After she’d gone, I modeled several different hairstyles in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to decide which made me look the sexiest. Almost everything made me look cute, like an innocent, virginal little girl—the innocent, virginal little girl that, in reality, I guess I was. But that wouldn’t work. I needed something hot. I needed to look mature and enticing. Everything about my appearance needed to make Cash want to rip my clothes off.

I watched my reflection redden at the thought of Cash ripping my… Well, you know. I reminded myself that it wouldn’t get that far, so there wasn’t any reason to think about it. Ever. This was just a game.

After an hour and a half in the bathroom, with Logan banging on the door, telling me to hurry up so he could take a shower, I found just the right look. My shoulder-length black hair was pulled back into a high, tight ponytail that showed off my neck and gave me a sharp, mature edge. Great.

The knob rattled on the door. “Lissa, I’m serious. Get the hell out of there so I can get cleaned up and go to bed! Some of us have work in the morning, you know.”

I opened the door. “And some of us have to be at school before you even wake up for work,” I told him. “The bathroom’s all yours.”

Logan rolled his eyes and shoved past me. I could smell the perfume on him just before he nudged me out of the bathroom and slammed the door. He’d been out with his mystery girlfriend almost every night this week. Even last night—he’d picked me up from the library, dropped me off at home, and then sped off to meet her again.

“Are we sure he isn’t running an illegal drug operation?” I asked Dad in the kitchen while I poured myself a glass of milk. “I mean, that would explain the frequency of these so-called dates.”

Dad laughed. “Or maybe he just likes her a lot and wants to see her every day? Back when I first started dating your mother, I wanted to see her every single night. I couldn’t be around her enough. That was how I knew I was in love with her. Even her bad jokes didn’t get old.”

I walked over to the kitchen table and sat down across from him. “But did you keep her a secret? Did you tell people you were with her?”

“Are you kidding?” Dad smiled, remembering. “I told everyone. I was damn proud a girl like your mother was dating me. I would have shouted it from the rooftops if I could have.”

I nodded and took a sip of my milk. “I miss her,” I said finally. “Not as much as I used to—it was harder at first—but I still miss her. Sometimes I just want to walk in after school and talk to her, you know?”

“I know,” he said. “Believe me, I know. I miss her every day. But you know what helps?”

“What?” I asked.

Dad reached across the table and I took his hand. “Looking at you,” he said. “You are just like her, Lissa. Smart and funny and beautiful—and a little bossy, too.” He grinned. “She’d be proud of you.”

I wondered if he was right. If Mom would be proud of me. What would she think of the sex strike? What would she say about what I was planning on doing to Cash tomorrow? That was one of my biggest regrets about my mother. We’d never had the chance to talk about boys or sex or anything like that. Sometimes I wondered if that was why this whole thing was so confusing, because I didn’t have a mother to discuss these issues with.

And there was no way I could talk about it with Dad. Our version of “the talk” had been him clearing his throat awkwardly for about ten minutes straight as he attempted to explain to me the importance of condoms. I was fourteen, and, needless to say, it was an experience I never wanted to relive.

Sometimes, it made me wish Dad had remarried, that I had a stepmother. Not so much to fill in that empty space Mom had left in our lives—no one could do that—but to talk to me about things only girls could talk about. But I’d always known that would never happen. My father had been too in love with my mother to move on after her death. He’d told me once that dating would never work because he’d compare every woman to Mom—and the truth was, no one could compare.

Still, I wondered what Mom would say to me if she saw me now. Somehow, I worried she wouldn’t be quite as proud of me as Dad thought.

“I’m going to bed,” I said, finishing my milk and standing. “Are you staying up?”

“Just for a little while,” he said, rolling his chair toward the living room. “I want to watch the news, see the sports report—you know the drill.”

“Okay,” I said. “Don’t be up too long, okay? You need plenty of rest. It’s a big part of staying healthy.”

Dad smiled at me. “Good night, Lissa.”

“ ’Night, Dad.”

I walked upstairs, readjusting a slightly crooked picture frame on the wall on my way, and got ready for bed. Tomorrow was game day.

chapter twenty-­five

I texted Logan from work the next afternoon and told him that I didn’t need a ride home that night. I had another plan for what I’d be doing after work.

This time, I was the one to sneak up on Cash. He was in the magazine room at the back of the library, reorganizing a stack of National Geographics that some nerdy twelve-year-old had raided early in the afternoon. I stood in the doorway, watching the muscles in his back and arms flex and shift as he reached up to the shelf, right at his eye level, and placed each magazine neatly on top of the stack. The perfect order in which he arranged the magazines made me swoon a little.

I readjusted my posture, ran my hands down my skirt, and took a quiet breath before strutting over to him.

“Hey,” I said, leaning against a shelf full of Newsweek issues.

Cash jumped.

“Oh, finally. I caught you off guard.”

He turned and grinned at me. “Score one for Lissa.”

“Yeah, well… You didn’t almost fall off a ladder or crack your skull on a wooden shelf, so we aren’t quite even yet.”

Cash laughed and turned back to the magazines. “What’s up?”

This was the curse of Cash and me. We were doomed to never, ever acknowledge the fact that we’d kissed. I was sensing a pattern here.

“I, um, have a favor to ask,” I said. I could feel the heat rising into my face and neck, but I fought to keep calm. I’d rehearsed this, after all. This was part of the plan.

“Okay. What is it?”

“I’m supposed to write a thesis for English.” I said it just like I’d practiced in the bathroom mirror that morning. “I’m working on this paper about how participating in sports affects, um, grades and stuff… for teenagers, you know? And, uh, Mrs. Perkins says I need firsthand accounts or something to validate my arguments. Would it be okay if I interviewed you?”

Cash looked at me again. “You want to interview me? Why don’t you just interview your brother? He played football in high school, didn’t he?”

“Um, yeah…. But that’s only one sport,” I pointed out. “I need people in different types. So I’d love your point of view on soccer and how it affects your health.”

“You mean my grades?”

Crap. I was already screwing up the story.

“Right. Grades. So can you do an interview for me?” I batted my eyelashes in an attempt to appear seductive, but I was pretty sure I just came off looking ridiculous. “Please?”

Cash smiled at me as he put away the most recent copy of National Geographic, the last that needed to be shelved. “You sure you want to talk to me?” he asked. “Won’t it be weird with this whole strike thing? We are kind of enemies at the moment, aren’t we?”

“Enemies?” I forced a laugh. “No, of course not. It’ll be fine. As long as you don’t try any of your battle tactics on me, I’ll be good.” I winked at him, and he grinned.

I kind of reveled in my own hypocrisy for a minute. He had no idea what was coming.

“I guess it’s cool,” he said. “But we can’t do it here; Jenna will be on us in a heartbeat. When do you need it by? You could just e-mail me the questions.”