Like You Mean It

3. Cam

I did not want to be at a stupid Lovell game, but I knew that Tom and Jane would want to go. My center snare and best friend, Nick, joined us too as "muscle." But I knew they really just wanted to see their boyfriend who played for the away team, some private school a town over. All three of them drove to Lovell together, while I took my car because sectionals didn't finish until an hour before kick-off. Nick was also supposed to be at said sectionals, but they decided to skip without messaging me and instead asked Jane for a ride.

Either way, I was running a bit late. I pulled up to the school around 6:45, while everyone else had been there since 6:30. I could see Lovell lined up and ready to march down as I bought my ticket. Tom, Jane, and Nick were all by the bandstands, Jane already had a hot chocolate even though it really wasn't cold.

"You're late. Almost missed your boyfriend marching down," Tom called as I walked over. I was still surprised at how willing he was to go along with this stupid lie.

The only question I had gotten from him about it was whether or not we could get information on Lovell. When I said yes, he had been more than happy to continue going along with it until we had beaten Lovell into the dirt at nationals. He probably just wanted to prove a point against Jace Weston, the French Horn player and drum major that Tom had hated since their freshman year.

"Sectionals ran longer than expected." I shrugged.

"That's why I just didn't show up." Nick grinned.

"Yeah, don't think I didn't notice that. You're stuck on bass drum detail next week after the game." I glared at them.

"I don't even play bass drum!" They exclaimed.

Jane laughed, "Fair punishment for skipping sectionals, dude."

"And you better be at the next one or I'll tell Mack," Tom warned.

"You're going to snitch to my cousin about me skipping sectionals?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, then Mack'll tell your mom and she'll be pissed." I grinned.

"You Millers are an evil breed." Nick shook their head.

Tom laughed, "We're just efficient."

Lovell's drumline started to cadence the band down. They had the same cadence every year. It always sounded perfect. Not clunky and disjointed like our original cadences always were. It was crisp, familiar, and complex enough to let everyone know that they were there to win.

Their band was a bit smaller than ours, but still relatively large. The 150-or-so-member ensemble marched past us to the box and took their places for the National Anthem. A five-snare roll-off into a wonderfully balanced and musical performance. Then they waited for the kick-off to play some theme from a professional sports network, but I wasn't paying attention to which station it was from.

"Told you other schools did it! We have to bring it up to Mack." Tom exclaimed to Jane as the Lovell band started heading towards us.

A few Lovell kids had started to notice us, but they didn't get to us first, Hayden did.

"Hey babe." Hayden leaned over the fence by me before anyone could say anything and kissed me.

It was weird kissing Hayden. A good weird and bad weird in one. It was good in that we were getting important information. And that he was also relatively attractive, not that I'd ever tell him that. But bad in that he is my sworn enemy and I'm kissing him. Usually, when you kiss your sworn enemy, it ends in a lot of death. Like Romeo and Juliet, which was ironic considering our show's theme. But regardless, kissing your sworn enemy usually resulted in death. This time it didn't though. But as I looked around at the shocked Lovell band, I honestly would've preferred the death.