The Nerd [BXB]

16 𖠇 Sharing Is Caring, Right?

The sun rays sting the back of my neck as I sit on the metal bleachers on the very corner. At this moment, I wished I had brought my jacket so I could simply pull my hoodie on and avoid the light burning my skin. Even the peanut M&M's I bought a few minutes ago have the chocolate in them melted. However, the game has yet to start which means I'll have to roast myself for an hour or so.

"I never thought of you as a sportsman."

I look up to my side, squinting my eyes as the sun aims at my face.

Oscar stands there with a bag of popcorn in one hand and Allison's small grip on the other. She is licking a pink cotton candy, unbothered by her surroundings.

   "Why not try new things every once in a while?" I say.

   "I'll take that," he says. He looks at the empty spot by my side, even though pretty much all around me is deserted. "Can we sit with you?"

   "Yes," I respond. "Of course."

   He settles down with Allison by his side. "Remember him?" he asks her, caressing her soft curls.

   She glances at me with her mesmerizing eyes, the exact replica of her father's, and nods. There are pink stains all around her lips as she continues to lick the cotton candy. "Dad's friend?"

I cannot help but grin, pleased that she remembers me. "How about my name?" I ask her.

She stops licking the cotton candy and dives deep in thought. After a few seconds of silence, Oscar leans close to his ear and shields whatever he tells her from me with his hand. "Theo!" she calls out once he finishes whispering.

I look at Oscar and then at her. "I'll give you that one, Al," I say.

The players walk to the green field. I instantly begin to examine the ones wearing the blue and white, searching for a familiar face.

   "Harvey is always last to enter the field," Oscar adds. He plops a popcorn into his mouth. "He loves making an entrance."

   Sure enough, Harvey jogs out of the locker room with his light-brown hair shinning with the sunlight. He joins his teammates and his coach before glancing over his shoulder. He finds me immediately, waving his hand.

   I throw him two thumbs up.

   He smiles and places his focus on the coach in front of him. After conversing with him, all the players stretch as the other team step into the field. Their school cheers loudly on the bleachers in front of us. Their red colors scatter around the crowd, a few blue spotted here and there amongst them.

   Oscar nudges my shoulder. "Would like you some?" He offers me his popcorn.

   I dive my hand into the bag and pull out a few. At my response, he smiles as if glad that I accepted his offer.

   "M&M's?" I show him the packet.

   He takes three; blue, red, and yellow.

   "Al," I call for Allison. When her attention is on me, I say, "Want some chocolate?"

   She looks up at her father for approval.

   "Oh," I say, lowering the chocolates. "She is not allergic to peanuts, is she?"

   "She's not," Oscar responds. He faces his daughter and nods at my stretched hand. "You can get some, Al."

   She reaches for the package with her short arm and opens the palm of her hand. Instead of giving her a few, I place the entire package in her hand. "You can keep them," I say. "A reward for remembering my name."

   She looks up at her father and chuckles mischievously, knowing well that he gave her the answer. "Thank you," she says, her voice sweet and soft.

   "You're welcome." I put my eyes back on the game where the players are getting on their positions after a whistle blows. "I hope you don't mind her eating a lot of candy," I tell Oscar while my eyes remain on the field.

   "Not at all," he says, eating an M&M. "She got the sweet-tooth from her father." He brings an M&M eye level and says, "You really scammed us with these chocolates—they're melted."

   I start laughing.

   As the game goes on, all I know is that I must stand up and clap with the rest of the crowd whenever one of the blue-uniformed guys makes a goal. Of course, most of these are made by Harvey and he makes sure that I watched him do it by looking at me after doing so.

   "Where is your mother, by the way?" I ask Oscar in the middle of the game.

   By now, as the sun settles behind the hills, he has Al in his lap with her eyes concentrated on the game.

   "I had the day off today from work so I decided to give my mother a break by bringing Al to the game," he explains, arms wrapped around her as he bounces his leg up and down. "That woman does a lot for us so I wanted to reward her with a bit of rest."

   A warmness fills my chest, like sitting in front of a chimney after a day on the snow. "That is nice of you, Oscar."

   A wind blows by, whistling loudly and shaking the trees around the field until they rustle. Meanwhile, I wrap my arms around me.

   "No jacket?" Oscar says after noticing the hairs on my arms standing up. "I thought all you wore were sweatshirts."

   "Not today," I let him know. "Genesis told me that a jacket would shield the view of my clothes from the world." I look at him. His eyes look blue instead of grey now that the sun doesn't hit them. "She said that style requires sacrifices."

   He knits both eyebrows. "Who styles themselves for a soccer game?"

   "Exactly!" I tell him. "That is what I told her."

   Oscar looks down at his long-sleeves green flannel.

   "Oh, no, sir," I instantly say. "You are not lending me your flannel."

   "I was not planning on doing so," he says.

   I tilt my head to the side. "Oh."

   "However, this blanket is long enough to cover the three of us," he adds, pointing at the green blanket wrapped around Al. "Right, Al?"

   She nods, looking up at him and then at me.

   I remain quiet for a second, questioning myself whether Harvey would be weirded out if I shared a blanket with a guy from school. "Fine," I finally agree.

   I scoot closer to him until our sides are touching. That is when he stretches the blanket Al was using to wrap it around the three of us. I take ahold of one corner while he holds the other side over his daughter's chest.

   He looks down at me. "Better?"

   I look up, the cold wind no longer touching my skin. "Yes," I respond. We are so close that I can smell the sweetness of the cotton candy from his mouth after Al did not want it anymore.

   The nice detergent scent from his house is wrapped around this blanket.

   As we watch the game, Al murmurs something that I couldn't hear. And apparently so could Oscar after saying, "What was it, Al?"

   She looks at the two of us over her shoulder and repeats louder this time. "I like this."

   Oscar grins. "The game is fun, isn't it?"

   "No." She groans and throws herself over Oscar's chest as her head rests on mine. "This."

   I feel the heat rise up to my cheeks, similarly to when Harvey kissed me. The only difference is that there is an inexplicable joy inside me instead of shyness.

   "I make a good blanket buddy," I say to Oscar, the shivery wind cooling my cheeks down.

   He simply smiles at me.

   Suddenly, the referee blows the whistle and the game is over.

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