City of Champions: Jalen Hurts

9

Reese woke up, rubbing her eyes as she looked around the basement of her parents house.

Her apple watch read 3 AM so she hadn't been sleeping for very long, seeing as she didn't go to bed until midnight. Last night was kind of embarrassing for her but Jalen handled it better than she'd thought before going home.

Reese wasn't sure how Jalen was feeling about what happened a few hours ago. He didn't seem too annoyed or weirded out by what happened, but he did call her stupid and tell her she was being simple minded.

Not thinking twice about it, Reese leaned onto the side of the couch and dialed Jalen's number.

It rang a few times as Reese pushed the throw blanket from her sweaty body, and he picked up after a short couple of seconds. His voice was groggy as expected but he'd answered nonetheless.

"Yeah." His deep voice rasped into the phone.

Reese didn't know what to say or why she'd even called him but recovered fairly quickly. "Hi."

"It's 3 in the morning." Jalen reminded her. "You out ya' fucking mind."

"You didn't say bye before you left."

The quarterback smacked his teeth, rolling over onto his back. "You went the fuck to sleep so I left. Yo' ass need to go back to sleep now."

Reese was quiet for a few minutes, putting on her best sad voice. It worked with her parents and Jordan, but the chances of it working on Jalen were very, very slim.

"Come back."

"No, bruh." He huffed, the conversation threatening to fully wake the half-sleep football player. "Babies ain't even up at this time. Take yo' ass to sleep and I'a be by in the morning."

Reese rolled her eyes. "Can you at least stay on the phone?"

Jalen nodded. "Yeah."

It grew silent between the two and Jalen made his way back to sleep. He was tired beyond words and he knew Reese was as well so why she wanted him to come over at this hour was a mystery.

Then, his sleepy mind wandered to Reese and what happened to her last night. He knew there was something weird happening with her and her eating habits but he chose not to make any comment about it until last night, when it bothered her so much she considered making herself sick in front of him.

"Reese?"

The soccer goalie opened her eyes that she had forced shut in an attempt to make herself fall asleep faster. "Hm?"

"You hungry?"

The word 'no' almost flew past her lips because the answer was second nature, but she thought about it for a few seconds before giving him a lopsided ultimatum.

Reese sat up a little bit as she spoke. "If we get food, will you come pick me up?"

Jalen was sat sleepily in the front seat as Reese climbed into the car.

"Hurry up." He said as she shut the door behind her. "Cold as a motherfucker outside."

Reese shut the door. "Okay. Can you turn the heat up, then?"

"Bruh, no."

"Okay, well..." She crossed her arms. "Can you not be mean?"

Jalen bit back an insult as he pulled off. He didn't know where the kindness was coming from or why he'd left his house at 3 AM to pick Reese up. He just wasn't sure.

Despite not knowing why, he'd done so and now he had to deal with whatever came with it. First, he had to feed the girl then entertain her for a few hours before dropping her off at home. Clearly, she wanted to be around him right now and he didn't mind it.