by Cassie Mae
“Nice improv,” I tell her.
“You too.”
“Let’s get out of here, yeah?”
“Agreed.”
Sam slides to the middle seat, and I settle my arm between her legs to shift. It’s doing real funky things to my stomach and blurring my vision, but I don’t tell her to move.
Her phone vibrates between our hips, and she takes it out, talking for about two minutes… just saying “yeah” and “got it” and “okay” and I don’t ask anything because the way her voice saddens with every one word answer, I know she’s talking to her mom.
“Can I talk to Josh, please?”
I downshift and let my pinky graze her knee. Her skin puckers with goose bumps, and I have to stop myself from pulling to the side of the road and making out. We’re still in Trojan territory.
“Hey, buddy… no, I’ll be home later…I’m with Tyler…” She tilts her head to me. “Josh says ‘hi.’”
“Hey Coach.”
“Captain.”
I grin and press down a little on the gas. We’re nearly to the neutral zone.
“I love you more than summer.”
There’s a pause, and I catch Sam’s small smile in my peripheral.
“Wow…” she says, and there’s a crack in her voice. “That’s a lot.”
She hangs up, and once her phone is nestled into her pocket I take her hand and place it on the shifter with mine so we don’t have to let go. There’s a few seconds of her staring at our intertwined hands, then she bends down and trails a kiss across each one of my knuckles. My mouth runs dry, and I have to gulp, but I can’t. Instead I take pacing breaths and speed up to the park. Once we’re there, she sheds her black wig.
The field is empty, like it usually is this late. Sam ducks under my arm, and I fumble to carry the giant pile of blankets. She picks a dark spot a few feet from the forty yard line. I drop a few blankets down, leaving a couple folded in case she wants to use them for a pillow. But instead of lying down, she yanks on my jacket and pulls me in an airtight hug.
“Whoa.” I laugh, wrapping my arms around her.
“Sorry, I just… I missed you.” Her grip tightens. “It’s been a rough couple of days, and I finally get to see you, and I don’t want to worry about getting caught right now. I just want to be with you without thinking about the rivalry.”
“Okay.” I rub her back. “What’s been going on?”
“Same thing, different day.”
“With your mom? Or with your cousin.”
“Both… but right now…” She shakes her head. “It’s like she’s trying to get better, but she’s not sure how to do it.” She leans back enough to catch my eyes. “I’m trying to understand. But I feel like it shouldn’t land on just one person’s shoulders, you know? She’s supposed to help us when we’re feeling weak, and we’re supposed to help her. But her weak moments are all the time, and mine… get forced somewhere I can’t feel. It’s like I’m not allowed to be weak… and I want to be weak sometimes. I want to cry and curse the world and ask God why he took my dad away.”
“I don’t think that’s weakness,” I say, shifting my weight.
“Then what else is it?” Her eyes flick up to mine. She looks so damn beautiful, I can’t help but reach out and touch her cheek.
“You loved him.” I clear my throat, and my eyes move over her small nose, her parted lips, to her hand that tucks itself in mine. My breathing gets heavy, and I’m trying real hard to keep my voice light because I think she needs that, and I really don’t want what I’m about to say to come out the wrong way. “I think when you lose someone you love, it’s all right to forget how to keep it together.”
“I guess…”
I run my fingers down her cheek, cupping her neck and pulling her close. “If I lost you, I wouldn’t know how to live either.”
She’s breathing hard, and I know she gets what I’m implying. And I’m not afraid to say it to her. Who the hell cares if it’s too soon? It’s how I feel.
“Sam, I—”
“Oh my gosh.” A smile breaks out over her face and her eyes get real big. “This is happening.”
Something about the way the air lifts around us makes me chuckle, and I kiss her lips gently as she presses her body flush against mine. “Do I get to finish?”
“Sorry, yes.” She’s shaking, and her smile threatens to take over her entire face. “Please finish that sentence.”
“Sam, I… well, damn it.”
“What?”
Running my fingers down her neck, I give her a teasing wink. “I forgot what I was going to say.”
“Oh shut up, you did not.”
“I could use a refresher.”
“No way in hell. You know what you were going to say, and you’re torturing me on purpose.”
“It’s torture?”
She tries to take a step back, but I keep her locked in my arms. “Tyler, if you don’t say it, I will. You don’t want me to steal your man-card do you?”
My stomach gets an unexpected jolt. “You mean, you’re going to say it back?”
“Say what back? I forgot what we were talking about,” she teases, and I don’t complain because I deserve it.
“We were talking about how I love you,” I say, and it looks like her breath is gone. Mine’s about to leave, too, because I’m pretty damn sure I’m about to kiss her. A lot. And never stop. I cup her face and pull her close, and she is breathing because it’s hitting my mouth in sharp, warm gasps. “I know it’s real soon, but I do, Sam. I lov—”
“I love you, too,” she says, and I’m about to point out that she’s cutting me off again, but her lips are on mine and they’re hard, furious, passionate as frickin’ hell, and I pull her to me, heart slamming against my ribs as I lower her to the ground. She doesn’t seem to care that it’s covered in light snow, or that the blankets aren’t very thick, or that we have no pillows or anything. But she wraps a blanket over my shoulders as I settle on top of her and keep a hold of her mouth.
Her hand snakes down my spine, and I tremble against her, but she’s shaking against me, and it’s all right, because we’re doing this together. She reaches into my back pocket, and I laugh around her kisses as my wallet gets stuck.
“Are you pickpocketing me?” I ask before planting my lips under her jaw.
“Trying to.” She gives my wallet another tug and it pops loose. I have to prop myself up on my arms so she can get her hands in front of our faces.
“What are you doing?” I ask, adjusting myself so I’m lying next to her. She tightens her legs around mine though so I don’t go far.
Her nails scrape against the leather as she searches through all the pockets. A gorgeous blush rushes through her cheeks when she pulls out the foil package I put in there when Dad gave me “the talk.” My face feels warm now, too.
“I was just… making sure.”
She slides it back in the wallet, but I stop her hands. “Sam…”
Her face disappears as she buries herself in my neck. She gives me one light kiss and squeezes me tight.
“Can I sleep with you?”
My heart slams against her ear, and I’m not sure if she’ll be able to hear the croaky whisper that’s about to come out my mouth.
“Sleep with me? Or sleep with me?”
Her body moves in one fluid motion as she inhales deep and exhales against my shirt. She tilts her head up, and we look at each other I’m sure with the same exact petrified stares, but she says, “I love you. And I want to. Is it okay?”
A million thoughts flit through my brain. About the rivalry, about the open field we’re on, about who knows what and who doesn’t know anything, but they only last half a second. The only thought that sticks is I love her, and I want to, too. So I nod, then I’m smiling, then I’m tugging at her clothes and she’s tugging at mine and I’m nervous as hell, but I’m okay, too. It’s a weird bunch of shit that’s happening in my body, but for some reason, I seem to know wh
at to do…in an awkward sort of way.
I’m shaking so bad I can’t get the damn condom on. She reaches out to help me and it should be embarrassing, but it’s not.
I worry about hurting her. I worry about this being in the grass and if her back is wet even though we’re on about fifty blankets. I worry someone’s gonna find us. And I ask if she’s okay about twenty times before she finally stops me, grabbing my face and telling me she’s tough and she wants me and she wants me faster and suddenly I’m doing all those things without thinking about anything but those things.
Our breath makes clouds over our mouths when I roll off her. She shivers and tucks into my shoulder, and I notice her wiping tears from her eyes and I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing, but she’s kissing my arm and squeezing my torso and touching my face and those are all good things, so I don’t ask about the tears.
“It’s snowing,” she whispers before planting a kiss to my neck.
“Are you cold?”
“A little.”
“Maybe we should go again?” I tease, and she lightly pinches my elbow.
I turn and kiss her on the mouth as my heart slows down to its normal pace. Her lips are cherry red. Always. I wonder if it’s natural because they should be blue right now, but then I think who the hell cares? Because they’re about to press to mine again and that’s really all that matters.
“Tyler?” she breathes.
“Yeah, babe?”
She doesn’t say anything as her nail strokes my forehead, down my cheek, to my chin. My eyes open to hers, and she looks scared. Something tightens around my gut. Shit, did I hurt her?
“Are you okay?”
Those red lips part and she nods. Then her eyes squeeze shut.
“You… you won’t leave. Right?”
My breathing picks up. “What?”
“I keep having this feeling that something’s going to happen… and you’ll leave. That this will all be too much.” She opens her eyes, and the knot in my gut tightens when I see them glassy. “I’m afraid of losing you.”
I pull her to a sitting position, cupping her cheeks between my hands. She’s become everything to me. More important than my friends, my teammates…football. There is nothing in this damn world that will pull me away from her.
“You’re never getting rid of me. I love you more than football.”
She lets out a breathy laugh, resting her forehead on my shoulder. She wraps her arms around me and I let go of her cheeks to hold her back.
“Wow, that’s a lot.” Her grip tightens. “And just so you know, if you do leave… I’ll kick your ass.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
She pulls me back to the blankets, and I trace patterns across her stomach till she starts to doze. I know I’ll never leave her, but I can’t help but feel that something bad is about to happen, too… and there won’t be anything we can do to stop it.
“Uhnnn,” Paige moans from my bed as I shove her over to crawl under the sheets. We cuddle close since I’m only in a twin, but I’m freezing so I’m not sleeping on my floor.
“What time is it?” she mumbles. I tuck my shaking, blue fingers between my knees and sigh at the warmth.
“Like five,” I answer. “You can go back to sleep.”
“Five? In the morning?”
I laugh at the barely awake state she’s in. Honestly, I would’ve stayed out all night in Tyler’s arms if I wasn’t freezing to the point of hypothermia. By three o’clock we were both shivering so hard under the blankets even being naked together wasn’t helping.
A jolt goes through my stomach, and a beat drums between my legs. I’m fidgety and bouncing, and it has nothing to do with the cold.
“Are you okay?” Paige laughs as I toss and turn.
“Mmmhmm.”
She looks over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes. A slow smile forms on her lips when she notices my blissed out expression.
“How was your date?” she asks in a sing-song voice.
If possible, my smile widens and I let out a tiny squeal.
She sleepily chuckles, then turns in the bed to face me. “I take it, it went good.”
“It was better than good.” My sentence leaves on a sigh, and Paige laughs again.
“Details, please.”
I stare at the ceiling, still on a high from the night, and my mouth runs off with Tyler this and Tyler that—his words, the way they made me feel, and my stomach flips and somersaults again just retelling it. Paige is on my pillow because she’s leaning so far into me to soak in every word.
“Tyler and I just work,” I say on another sigh. “It was perfect. I wouldn’t have wanted my first time with anyone else or in any other way.”
“First time?” She shoots upright. “Did you have sex with him?” she whisper/yells.
Warmth runs through my cheeks, and that’s all the answer she needs before she smacks my arm.
“You’ve been home for ten minutes, and you’re just now telling me? How was it?”
I sit up in the sheets, keeping the comforter around me, mind reeling, body buzzing, and stomach still flipping all over the place. There is not a single word in the English language that could describe how it was. But I go with the first one that comes to mind, even if it falls short.
“Amazing.”
“Really?”
“He was so worried about me. He has got to be the sweetest guy I know.”
“Does he have a brother?”
We both laugh. “Yeah, he does. Like fifty of them. All older.” I start picking at the bedspread, smile still etched on my face. “After Dad died, I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again. I think this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”
“I’m so happy for you.” She reaches over and gives me a hug.
I back away just enough to see her face, the smile I’ve been donning starts to fade—just a little. “I’m just scared that something’s going to happen. That something’s going to ruin it. And then where will I be? I don’t know what I’d do without him, Paige. That’s the scary part. Knowing he has the ability to affect my life so much. When Dad died I didn’t get a chance to mourn. I can kind of understand Mom now, but I made a promise that I would never be in the position to be hurt like that.”
“I know, but you can’t stay away from love just because there’s a potential to get hurt. The benefits are so worth the risk. Even though your mom’s a hot mess I bet if you asked her if she would erase the years with your dad to not have to deal with the pain of losing him, I’m sure she wouldn’t. Because every memory and every smile and every tummy flip is worth something.”
I know what she’s saying. And I’m not saying that I wish I didn’t fall in love with Tyler, I’m glad I did. He’s brought a light to not only my life, but Josh’s too. And that’s worth the risk. But…
“I have a bad feeling.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.” She gives me a feigned smile and rubs her hand down my arm. “Probably just nerves ’cause you’re so happy.”
“Yeah maybe.” I let out a sigh. “Okay, I’m sleeping now.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to sleep after that,” she says with a laugh. We tug the blankets up to our chins, and even though I’m so tired, I can’t stop thinking and thinking. One end of the spectrum is elated and soaring through the sky with just how much happened tonight, and the other is in the deepest, darkest pit, worrying over something I can’t yet put my finger on.
A loud click breaks through my thoughts, and I shoot up. I must’ve dozed off at some point because Paige is out, and the sun is just barely sneaking over the horizon and streaming through my window. Something shuffles downstairs, and I carefully crawl out of bed and grab my signed Ravens football helmet and one of my dad’s old golf clubs I keep in my closet.
Watch it be Mom. Josh wouldn’t open the door that goes to the garage—which is definitely the click and creak I heard, and Brad usually doesn’t come around till after dinner.
> The tile in the kitchen bites at my feet with how cold it is, and I suck in a breath, tip-toe over to the garage door, and kick it open with a hiyah!
A bolting laugh comes from behind me, and I turn, narrowing my eyes at my cousin who is leaning on the archway we have that separates the kitchen from the living room.
“Seriously, call before you barge in and steal our food,” I say, relief tumbling in my chest. Brad takes the last bite of his banana while I wiggle the helmet off my unruly, red curls.
“I did call. You didn’t answer.”
“When?”
“Last night. Your mom let me crash.” A side grin quirks in the corner of his mouth, and a dumping sensation happens near my gut. He gives me an expectant look, and I have to force my voice to sound normal.
“What?” I say, avoiding eye contact and opting to get milk from the fridge.
“You know what.” He steps into the kitchen and tosses his banana peel on the counter. “Paige was here… but where was Sammy?”
He taps his chin playfully, gazing at the ceiling. I roll my eyes at him and get a glass from the cupboard.
“I don’t know why you insist on calling me that.”
He ignores me. “What if I told you I knew exactly where you were?”
The milk carton drops from my hand and spills all over my bare feet. I make no move to clean it, or pick it up, or even look at Brad right now.
“I wasn’t… anywhere,” I lie, mind racing where I could’ve slipped up. I wore the wig until we were out of Skyhawk and Trojan territory. No one followed us. Tyler even dropped me off around the corner.
Brad sidles up, bends over and grabs the milk carton, then settles it on the counter. When I finally look at him, his brow is furrowed, eyes masked in confusion, and it hits me that he was just teasing. He had no clue where I was, but my freak reaction basically tells him that I’m definitely hiding something.
“Where were you?” he asks again, this time quieter.
“I was…” I can’t think of anything. My alibi has gone down the poop chute. I can’t say I was with anyone on the team or even another friend at school because what sense would that make? And Brad is way more connected than I am. He’d see right through it.
