Page 12 of How to Score Off Field

SINGLE SEPTEMBER. ONLY ME OCTOBER. NO MAN NOVEMBER. DON’T DATE DECEMBER…YAY ME, I’M NAILING IT.

“You saidDrew was coming this weekend?” I regard my brother from across the table at the Mexican restaurant where we’re having lunch—his treat—and the burrito gets stuck in my throat at the news Drew is coming to town.

Drew Colter.

My childhood crush.

Not that my brother knew that. In his opinion, Drew was like a brother to him. It would never occur to him that I might have harbored fantasies about him since we were in middle school.

Fantasies I kept secret from him, but not my best girlfriends. They all knew I had a mad crush on him and never let me forget it.

But that was then, and this was now.

I’m older, wiser.

Taller.

Not the naive little girl who practiced conversations with him in my bedroom mirror. “Hey Drew, how’s it going?” and “Oh me?! I’m so good. Like, totally doing great.”

I’m over him.

How can you have a crush on a guy you haven’t seen in four years, if not more?

The last time I was in the same room as Drew was at my brother's high school graduation party, and even then, we were mostly on opposite sides of the room. He nodded at me a few times—said hello when he got there, obviously—but other than that…

He had as little interest in me back then as I have in Brian Flandersnow,the nerdy tech geek who works in the computer lab on campus and stares at me uncomfortably every time I go in for assistance.

And unfortunately, I need a lot of assistance.

Sigh.

“Are you listenin’ to a thing I say?” my brother asks, giving me a jostle under the table with the toe of his cowboy boot.

We live in Texas, and cowboy boots and sneakers are interchangeable, though I stopped wearing mine around town the day I left for college.

“I heard you.” I bite into the burrito I’ve taken off my plate and chew thoughtfully. “Drew is actually flying home? For just the weekend?”

He nods.

“How’d you convince him to do that?”

Grady just shrugs.

Grady always shrugs. It’s his lazy way of giving a noncommittal answer or not answering at all.

“I think he needs a break.”

“A break? From what?”

Another shrug. “School. Drake. Drake and his girlfriend. Football.” He rattles off the many reasons Drew Colter “needs a break.”

“That’s pretty much everything.”

“If you ask me, I don’t think he wanted to play football in the first place, but you know how his old man was. And he can’t escape it, not with every single Colter playin’ it.”

“So he’s flyin’ home,” I state matter-of-factly. “When does he get here?”

“Thursday. He’s skipping his Friday class.” My brother picks at his taco, removing half the lettuce. “Can you do me a favor?”