Rocket Science

by Emily Mayer

  “It’s not time for breakfast.” I rolled over, fully prepared to go back to sleep for at least another hour.

  Just as I was drifting off to sleep, Boomer landed on my head with a loud meow. He made circles on my cheek and shoulders until one of his paws was hopelessly tangled in my hair. I sighed.

  “All right, you win. Ouch! Boomer, sit still, you’re pulling my hair out.” I withdrew one arm from out of the blankets and rolled over just enough to reach the stuck paw. I got to work untangling it while Boomer made hysterical cat noises directly into my ear. “None of the Disney princesses had to deal with this from their animal friends. They swept their floors and made their beds, not ripped chunks of hair out of their head.”

  I got us untangled and dragged myself out of bed to make us both breakfast. Boomer promptly scarfed down his food and found a sunny spot to pass out in. A nap didn’t sound bad to me and I still had an hour before I needed to start getting ready. I tried to sleep, but as soon as my body was still, my mind got busy worrying. Large crowds were not my thing, and it felt like every minute I spent lying on the couch made my anxiety worse. I gave up, deciding that spending a little extra time on my appearance today wasn’t the worst idea anyway.

  I styled my hair into controlled waves instead of the usual chaos and applied a little more makeup than I might have on a normal Saturday. I pulled on the Novas jersey I’d ordered with Sebastian’s name and number on the back, and a pair of jeans I hadn’t worn in forever—so long that I had to do the shimmy-and-prayer routine to get them on. I completed my new ‘footy fan’ look with a Novas baseball cap to keep the California sun out of my eyes, and a soccer scarf draped over my shoulders, which the internet told me was necessary to call oneself a true FC fan. The internet had also informed me that FC stood for football club, so I was basically fluent in all things football now.

  I headed toward the shop and found Aaron already outside pacing back and forth like he couldn’t physically contain his excitement. I checked my phone to make sure I wasn’t late and saw that I was a good fifteen minutes early. I waved when he turned to pace back in my direction.

  “Hey, you’re early!”

  “Yeah, I was worried about traffic.” His gaze traveled over me. “Look at you, all fanned out.”

  “I wanted to blend.” I turned around enough to show him the Kincaid lettered across my back. “And show my support for my favorite player.”

  He smiled, flashing those almost too-white teeth. “Favorite player, huh? You know a lot of other players?”

  “Do you think I’m just hanging around with professional athletes now?” I pulled out my phone to order our ride.

  He huffed out a laugh. “I meant, can you name another player on the Novas?”

  “Oh, of course. There’s a… there’s the guy with… Malone!” I shouted triumphantly. I remembered seeing that name on the list of jersey names when I was shopping online.

  “Calm down over there, Supernova.” He snorted a little at his own terrible joke. “Are you ordering us a ride or do you want me to do it?”

  “I got it. You can buy our first round of hot dogs.”

  “First round?” he asked, sounding incredulous. What an amateur.

  Our car pulled to the curb a few minutes later, and we rode to the stadium, each of us fidgeting with a different type of nerves. My anxiety reached almost hysterical levels when I caught my first look at the crowds gathered around the stadium. My fingers tapped out a nervous rhythm on my jeans-covered thigh. The car came to a stop and Aaron I stepped out into the throng of people. The words ‘teeming masses’ came to mind.

  “There’s a lot of people here. I thought soccer wasn’t that popular,” I stated, trying to make my voice sound light instead of slightly panicked.

  “The Novas have a pretty big group of diehard fans, and their popularity exploded when they got two players from the FIFA trade. Seattle got a player from Barca, so it should be a pretty exciting match.”

  “What is Barca?”

  His excitement was infectious, even though I didn’t understand what he’d just said.

  “FC Barcelona. Spain has two powerhouse teams, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, and you don’t play for them unless you’re the best of the best. So I am obviously stoked about watching Ramos play even though he’s playing for Seattle.”

  I watched him as he steered us toward the entrance Sebastian had told us to use. He did look excited. Something about watching him like this made him seem less intimidating and more human. It also slowed the pace of my racing heart. Facts. Aaron was giving me facts. I could be distracted by a little information-gathering.

  “You really like soccer, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. I played all the time growing up, in leagues and in the neighborhood. My abuela is a huge Barcelona fan, which makes absolutely no sense since she was born in Juarez and has never stepped foot in Spain. We got cable growing up just so she could watch their matches, so I wasn’t complaining.” He shot me one his half-grins and I actually managed to smile back at him as we stepped into a line of people.

  I thought of another question to ask him to keep my mind focused on anything besides the crowd that felt like it was starting to surround us from all directions. The noise got louder the closer we got to the stadium.

  “Is your scarf for Barcelona?”

  He lifted one frayed end. “It’s about fifteen years old but yeah, it is. Abuela got it for me on my thirteenth birthday. It’s lucky.”

  “That was really nice.”

  We shuffled a few more feet forward.

  “Not really.” He chuckled at my bewildered expression. “I was a huge Manchester United fan. She acted like I had betrayed the family. ‘Como pudiste hacerme esto, mijo?’ The old woman loves her telenovelas as much as she loves her FC. Joke was on her though, United signed Ronaldo that year.”

  I laughed along even though I had no idea who this Ronaldo character was. I asked Aaron a few more questions while we slowly marched toward the lady taking tickets. It was a good distraction. We finally reached the entrance and handed our tickets to the lady who greeted us. She looked at them and asked us to stand to the side just inside the gate, then spoke into her walkie-talkie.

  “If you two wouldn’t mind standing right there, someone will be along in just a second to take you to your seats.” She smiled at us and then turned her attention back to the line.

  I looked at Aaron who looked bewildered but was also wearing a huge smile.

  “Is this normal?” I asked, watching the people who were in line behind us walk through the entrance and into the stadium.

  He shook his head. “Nope, definitely not normal—but then I’ve never been a VIP before. This is so fucking awesome.”

  My stomach did a series of tumbles that did not feel awesome, and my heart followed its movements. It seemed like people were filling all the empty space around us and I could barely hear myself think over the music coming from the overhead system. I took a few steps closer to Aaron, basically plastering myself against his side, gaze still laser-focused on our shoes.

  I felt him looking at the top of my head. “You okay?”

  I nodded, giving him a sad imitation of a smile. “Yeah, there’s just so many people.”

  He threw an arm around my shoulders and hauled me the few remaining inches into him.

  “I got you, Lennon. This is going to be fun. It’ll seem less crazy when we get to our seats, and hey, we can get those hot dogs.”

  “Hello, folks!” A middle-aged man greeted us before I could answer. “May I have your tickets, please?”

  We handed them over and he scanned them quickly, smiled, and waved us forward. Aaron chatted with our guide while I took everything in, including all the vending places we passed. Once we were out in the open, things were a little less loud and chaotic.

  Aaron elbowed me in the side and gave me crazy eyes. We walked down row after row until we were almost to the field. Finally, our guide stopped and gestured toward
two seats in the middle of the second row.

  “You two are right through here. A waiter should be around shortly if you’d like to order a drink or something to eat, but you’re of course welcome to grab something inside and bring it down. Enjoy the game.”

  Aaron nodded a lot and I said a thank-you. The row was completely empty, so we were able to walk through the row to our seats without a problem. We sat down, both of us wiggling a few times to get comfortable, and looked out over midfield where a couple of players were stretching.

  “Lennon,” Aaron said, never taking his eyes off the field, “I think this is the best day of my life.”

  30.

  A waiter did in fact come by a few minutes later to take our order. Looking around the rows of seats behind us, it was very obvious that we were not seated with the general public. I turned around to face the field and watched as more players jogged onto it to stretch or kick a ball back and forth. My eyes eagerly scanned every new player, looking for Sebastian. I squinted into the distance toward two men who were standing near a row of benches on one side of the field. My gaze lingered on the heavily tattooed arms of one, and the uniform that clung to a now-familiar body.

  I smiled. Nudging Aaron, I pointed toward the two men.

  “Look, Aaron, I see Sebastian!”

  Aaron looked in the direction I was pointing. “Holy shit, you’re right! It looks like he’s talking to Sully. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to the field that I could actually read the name on the back of a jersey.”

  The rows around us slowly filled up with people. Most people wore Novas shirts or jerseys, but I noticed a few Ramos jerseys in the mix. Luckily for Aaron, the people who ended up next to us were huge soccer fans, so he spent most of the warm-up talking soccer with our neighbors. I mostly visually stalked Sebastian’s movements and shoveled food into my mouth. I had already downed a hot dog and nachos by the time the warmup clock on the scoreboard reached zero. I would have been two hot dogs in, but bless his heart, Aaron thought I’d ordered the second hot dog for him. I let it slide, because the waiter announced our food and drink had been ‘taken care of’ when Aaron attempted to pay for our first round of sustenance.

  The players jogged off the field as the announcer started running through first lines and the crowd cheered. I winced at the sudden change in volume. I felt my fingers tap-tap-tapping on my leg and tried to will myself to calm down. This was fine. My amygdala needed to stop sending out distress signals. People were excited for a soccer game. This was not about to be a survival situation. I was not going to have to fight for my life gladiator-style.

  I watched the promotional video playing on the scoreboard in an attempt to distract my hypothalamus with something shinny. I smiled like a lunatic every single time Sebastian was shown in the video. By the second video, I could understand why sports played such a significant cultural role through our species’ history. One of my anthropology professors hypothesized that games or sports are a social mechanism that promote group unity through social intercourse, and provide members of society with a singular event to help them deal with the excessive amount of emotional stress that comes with being a human. Watching this video and its effect on the crowd did more to make me believe this theory was correct than all the scientific articles we’d read for class, especially since I was starting to feel the same overwhelming sense of excitement clearly being felt by the other members of this group.

  The video ended and the crowd erupted. I looked at Aaron, hoping for a clue about what was happening. He must have read the expression on my face, because he pointed to an opening on the field where a couple of men were now standing with cameras pointed.

  “The teams are getting ready to take the field.”

  The crowd erupted again when the announcers introduced the Novas. I jumped to my feet and clapped because herd mentality and all. I booed when they announced Seattle even though it felt mean. The teams lined up and faced an American flag that was being stretched out by a group of kids in soccer jerseys. The national anthem began to play. Instead of being patriotic, I was focused on Sebastian in his soccer uniform. It felt like he was looking right at me, which was a ridiculous thought since I was one tiny dot in a crowd of thousands of dots. But did that stop me from giving him a tiny wave anyway? Nope. I even threw in an extra-dopey smile just in case. I could have sworn I saw familiar crinkles appear in the corner of his eyes, but it was probably just the adrenaline doing things to my brain.

  I snapped a picture of all the players lined up and the nice lady in front of us volunteered to take a picture of Aaron and me when she saw I was struggling to take a selfie that included more than just his chest and half my glasses. I sent them to the group text, which Janie had inexplicably named “Bonerfied Babes.”

  Me: Just two footy fans at a match!

  Paige: Omg you look so good in all your new gear! Love the hat!

  Kay: I hope you have an awesome time girlie! Aaron is never going to shut up about this. NEVER. You’re lucky I love you.

  Janie: At what point in the game do they start taking off their shirts? I need to know when to turn the game on.

  I scrunched up my nose reading Janie’s text.

  Me: I don’t think that is a thing?

  Janie: It should be. I’d be the #1 fan if they lost all that clothing.

  Paige: This is a sporting event, not a strip club, Janie.

  Janie: But can you imagine how much better it would be if it was a little bit of both?

  Kay: She’s not wrong….

  Janie: Let’s compromise. Lennon, you can make it up to me by sending a picture of Aaron without his shirt on.

  Me: Make what up?

  Janie: IT, LENNON.

  I smiled, shaking my head, and turned my attention to the start of the game.

  I spent the next ninety-some minutes on a freaking roller coaster of emotions. I cheered, I gasped, I hugged Aaron, I yelled at the referees for being blind, and I nervously crammed peanuts into my mouth when Seattle got a goal kick approximately eight-seven minutes and thirteen seconds into the game. Thankfully, our goalie was amazeballs and made blocking the shot seem easy. Also, I said things like “our goalie” now.

  I tracked Sebastian the entire game, and oh my ovaries, watching him play made my pituitary gland light up like a pinball machine. Holy hotness, Batman. I imagined it was like the chemical version of Fourth of July in my brain, with bright explosions of dopamine and serotonin. This Ramos character from Barcelona was no joke either. He was very good and very aggressive, and as long as it wasn’t directed at Sebastian, I did not hate it. At all.

  By the time the game was over and it was time to wait for Sebastian—and the other players, if you actually cared about anything else—the primal instincts that had helped Homo erectus beat out the other anthropoids were woke. I barely heard anything Aaron said as we walked down to the VIP tunnel to wait for Sebastian with the small crowd. I was a tangled mess of hormones that no amount of logic was going to calm down, and I was ready to give the hormones what they wanted. Who was I to stand in the way of biology?

  The atmosphere in the hallway changed as soon as the door opened and the first player stepped out. Aaron was practically vibrating next to me and just generally losing his proverbial crap. It was weirdly adorable but also making me feel even more like barfing, which might have actually been good because there was a real chance that I would start humping Sebastian’s leg like a dog in heat if I didn’t cool down. I was one hundred percent absolutely positive that humping a player’s leg would get me arrested and banned for life. Oddly enough, I was more worried about the lifetime ban than I was about a night in jail. Janie would totally bail me out once she found out it was for a lewd act.

  And then Sebastian pushed through the door.

  I have never been one to believe in magic or fairy tale nonsense. I liked to escape to other worlds in books, but I realized that it was just that, an escape. I was practical, logical. Sometimes to a fault. Bu
t, as I took in Sebastian in a fitted navy suit with his freshly washed hair pushed back from his forehead, it was like every single molecule that composed my corporeal form screamed MINE. For the first time, I was forced to acknowledge the truth. I might be a little in lust with my friend.

  I knew every single one of my emotions was written on my face when Sebastian’s gaze swept through the small crowd and landed on me—the happiness and the wanting. He smiled the big, beautiful smile that lit up those blue-green eyes and wreaked havoc on all my organ systems. I bounced from foot to foot impatiently, while he stopped to sign autographs or snap a picture on his way to me. Us. On his way to us. I had temporarily forgotten Aaron even existed, let alone that he was standing right next to me.

  “He looks really good in that suit, doesn’t he?” Aaron whispered, giving me a gentle nudge with his elbow.

  I glanced over at him briefly and honestly, based on the current look of longing he was wearing, I felt like he might be a little bit in lust with Sebastian, too.

  “Yes, how weird of you to notice,” I replied. I felt strangely territorial, considering I knew for a fact that Aaron was extremely heterosexual.

  With one last flick of his pen, Sebastian closed the remaining distance between us. Before I could get out the brief soliloquy I had been practicing, Sebastian’s hands were on my shoulder, pulling me close as he leaned down and kissed my cheek. Just the faintest touch of warmth on my skin and all the thoughts in my head scattered.

  “Hi,” I sighed, looking up at him.

  “Hi,” he repeated, looking back at me with those smiling eyes. He gently pushed me back a few inches, his eyes traveling from my Converse-covered feet to my newly-acquired hat. “You’re all kitted out like a proper fan.”

  I turned fully out of his grasp and pulled my hair over my shoulder so he could see the Kincaid lettered across my back. “Yep, and I’m sporting my favorite player’s number.”