Head Over Sneakers | on hold

[ 11 ]

   I NERVOUSLY LOOKED around for anybody who was watching me. The bleachers was a disgustingly obvious place for hook ups and I would be caught dead in there. However, today, because of one person in particular, I was having to risk my reputation to risk being seen in that God-awful place.
   Devon would not stop calling me. When I had told him I would wait beside the lockers for him, which were round the corner from the bleachers, he began to spam me with messages to the point I had turned my phone on silent.
   With one foot against the brick wall, my hands were stuffed into the pocket of my worn out hoodie. I hummed as I waited for Devon to appear to present me with his so-called 'emergency'.
   It was then that a figure made itself known. The boy seemed young. He was shorter than I was and I wasn't tall by any means. He wore glasses that fell down his nose and he couldn't meet my eyes. The boy coughed nervously. My foot fell to the ground and I looked around, wondering if he was wanting to speak to me.
   "Can I help you?" I asked, noticing he couldn't have been here for anyone else but me, seeing as there wasn't another person in sight. I was proven right when the young boy nodded, taking a second to push his glasses back up his nose.
   "Mr. Hunters...is asking for you." I rose a brow. Mr. Hunters? I thought.
I didn't have any teachers named Mr. Hunt—...and then it hit me.
"Mr. Hunters..." My tone was far from amused. Placing my hands upon my hips. I narrowed my eyes at the boy and felt a shot of guilt pass through me at the way his cheeks brightened a crimson red shade. The tomatoes in my grandmothers garden were not nearly as bright.
"You go and tell..." I paused. "...Mr. Hunters, that he has legs and he can come to me on his own!"
He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I—...okay." He didn't argue. The boy turned and jogged away around the corner and out of sight.
Devon had some nerve having some poor boy refer to him as 'Mr. Hunters', I can't imagine how he'd even approached the boy in the first place and demanded he call him by his surname. Pulled from my thoughts, I peered round the corner of the brick wall and noticed the boy had returned, panting, this time.
"Master Hunters said—..." My eyes grew wide.
"Master?!" I shrieked. I shook my head and patted the boy on shoulder sympathetically. "I'm going, don't worry about it." He seemed relieved at my dismissive tone and he didn't think twice before he sprinted away. I held back a laugh at the side of the young boy stumbling as far away as he could from Devon Hunters presence. I couldn't help but remember the times I had too.
It didn't take much to find him, he was hiding behind some old equipment, his head was propped up by his arm which rested against the ground. His feet rested on top of a soccer ball and his eyes were glued to his screen. Devon seemed enthralled by whatever he was looking at and I took the time to look him over, wondering what was so important that he wouldn't stop pestering me and dragging some poor boy into passing on his messages.
I kicked the ball beneath his foot, sending his feet plummeting to the ground with a sudden thud and his phone flew from his hand. "Ace." He gasped, a hand flying to his heart.
Taking a seat across from him, I crossed my legs and arms. "What the hell happened?"
"I'm being chased."
"That's it?"
"What do you mean that's it?" My brow rose.
"Whose chasing you?" I groaned and moved to stand up.
"Don't you dare tell me you brought me here because of your little fanclub?" His lips formed a thin line and I scoffed. He was ridiculous. I couldn't believe him!
Devon's brown eyes flickered with a look of amusement which I didn't return. I almost stood up before he reached out suddenly and grasped onto my wrist, stopping me from reaching my full height.
"Wait." He looked serious.
"What is it?" I wasn't sure why I whispered it to him but his suddenness scared me.
Echoes of giggles erupted and I shoved my hand against my lips to contain the burst of laughter that begged to be released. He failed to mention his little fanclub of girls had extended to the freshman girls. God help Devon Hunters and I prayed for his legs of all things—the amount of running he'd be doing would surely wear them out.
"Girls!" In a sing-song voice, I called out to them and Devon grasped onto me tighter. It wasn't painful, but his grasp was more prominent. I could feel the tension roll off him like the beads of sweat that formed across his brow.
"Hey!" He whispered angrily. "Shut up!" Of course I wouldn't listen to him. Who did he think I was? Instead, I managed to pull my wrist from his grip and I shoved him back, turning to leave from the shelter under the bleachers, right in the direction of the noise that came just a few metres away from outside. I was so close to alerting those piranha's—the die hard Devon Hunter fans—of their hero's presence.
Devon was hot on my heels. Well, that was until I had let out a yelp, my hands flapped around at my sides and I fell onto the ground with a groan. I turned, seeing my life flash before my eyes as I watched Devon's foot get caught in the exact same weed as mines had.
Only this time, it wasn't the ground his body would be meeting—but mine! I closed my eyes, ready for the impact of his weight...but it never came. I waited, with my eyes shut tightly and my palms grasping onto the green grass at my sides.
I felt his warm breath fan against my cheeks before I dared to open my eyes in fear of the kind of look that he'd be sporting. Oh, if I had known Devon Hunter's well enough—I did, then I knew how much he'd be enjoying this.
Cracking one eye open, I was once again proven right. The devil was smirking down at me. His forearms held him up, careful not to crush me with his weight, but still, I felt his knee resting between my legs whilst his other knee rested on the outside of my right leg.
   He grinned down at me and if I hadn't seen this in the movies about a thousand times already, I knew exactly what kind of expression I should be wearing, the exact type of music that should be playing in this moment and the precise series of actions I'd take following this event.
I'd awkwardly laugh and blush wildly, as red as Devon's little errand boy was and Devon would smirk, knowing how he made me blush. I'd push him off and he'd stand—although not apologising, because he wasn't sorry.
He'd hold out a hand for me and he'd help me up. If we were doing cliché to the full extreme, then when he'd pull me up, he'd do it with a bit of force. It would be enough to make me stumble and fall into his chest, ensuing another round of blushes and awkward laughter shared between the two of us.
"You know what I'm thinking?" I asked him and Devon's smirk widened. What am I thinking? I thought to myself, feeling a nervous lump begin to form in my throat. A rush of adrenaline shot through me and I pushed the nervousness away until I felt nothing but determination to get my thoughts out.
"No." He sighed, then he chuckled and I laughed.
"I wanna do it." I blurted out and Devon looked confused, so I elaborated.
"The cliché thing." I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I said my thoughts aloud and I don't think I was even thinking about it all.
   The scenario in my head was on my mind and I knew exactly how it was going to play out and...well, a small part of me, kind of wanted it to?
I guess part of me wanted to test it out and see if such a cliché moment was what the movies and books chalked it out to be. But another part of me screamed the words 'Shut up!' reminding me how much I hated anything that resembled the word cliché. So why the hell did I want this to play out?!
   I pursed my lips and pondered for a moment, thinking about wether my thoughts should remain as they were or develop into actions. It wasn't like the two of us weren't already doing cliché stuff in Devon's efforts to woo me. His entire proposition was cliché, in fact.
   In that moment, I had made up my mind.
"In the movies..." I started, flashing Devon an embarrassed look. "Well, it's silly, I guess, but I just wanted to see if—..." I could hardly get the words out and it was then I realised how ridiculous it all really was. This kind of thing was fiction for a reason and it only happened in the movies for a reason too!
Placing my hand upon his chest, I pushed, but Devon never budged. He stared down at me with a look I didn't really recognise and he raised his hand to move upon my own that rested on his chest. He wrapped his fingers around my hand and moved it away, back to my side. He smiled, then he manoeuvred himself off of me, brushing the dirt from his knees with a few pats.
Devon met my gaze again. A beat passed and then he reached out to me, holding his hand out for me take and without thinking, I took it. Placing my hand into his own with a slight hesitation, I allowed him to curl his fingers around it.
He yanked me up to my feet and just as I had imagined it happening in my head and remembered it from scenes from the countless numbers of rom-coms I'd watched over the years, I fell into him, my hands springing out to catch myself. Warmth spread throughout me and tingles tickled my skin. I shivered.
My mouth parted as I met his intense gaze. The corners of his lips tilted up into a grin and he leaned in, his lips brushed the shell of my ear and he whispered.
"Like that?"
"Yeah." I breathed out. Just like that.

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