A Game Worth Watching by Samantha Gudger Page B

school. It wasn’t a hop, skip, or jump away, but when she
didn’t have a car, a bike, or even a skateboard, walking was the next best
thing. The darkness never scared her. She knew how to kick and scream and throw
a decent punch, and unless someone needed the day’s Physics notes, no one would
attack a girl who possessed no money or valuables. Her lack of appeal was good
considering she’d just endured a full school day, a two-and-a-half-hour team
practice, and another two-hour practice with Ashley. Yes, two hours! She had only planned to stay
for twenty minutes tops, but when she looked at the clock, two hours had
passed. Her legs felt like rubber, her arms like dead weights, and her backpack
seemed to weigh five hundred pounds. By the time she approached the driveway to
her house, her eyes were half closed and her feet shuffled along the ground.
    “Hey.”
    One
word, plus the silhouette of a person popping out from behind the bushes in
front of her house when the world was pitch black, caused Emma to jump back in
alarm. It wasn’t an overreacting girly response complete with some high-pitched
scream—no way would she sink to that level—but it was the response
of any normal person being attacked at night. Her hand curled into a fist and
her arm pulled back ready to swing at her attacker, when she recognized Riley’s
face. “Geez,” she gasped, clutching his arm. “Could you not scare me to death
next time?”
    Moonless
night and a boy dressed in black jumping out from the bushes wasn’t her idea of
an acceptable greeting.
    “Wasn’t
practice over three hours ago?” Riley demanded. “Why are you home so late?”
    “What
are you, my warden?”
    He
just stared at her, waiting for an answer.
    Riley
was the last person she wanted to tell about how her post-practice time was now
devoted to babysitting some incompetent freshman girl and teaching her the
fundamentals of basketball. It would be like telling him she had to be tutored
in remedial math as a senior. He would laugh, he would accuse her of growing
soft, or worse, he would actually agree with the whole arrangement. A true
confession was not in her best interest. She stifled a yawn. “I had stuff to
do.”
    “What
kind of stuff?”
    She
shrugged. “Stuff. What’s with the interrogation?”
    “You’re
not two-timing me, are you?”
    Two-timing?
Was he serious? She squinted at him, trying to see if he was joking, but it was
hard to tell in the dark. “What kind of question is that?”
    He
shrugged, not in a nonchalant way, but in an I-know-you’re-hiding-something
kind of way. “Depends on what kind of answer you give.”
    “My
answer hasn’t changed,” she said flatly, rolling her eyes and pushing past him.
She was too tired to play his ridiculous games, especially after spending two
hours with a freshman. Riley and Emma were friends. Aside from all the recent
kissing action, there’d never been anything more than friendship between them,
and two-timing didn’t exist with friends.
    “So,
does that mean you haven’t found yourself a boyfriend?” He didn’t bother trying
to block her way into the house, knowing she would spin around and retrace her
steps to face him.
    She
opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. How was she supposed to
respond to that question? Boyfriend? Where in the world did he get such an
absurd idea?
    He
leaned toward her. “Because if you’ve found yourself a boyfriend, I need to
meet him and put him through the worthy test.”
    She
crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows. This ought to be good. “The worthy
test?”
    “Yes,
the worthy test.”
    He
was completely serious. They’d had a lot of conversations throughout their
eight years of friendship and they’d covered a lot of topics, but worthy tests
were definitely not among them. Now, as he plunged them into new territory, her
curiosity peaked. “Which is?”
    “You
know, the general Q and A.” He started counting on his fingers. “What is