Finding Your Person

Chapter 7

After the game, I walked over to my parents and Aiden. As I walked up, I could tell how proud my dad was. Without saying anything, he opened his arms and I collided right into him. We stayed there for over ten seconds before either of us said anything.
"You played so well, kiddo. I am so proud of you," my dad said and then kissed me on the top of my head.
"Thanks, Dad." I felt so content in my dad's arms, he gave the best hugs. He was always so much bigger than me. I always felt safe when he hugged me.
"Yes, honey, you played so well, congratulations!" my mom said and then joined the hug. Aiden was forced into the hug by my mom.
"Okay, can we be done now? I'm getting smooshed," Aiden yelled, and we all started laughing.
"Congrats, Mas. Now can we go home?" Aiden said.
"Well, thanks, buddy," I said, sticking my hand out over his head and began to push his hair all over his head.
"Yes, we can leave," my mom said. She turned back to look at me. "Mas will you be coming home tonight?"
"Yes, I'm going to come home right now before the football game. Then I'm going to a party with Scotty and Gabby. After, I'll drive all three of us back to our house."
"Then clearly you aren't drinking, correct?"
"None of us are; it's in the soccer contract," I responded to her.
"Alright, good. Just be careful. Promise me?" My mom pulled me in for another hug.
"Of course, Mom. I love you," I said, hugging her back.
"I love you, too," she replied.
I turned to my dad and little brother, "I love you, Dad; I love you, Aiden."
"I love you, too," my dad said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love you, too," Aiden said, making us all smile.
I was peeking over my dad's shoulder to see Liam looking my way.
"Alright. Well, we will see you at home, kiddo," my dad said, leaning in, kissing my forehead. "Good work today. You should be so proud of yourself."
"Thanks, Dad. I'll see you at home. I love you both."
"Love you, too," my parents said in unison before turning away. My dad threw his arm around my mom and leaned in, kissing the top of her head. He must have then said something funny because her head flung backward and I heard her laugh. They were so happy and after all this time, still so in love with each other. I just couldn't wait for that to be me with the love-of-my-life one day.
Standing there, smiling at my parents walking away, I caught people walking over to me out of the corner of my eye. It was Brady and Liam.
"Hey, if it isn't my little sister, the star of the game," Brady publicized while shrinking down and taking jabs at my sides.
I covered my stomach and then pushed his hands away. "Cut it out, Brady!"
He started to laugh, then threw an arm around my neck, pulling me in for a hug. I looked over at Liam who was laughing a little. He smirked, looking me up and down. "Hi, Mas." The way he made my name sound gave me goosebumps and made my stomach twist. He was able to make my name sound like it had been a compliment. He said it in almost a flirting way, exaggerating the Letter A.
"Hi, Liam," I said, trying to match his flirtatious tone, exaggerating the 'Lee'.
"Could you two stop?" Brady intervened.
"What? We were just saying hi to each other," I vouched.
"Yeah, Brady, let me say hi to my future wife," Liam chimed in. I shook my head, giggling. And then he reached out and grabbed my arm pulling me into him. I forgot how tall Liam was compared to me. My head was pressed to his chest, and I felt his chin sitting on the top of my head. We continued to hug while looking at Brady to see if we had done enough to get a reaction out of him. Although I knew we were teasing Brady, I could tell the hug had actually been genuine. Just before he let go, he gave me a tight squeeze like he had missed me.
"You both are the worst sometimes, do you know that?" Brady scoffed, rolling his eyes, but I don't think it bothered him as much as it used to. He was just used to us being like this.
"Well, before you two skeeve me out anymore, James said he wanted to talk to me before I left. I'll meet you at the car, Liam," Brady said, beginning to walk away.
Liam and I began walking back to the school. "You played really well out there, Mas," he said. I could see a genuine smile begin to creep onto his face, and then he pushed into me with his arm.
"Thanks for coming."
"I would never miss my best friend's little sister's big playoff game." We both laughed.
"Well, thanks. It sucks not having you and Brady here," I said in a mocking tone.
"Yeah, I know. I'm sorry about that. Just school and life have been pretty crazy. Not to mention soccer this year has been a lot." I could hear some hesitation in his voice.
"And I bet your girlfriend has taken up a lot of your time."
"My girlfriend?"
"Yeah, Brady told me you had one. I can't believe you never told me."
"I didn't tell you, because I don't have one. I'm assuming he's talking about Vanessa. She's not my girlfriend. Vanessa is just a friend, Mas."
"Oh, well, Brady said he thought you guys were serious."
"Brady wouldn't know. He's been doing his own thing."
"Are you throwing shade at your other half?" I asked in a sarcastic tone.
"It's not shade if we have discussed it," he said in a deep serious voice, then laughed. He continued, "No, we both have been crazy busy. My soccer season and his football season, it's weird not always being up each other's butts."
"Wow, you act like you don't live with each other," I said, shaking my head at him.
"Yeah, I don't know why he thought I was dating her. She's never even been over the house."
"Yeah, how would he know? He's never even been in a real relationship before," I chimed in.
"He's not a player like you think he is."
"I don't think he is a player, I just don't particularly think he's the serious-relationship type," I said.
"Well, you're wrong about that. I think that's what he's looking for. I don't even think he's actually been on any dates this year. The man is capital P-icky." He made a goofy face, bulging his eyeballs and then he started to smile.
"Are we talking about the same Brady? I remember my mom having to drive him his sophomore year to a date every Friday night with practically a different girl."
"Well, yeah, sure, at the beginning of high school, but his junior year your parents had a serious talk with him. It was just about him needing to straighten up and start treating girls the way your dad treats your mom. I think what really got him was your dad talking about how it was your freshman year, and how would he feel if someone treated you the way he treats other girls. Also, how he'd feel if your dad treated your mom poorly. Ever since then he's pretty much been super sweet to girls, because of his respect for you and your mom."
"I never knew that."
"Yeah, well, ever since that talk, he's treated every girl he's ever talked to really well. Me on the other hand, I'm a ladies' man. Breaking hearts left and right." Liam began to puff out his chest, clearly being sarcastic. He continued, "Anyway, yeah, Brady would kill someone if they ever didn't treat you right. We both would."
"I pity the guy that breaks my heart if he'll have to deal with you two imbeciles."
He shrugged his shoulders and a huge smug smirk appeared on his face. "Yeah, don't want to brag but I studied mixed martial arts."
"You took one boxing class."
"It was two, for your information, and they said I had some real skill," he said, pretending to be offended.
"Okay, calm down, Rocky Balboa."
"All I'm saying, Mas, is, if you ever need me to teach you some self defense, I would gladly take the time out of my day to do that."
"How kind of you," I said with a smirk.
"Don't act surprised. I would do anything for the love of my life," he pointed at me then poked my nose.
I slapped his hand away from my nose. "Who do I need self-defense from? Dorks like you?" I raised my eyebrows and was having trouble containing my smile.
"Hey, miss, you'd be surprised how many dorks out there can kick some major butt."
"Well, I know of one major dork who's butt I can kick."
"Oh really?" he said, raising his eyebrows, and I could see a smirk begin to appear on his face.
"Yes, I do believe so."
"Well, we will just have to see about that."
He started to try to grab my arm. So I dropped my soccer bag and ran away. It wasn't long before he caught me though. I kept trying to pull myself away, but before I knew it, he had gotten both his arms around me. He was holding me from behind, and I couldn't break the grip of his hands in front of me. We were both uncontrollably laughing. I hadn't even realized Scotty and Gabby were standing at the doorway of the girls locker room waiting for me.
Gabby finally spoke up, "Hey, Mag, you coming in or what?"
"Yeah, I'll be there in a sec!" I shouted back, and they disappeared into the locker room. Finally Liam let go of his grip and slid his hands away from me. I felt his hands brush pass my hips almost hesitant to let go of me. When we were finally face to face again, he threw his one arm around my neck and his other around my waist, pulling me in for a hug.
Everything always felt so natural with Liam. It was never awkward between us. I felt like I could be myself and not care because he had already been with me through my worst, most awkward, horrible times a girl could go through. To me Liam was never just Brady's best friend, and I personally never thought of him as an older brother. That probably had to do with the fact that we were constantly pretend-flirting. Even if the flirting was just to tease Brady, I could never look at him like an older brother. I always wondered if he had thought of me as just a friend or his best friend's little sister, or if he thought about me at all.
"I missed you, Mas," Liam had said right before pulling away.
"I missed you, too."
"Well, I better go find your brother. He's probably waiting for me at the car."
"Alright, I'll see you in a little." I turned away. I heard him clear his throat.
"Hey, Mas!" I turned around looking at him.
"Yeah?" I responded.
"He should have been here." He paused for a moment then continued, "Brady told me it was bothering you. I figured you would have told me eventually. I'm not saying Garrett's a bad guy, but you deserve better than that. And all I know is I may be a dork," he grinned and let out a sigh, "but I'll always show up for you, Mas. You played amazing. I'll see you at your house." He turned around, and just like that, I couldn't help but feel at peace.
It was nice knowing that no matter what, I knew I'd always have Liam to be there for me. It had been over two months without us even talking, but it didn't feel like we even skipped a beat. We were right back to our goofy selves. It was also nice hearing just how much I meant to Brady.
I was pretty shocked when Liam had said the whole thing about me impacting the way Brady treated girls, but it made sense. He had always treated me so good when he wasn't teasing me. Come to think of it, Brady hated when he would see me cry. I remembered once when Garrett had a bunch of people over his house for a party. I had been planning on sleeping over his house, which was a pretty normal thing. I'd even sleep over when he had his friends sleep over, mainly because I had been friends with them forever. Half the time, I'd sleep in Garrett's bed while the boys all slept on the floor right next to me. No one thought it was weird, because the majority of the time, Garrett and I wouldn't even act like we were boyfriend and girlfriend. We just acted like friends, and I think that's because we started out that way.
During the party, Garrett was drinking a little too much, and he started to flirt with other girls. Maybe I was overreacting and it wasn't as big of a deal as I made it out to be, but then when I confronted him about the whole situation, he kind of freaked out on me in front of everyone. He began to say how stupid I was and I needed to stop overreacting.
I didn't want to be there and didn't feel comfortable after that, so I called Brady to come pick me up. I tried to play it off like I just didn't feel like being there. No matter what was wrong with me, I never liked to talk about it to anyone. I hated telling people my problems, because everyone has their own, and they don't need to be bombarded with mine.
After about two minutes in the car, Brady realized there was something wrong. I didn't want to say anything, but I could only deny for so long before Brady had figured it was Garrett who was the reason I was like this. He was getting more mad by the second and was about to turn the car around so he could "confront" Garrett, until I finally cracked. I started to cry. I told him how I felt so embarrassed and stupid about the whole situation. At first he was furious; I'd never seen him so mad. I thought he was going to turn the car around and drive back to Garrett's. However, then he said something, and in that moment, I knew how well he knew me.
He said in a calm voice, "Mas, I love you. You are funny, kind, prettyish,' he paused and snickered, then continued again with a heavy sigh, "but you are not stupid. You know what you saw, and Garrett's an ass. I know that because I can be one from time to time. Looking at you like this makes me never want to treat a girl the way Garrett treated you tonight. You are amazing, Mas. Tell me what you want me to do. We can go back there, and I can kick that asshole's ass, or we can go home, watch some Harry Potter, Fast and Furious, Avengers, or whatever romantic comedy you want?"
I told him there's no other way I'd want to spend my Saturday night than with him, my favorite movies, Rocky Road ice cream he picked up for me on our way home, and a nice big couch. When we got home, Liam was there talking to my dad in the kitchen. They both looked at me and could see I had been crying, but neither my dad nor Liam asked what was wrong. They probably just assumed I didn't want to talk. So they did what any good dad and friend would do, changed the subject and tried to make me smile immediately. My dad just saw the bag in Brady's hand and said, "I'll get out the bowls and spoons. What are we having, Rocky Road?"
Liam got up and grabbed the T.V. remote. "What are we feeling, Avengers, Harry Potter, Fast Furious, that one movie where that guy and girl fall in love?" he asked, with a smirk on his face that made me laugh. I loved how they all knew me so well.
That night I was the last one to fall asleep. My dad went to bed first, because my mom was calling for him, then Brady was asleep shortly after. Liam and I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning, watching movies, and laughing. We liked to commentate on movies that we'd already seen a bajillion times. Then we started talking about life and anything under the sun. This is how he became more than my brother's best friend, but also someone I thought was also my friend. We would always be the last to fall asleep since I was five and he was seven. You'd think we'd run out of things to talk about, but we never did. Thanks to Liam, Brady had found another brother and I found, well, I don't know, but I was so thankful for him.