Kisses of Fire (boyxboy)

Chapter 17 - What Happened at that Party?

After school on Friday, Cooper and the guys hung out in the gym, wasting time until the football game started.

At one point, instead of playing, they tried to get the decorations from the pep rally down by throwing the basketball at them. The freshman ended up winning the pizza party for their hallway decorating, which Cooper actually helped with since he couldn't go to practice. None of the guys really cared about the win until the upperclassmen told them they could skip school the day of if they wanted to.

There was no way his parents would let him, though. Speaking of his parents, they were both happy when he told them he was going to the football game. His dad was proud that he was getting out there and finally enjoying high school. Cooper rolled his eyes at that.

He was going for the food.

Apparently, there was going to be an after-party, but he felt he needed to take a break after the last one he went to so he was going pass.

Before he could throw the ball at one of the streamers, the sound of his dad's voice interrupted him, "Hey, if y'all are going to be in here, then you're going to clean in here," he yelled from the double doors. Everyone let out a mumbled yes sir and got to work.

By the time they were done, it was 5, and the other team had just shown up. The boys could see the Concordia football players walking to the locker rooms, and everyone in the gym stopped and stared. "Why are they so huge?" Jason asked as if he was terrified. They were huge, not only in size but in height too.

Was everyone at that school on some sort of drugs?

Tearing their stares away from the giants, a couple of the guys said they were going to start heading outside to get some food. Going out to the part of the lot where their dads were cooking, they grabbed their plates and went to sit down. "Y'all did this every Friday?" Cooper asked, referring to all the people cooking by their cars, eating and drinking. Cooper thought it was weird that this many people actually cared enough to do this. "Only the home games," Myles responded, paying attention to his food.

As it got closer to game time, there were a lot more people showing up. Heights was a pretty big school, but it seemed like Concordia had a decent number of people from their bleachers' looks. He noticed a lot of maroon and white, which caused him to get confused about who went to which school; Heights colors being red and white.

He still wondered if River was going to be here. He won't deny that it hurt his feelings when he texted him on Tuesday and heard nothing back. He wouldn't admit it but that was one of the reasons he was there. The way that Cooper saw it was that if River was there then he was over Cooper, not romantically but you get the point. And if he wasn't then he was probably avoiding him. Either way, Cooper saw it as River giving him the cold-shoulder.

In a way, he felt at fault for River ignoring him. Was it because of the kiss? Was he also drunk? Was he freaked out when he remembered? He seemed fine the next morning.

Why was he even thinking so much about it? Why did he care? Cooper didn't know, and he wouldn't think about it anymore.

"Hey, the game is about to start," Parker said, catching Cooper's attention. He got up and started heading to the top of the bleachers where the freshman stand. It was already crowded when they got there, which caused Cooper to squeeze into his spot. The game hadn't even started, and he was over it. They stood with the other freshman who were on the basketball team and cheered loudly as the football players came out to the field.

Once the game started, everyone went crazy in the stands; Cooper looked around in confusion.

Nothing happened. Why are they cheering? Was it going to be like this the whole game?