Chapter 3: Gossip and Gatorade
Maggie spills the tea on Greyson.
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Previously on Pawfect Partners … In chapter 2, Greyson and Ava meet again, this time at the animal rescue shelter, where they both volunteer.
Ava
I was right: Greyson is the type to take all AP classes. He’s in all four of my classes, so escaping him is impossible. Especially since his last name turns out to be Bertram, and since the AP lang, pre-Calculus, and AP bio teachers seat us in alphabetical order, and no one with names between Barratt and Bertram are enrolled, that means the twig-with-muscles Greyson Barratt sits directly behind me. Or beside me, in the case of AP bio lab tables. Which means he’ll be my lab partner. Joy, joy.
I try to ignore him but that’s almost impossible, considering how quickly Greyson gains popularity. It’s astounding, a gift, really, as if everyone sees something cool in this guy that I don’t and can’t and never will.
Okay, so Greyson volunteers at an animal shelter, and I’ll admit that seeing him holding Ozzy in his arms tugged at my heart. But I’ve got bigger issues to deal with.
Like what LeNora told me before I left yesterday. “I don’t think we’re going to make the next rent,” she said. “The landlord’s raised the rent again.” I’d heard her on the phone to the landlord earlier, before I helped show the families the dogs up for adoption.
Both families adopted dogs. Stripes and Chipper found their forever homes. But even that happiness didn’t take away from her constant budget-stress.
I know why she told me. My grandfather is the landlord. He’s always been a hard-driving businessman, but since Grandma died, he’s turned into the most crotchety, ornery man in the city, maybe even in the state of Alabama. And that’s saying a lot, since crotchety, ornery men gravitate towards this place like it’s the magnetic North pole. (The incentive is really the low taxes, according to my grandfather.)
I’m the only one who can manage him and sweettalk him into doing anything he doesn’t want to do.
Now it goes without saying that LeNora hopes I might persuade him to lower the rent, or at least defer the due date. I only nodded. No promises. Even I can’t work miracles, but I’m also the one person Granddad (sometimes) allows to weasel a better deal from him. Sometimes.
LeNora doesn’t know that I already knew about the higher rent, or that I’d stopped by Granddad’s office on my way to the grocery store, or that the outcome of my impromptu meeting wasn’t what I wanted. That sub-four marathon last December was easier than this.
I don’t let my dark thoughts show on my face.
But at cross country practice, Maggie falls into stride beside me, an easy eight-minute mile pace. “So. The new guy. Want to know what Noah told me?”
“Sure.” Noah’s her current boyfriend of the month. Nice guy; handles her over-the-top drama with a Hakuna Katata vibe; at least a four-out-of-five stars on my approval rating, not that Maggie consults me on this.
Part of the boys’ team—shirtless, as always—passes us. Maggie and I roll our eyes. The guys are probably returning from their gas station stop to grab mid-run food; the varsity guys do that and Coach Sweatman lets them. Yes, his name is Sweatman, and yes, we do sweat. In an Alabama August, you sweat by stepping outside, never mind running. Greyson is with them, exceeding our fastest runner’s strides easily.
“Well,” Maggie says, huffing a little, “Greyson’s moved here from Colorado. According to Noah, Greyson’s really smart, a little cocky—”
No kidding.
“But he’s sweet. And funny. Remember when the guys brought back that folding chair they found on their run last week? The one out by the curb in the neighborhood?”
“Yeah, the neighborhood that doesn’t want us running in it.”
“Greyson’s idea. He’s the one who dared Jaylen to do it.”
Last week, the guys came back from their run sweaty and hollering, Jaylen leading the pack with a metal folding chair above his head. All of them whooped as they ran shirtless past us girls while we rolled our eyes and drank Gatorade in the shade. The chair, obviously a roadside discard and therefore up for grabs, now sat in our athletic department storage shed, its crumpled seat rusty, like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it and left it out in the rain.
“Okay,” I say, “so he’s into doing stupid stuff. That doesn’t mean I have to like him.”
“Who said anything about liking him?” She huffs a little, striding faster to keep my tempo. “He’s very likeable, though. I’m surprised you haven’t met him.”
“I did. Yesterday. At Publix and at the animal shelter.”
She stops, then sprints to catch up. “The animal shelter?” She almost squeals. “He’s a volunteer like you, Ava. That’s so cute.”
We slow as we approach the school parking lot. “Is he good with the dogs? I bet he is. He seems like the strong protective type. Exactly what you need in your life, Ava.”
“I don’t need a guy to distract me, Maggie,” I say, grabbing the gatorade that Coach brought for the team, then walking to cool off in the shade of the athletic building. “I’ve got other things to handle.”
“Like what?”
“School, you know,” I say, keeping my eyes on my phone screen so she doesn’t see the dread in my eyes. Dread that I’ll try once more, with Granddad, and he still won’t relent, and the animal shelter will disappear from my life.
Noah calls for Maggie and she runs over and they kiss sweetly, while a chorus of middle school girls giggling and the guys make puking sounds.
I walk in circles and pull up the running app on my phone. Six-point-seven miles in 44:27, one second better than my last run. The team shares their accounts with each other so now I scroll through the updates.
Maggie: sweaty!!!
Alexa: trash, Chickasaw’s gonna KILL me.
On the app, the middle school girls post emojis instead of words. Sad faces, happy faces, an occasional PR for personal record. I click like on several, add sad faces to the unhappy posts. As girls’ team captain, I try to encourage them. One or two have potential to be good in a few years—if they work hard—but the younger ones struggle. They all need to hustle.
One of the girls, a seventh grader, runs up to me and red-faced and almost bouncing on her feet, squeals how she ran her first nine minute mile! I hug her. “I knew you could do it!”
Truthfully, at the beginning of June, I had my doubts whether this girl could run a mile without walking, so this is a huge leap forward and relieves my anxiety. No girl from this team is going to come in last at any meet, not if I can help it.
“The new guy? Greyson? He helped me!” Every sentence ended in a question mark or an exclamation mark. “He said to match my breath with my steps! Just like you did! But it totally made sense finally, like it clicked! And it totally worked!”
I force a smile. “Cool.”
A dozen parking spots away, across the aisle, Greyson’s perched on the tailgate of a pickup truck, slugging back water and laughing. He and Jaylen exchange high fives. Something stupid, probably.
I only skim the boys’ lengthy posts with every unnecessary detail about their run.
Jaylen’s post is about three paragraphs long, and includes what he ate at the gas station (donuts and an icee) and how he ran like trash but probably because he hasn’t broken in his new shoes and blah, blah, blah. Noah’s is similarly long. All of them are.
Then there’s Greyson’s: Not bad.
Not bad? I saw him running. He led the pack by a good thirty-seconds and he was barely breathing hard, not even as hard as Jaylen, easily our fastest runner. Not anymore, apparently.
The stats confirm this. Apparently the veganism is paying off, though where he gets the muscles from, I haven’t a clue. I click the like button on his post, so he’s more likely to check out my time. No need to comment. My time speaks for itself.
