Page 44 of Kickoff

I pinched the sleeve of her sweater, the small gesture meant to keep her close to me. “I…huh…listen, I gotta go. Coach will want to talk to the team...” Will you wait for me? I picked up my helmet and fiddled with the strap. “I’ll see you around…” Please say something. I would rather spend my night hanging out with you than going to another stupid party I couldn’t care less about. I raised a hand and waved at her. Don’t let me go. Promise you’ll be here when I return. I hated myself for not being brave enough to reveal the feelings I’d been carefully tucking away for all these years.

“Bye, Mase.” Melinda’s voice had an edge to it. “You played well tonight. You should be proud of yourself.” She waved back at me before nearing Paige and my brother. I hated being dismissed by the only person I had ever wanted to be seen by.

Turning to leave, I called over my shoulder to Craig and the girls, “I’ll catch up with you later, guys.” I pointed to the athletic building with a hand over my head. “Come on, bro.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said before murmuring something to his girl and kissing her.

Hurrying toward the rest of my teammates heading for the locker room, my helmet hanging from my fingers, I kicked myself mentally for acting like a fool whenever Melinda was around. No matter how many times I told myself to say and do the right things when it concerned her, I always ended up acting like a pretentious and overconfident jerk who I barely recognized. I was trying to show her this other side of me, but sometimes, I failed because I got so nervous and forgot she wasn’t someone I needed to impress.

Jogging forward, I facepalmed myself. I needed to up my game. Find a way to make Melinda see me as the boy I was and not just the stupid little brother of her best friend’s boyfriend. The guy living next door—or the arrogant jackass I could be around everyone else…and now, around her too. Damn.

First order of things, get rid of my reputation as a guy who only slept around.

Melinda would never be just a one-night story, and if I wanted her to believe me, I had to clean up my act and stop screwing around for the sake of it. Mason Pierce Improved-Version would soon be underway.

13

Someone dial 9-1-1

The next Thursday, after football practice, I met a dozen of my teammates, including Craig, at Space Burger. We would play Cowley High the next day. It’d been a long time coming, and we needed some team bonding before the big night. When I sat down, they were all laughing at Sheldon’s antics as he tried to convince the server to accompany him to Homecoming two days from now. The woman, Juliet, according to her nametag, was hot, but she was at least a decade older than him. That was Sheldon, though. Always aiming for the impossible—and doing things out of the ordinary.

“I’ll buy a basket of chicken wings and tip big every Saturday night for the next six months if you agree. Come on, who wouldn’t want to accompany a guy as handsome as me? If you refuse, it will be your loss, beautiful.”

Juliet blushed, shaking her head, clearly affected by our friend. “I wish you were at least five years older,” she said. “I would have gone with you. I’m too old for you now.”

“Old?” He slapped his chest in fake hurt. “Never call yourself old, beautiful. Perhaps today is a no, but give me nine months and I’ll be eighteen, and then our age difference won’t matter anymore,” Sheldon said with a wink. “I’ll come every Saturday night, as promised, and court you until you say yes.”

“Oh Jesus, you’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?” The grin on the waitress’s face made her eyes sparkle.

“Woman, you’ve seen nothing.”

She sighed. “I’ll punch your order in, then be right back with your drinks, guys.”

When she left, Chase started the retelling of his latest date when more of the team walked in.

The conversation switched to the following night’s game. I cringed internally when it drifted to the dance and everyone’s date. My teammates’ priority should be football, not getting laid.

“Okay, an important matter to discuss, people. I kid you not, guys, but Pierce Junior has no date,” Chase announced to the table. The guys on the team often used Junior and Senior to differentiate Craig and me when they called us by our last name. Something Coach started during freshman year.

I killed my best friend with the laser beams my eyes had turned into, and he winked in response.

Fucker.

All eyes around the table were fixed on me.

“You don’t?”

“Are you sick?”

“What’s happening to you?”

“Pierce Junior out of his game? Unbelievable.”

“Someone dial 9-1-1.”

My friends’ reactions were immediate.

“Screw you, Chase,” I told my best friend, who laughed his heart out. His grin widened. With a shake of my head, I turned toward the rest of the table, lifting my hands in surrender. “Stop getting worked up about it. I’ve been thinking… Will you guys forgive me if I ditch Saturday night?”