I Hate Football Players 3 | 18+

Chapter 21: Ellie

Once Logan and I got back to the apartment after class, I started out in the kitchen. After I pulled everything out of the upper cabinets and reorganized what was already there, he helped me put everything back without having to climb onto the counters.

Short person problems.

I left the crock pot and InstaPot on the counter since I had plans for those but, an hour later, the kitchen looked less like a jumbled pile and more like a... tiny and cramped kitchen. While we moved around in the small space, Logan and I inevitably bumped into each other but he kept everything neutral and respectful.

And now I'm wishing he goes back to flirting.

I'd definitely noticed the attention Logan drew while we'd walked back over here. He was a big guy, so his head stuck out in almost any crowd, but girl after girl eyed him like a fresh piece of meat. The attention stirred a sensation inside me that I was uncomfortable with but dissolved once we walked into our apartment and were alone.

"Here it is." I opened the last kitchen box, pulled out my magnetic schedule board, and stuck it on the outside of the freezer door. "This should help."

"Good idea." Logan looked it over, then left the kitchen and returned with black, red, and blue dry erase markers. We'd found the markers and eraser first but they weren't much use without the board.

"It is, I can't take credit for it. Charlie came up with it." My fingers brushed against Logan's hand as I took a black marker from him. His eyes lifted and locked with mine with an intensity that pushed a slight flush across my cheeks.

With a few marker squeaks, I wrote in my classes with an 'E-' preceding each one next to the time. The calendar was only Monday through Friday, but I took the red marker and wrote 'E 1-5' for Wednesday and Thursday for my library work while Logan filled in his class schedule.

"I don't have any tutoring appointments this week, the student athlete services office emails me every Sunday for that," I told Logan. "But please put if your games are home or away, along with the practice times in blue."

"Sure." He filled in his schedule while I stepped over to the counter and grabbed a few bowls. Of all things, I had planned just chicken parmesan and steamed broccoli for lunch. My lips twitched upwards at how many times my brother Jake had eaten this very same meal, the extent to which at one point in time I couldn't stomach it.

Still not there with pizza though.

"Ugh, I need to make protein powder," I muttered to myself and pulled out the blender. There wasn't a pantry but we'd reserved a few cabinets for dry ingredients, from which I pulled out steel cut oats, chia and flax seeds, and everything else I needed.

Once I started a pot of water to boil the eggs and grabbed six from the fridge, Logan surprised me when he asked, "Anything I can help with?"

"Sure." I held up the eggs to him, then set them on the counter next to our two-burner stove. "Put these in the pan once the water's boiling. And if you want to make the zucchini noodles for our chicken parm then that'd be great."

Confusion flooded over this eyes, so once his mouth opened, I added, "I have a julienne attachment for the mandolin slicer, it's easy but you'll have to be careful not to cut yourself. It's really sharp."

"Definitely need my fingers," he murmured but pulled out the mandoline slicer and stared at it like it was a foreign object.

"Here." I pulled the needed attachment out from the appliance drawer and snapped it on. "Just wash off and dry the zucchini from the fridge, then line it up here -" I pointed my index finger at the blade entrance, "And push it along, slowly and carefully. The noodles will pile out on the other side."