alone it wouldn’t take much convincing to get him to show you. The poor bastard never gets any action.”

Kate shrieked and left us to go skate. Just as well. I didn’t like her hearing about my sex life any more than she appreciated it. I still laughed with everyone as she took off. She deserved it, for all the crap she’d given me about Libby lately.

When I looked away from Kate, I found Libby watching me in a way that got my blood pumping. I loved it when she looked at me like that. The fact that she was attracted to
me
when she’d been with a guy that looked like Owen Jackson was baffling, but whenever I caught her thinking about me that way, I did my best to let her know the attraction went both ways.

Dex interrupted our staredown, grabbing Libby’s attention. “I’ve seen your dad in competition before. Do you snowboard, too?”

Libby responded with, “Do unicorns poop rainbows?”

I laughed when all the guys looked to me for clarification. “I think that means yes.”

There was a moment’s pause while the guys processed the awesomeness that is Libby. Then Libby stood there in a state of confusion as they all accepted her with head nods, smiles, and welcoming greetings. “That’s it?” she asked me, after they’d all fallen into the fray of skateboarders using the bowl. “Just ‘Hey, want a tattoo? Snowboarding is awesome, let’s be friends now’?”

I nodded. “I told you not everyone who uses this park is a jerk. You can come back anytime and talk to any of them even if I’m not here. They’ll be cool.”

“No comments on my weight, or the helmet, or my lack of skateboarding talent?”

Was this really the kind of treatment she got all the time that she couldn’t even comprehend people not making fun of her? Yeah, I dropped out of school my freshman year, but I didn’t remember it being that cruel. “They’ll never comment on your weight, they’ll probably try to help you with your skateboarding, and…” I looked at the cat stickers on her helmet and smirked. “Okay, they’ll eventually start razzing you about the helmet. And probably the blinding hair. And definitely the cat shirts.” She folded her arms and started tapping her foot. “But that’s how you’ll know you’ve been fully accepted. Giving you crap is their way of showing affection. Promise.” I kicked my board into my hands and nudged Libby with my elbow. “Now, come on. Show me what you’ve got, Cider Chick.”

. . . . .

I skated with Libby until the sun started to set. She wasn’t terrible. She wasn’t great, but she had some skill. I worked with her, and the guys threw out tips and advice every now and again, too. By evening, her face was glowing. Her smile was brighter, her eyes twinkled, and her sass was in high gear. She was a lot quicker with the witty comebacks than any of my friends, and they were so impressed with her ability to talk trash that they’d sort of made a game out of it.

It was nice to see the old Libby come out of hiding. She’d even forgotten all about Joey Stinson and his team of wannabes. They’d laughed and whispered to each other several times—especially when she fell—but none of them dared get too obnoxious because I’d have kicked their asses, and they knew it.

Libby was working on her ollie when she ate pavement pretty hard. She cursed like a sailor as she brushed the dirt off her jeans and discovered a tear in her knee. At least, I assumed she was cursing. I don’t speak science geek enough to know for sure. “Maybe I should just stick with snow,” she grumbled.

“You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.” Dex said as I helped her to her feet. “Your balance is excellent. It’s really just a matter of getting used to using the balls of your feet and kicking from the nose of the board instead of the tail.”

Libby nodded. “And not being strapped on.”

Dex threw his arm over Libby’s shoulder. “You’ll be a pro in no time, Cider Chick. Hell, you’re already better than CJ, and he’s been trying to master the sport for years.”

Words were exchanged between Dex and CJ, but I think Libby was smiling at the fact that Dex had used my nickname for her more than she was amused by the insults. She grinned at me, and I winked.