The Secret (Boston's Best 1)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Maddie

"Fucking defence you idiots! Defence! Alex c'mon!" Penelope shouts over the crowd.

The lads are playing another game tonight against a school whose name I don't know –but their colours are red and white and bloody ugly, they look like Super Mario characters.

Everyone has explained the whole situation of the off-season games here to me and how they are just for fun and more practice and they aren't very serious. But from the two games I've been to they seem pretty serious to me.

Though I suppose last week's one was against St. Joseph's and apparently tonight's one is the last game of the year. So, it's the last game the seniors will play in school or ever, so it seems the whole community –students, staff, parents, everyone has shown up to say goodbye to the boys.

Pen and Brooke snuck me down onto the field and I'm standing near them while they cheer with the team and support the boys.

And I've always seen these American football games in movies and everything but it's pretty cool to see them in real life. Like the cheerleaders actually are really talented and in the stands the spectators have posters for the team and I've even spotted some with Matt, Alex, and Darius' names on them.

Brooke takes her bottle of water off the bench shaking her head at the field. "Idiots. They're all idiots. Alex had that in the bag, he should've just tackled the guy like he's supposed to do."

"For real," Penelope laughs, "Give me the play and I'd score touchdowns left right and centre."

"Def." They shake their fists at Coach Aldine who thankfully can't hear them. "Let us give it a try, coach."

They both laugh for a second before Brooke turns around to me. "Oh my god, Maddie."

I raise my eyebrows, "Yeah?"

She throws her pom-poms at me. "We need to teach you a few moves." She wiggles her brows at me. "You can impress Alex later on."

I catch the poms. "Alex? No, we're only friends. I trust him like a brother and nothing more. He's a little shithead and I love him but no he's literally like a little brother to me."

"Oh. So who do you like then?"

Your ex-boyfriend.

Who I only kissed a few days ago but I haven't physically seen him until tonight since then because he hasn't been in school, and I'm only mildly afraid that he's ghosting me but I'm also not because he's texted me loads throughout the week.

I shrug and exhale, "Oh, no one."

She nods and she and Pen start showing me some of the choreography for the routines that they're performing tonight, and it is safe to say that my future career as a dancer or gymnast has started and ended tonight.

I collapse to the ground in fits of laughter and Penelope is close behind me also falling to the ground.

"Oh my God!" She exclaims, "Maddie, you're terrible at that!"

I hold my heart. "You wound me! Like I know I wasn't amazing but surely it wasn't that bad?"

Brooke holds out her hands and helps us up, "No she's right, Maddie. You were pretty terrible. No rhythm at all. Like if you walked into the gym and tried out for the team I would've laughed you out of the place."

"Oh."

We all explode in laughter and continue talking for the next few minutes.

One of the first things Penelope said to me the first time I met her was that her best friend was a bitch, 'Bitchy Brooke Bailey' she called her. And yeah I suppose I thought she was a bit of a bitch the first time I met her too but I one-hundred percent think that they were in a fight when she said that because really Brooke isn't all that bad.