Heart and Soul [bxb]

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Next Friday, before the game, Carter practically inhaled his lunch and took off to the library without explaining himself to the rest of the team.

Just like he had expected, he found Johnny sitting in his usual corner table, with an open plastic container filled with some kind of pasta salad. Carter pulled the chair in front of him, sitting down with a grin. Johnny's eyes widened slightly in surprise and the fusilli—living with the Santoros had allowed him to expand an entirely new knowledge base—perched on his fork rolled down to fall on the plastic container again.

"What are you doing here?"

"Hanging out with you," Carter stated plainly, like it was obvious.

Johnny raised his eyebrows, but he couldn't quite conceal the little smile that twitched in his lips. "Don't you have an away game today?" He asked.

"Yup. Bus leaves in thirty minutes."

"Shouldn't you be with your team then?" Johnny questioned, slowly.

"I'd rather be here with you," Carter replied. "Got a nearly three hour drive to be huddled up with those idiots."

Johnny's knuckles covered his smile as he rested his chin on his hand, elbow propped on the tabletop.

"Nervous for the game?"

Carter shrugged.

Johnny tilted his head, curiously. "Heard they're good," he mused. Then his lips twisted into a sly smile. "Like, all week long. My dad's been a pile of nerves. You didn't hear it from me though."

Carter laughed quietly. "Guess I'm a little nervous too," he admitted. "It usually doesn't hit me until I'm geared up."

Johnny's eyebrows shot up. "And here I though Carter Parrish didn't get nervous," he teased.

"I do," Carter confessed. "Especially this year that everyone just assumes I'm going to win us the game or something. It all usually goes away at kick-off though."

Johnny trapped his bottom lip between his teeth, in a move that never failed to catch Carter's attention. Somehow, he thought Johnny knew that, and did it on purpose. Just to know that he could, in fact, catch Carter's attention.

"Is your family going to the game?"

"My mom can't make it, but I think the Santoros are all driving there after school," Carter answered. Then, in a more tentative, hopeful tone, he added, "Are you going?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

Johnny smirked. "If it was up to me, I would stay home re-reading A Dance of Dragons, but Lydia's been begging me to drive her to see the game."

"Is she still seeing Brad Wheeler?"

"Oh, no. That's history," Johnny said decisively. "She says she's swearing off boys for the rest of the year."

"Like, school year or twenty-seventeen?"

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Who knows?"

Carter laughed.

The moment was perfect as it was. Just what Carter had intended, when he decided to see Johnny before taking the bus with his team. The last thing in the world he needed was Bobby Gonzalez's thunderous voice calling out his name.

"There you are, Parrish," Scott Meyers exclaimed, slapping his shoulder, as the two seniors approached their table.

With no regard for library policies, Bobby dragged the chair next to Carter with an irking screeching sound and plopped down on top of it. His wolfish grin was directed at Johnny though.