Anna steals a kiss from an unsuspecting Joe and runs away. He catches her soon and makes her pay. Read how the hopelessly romantic Anna and the strictly casual Joe try to get along.
The final match is tomorrow. As promised, my family is coming to watch the game. Which means I need Anna to come, too. Once I'm back home from practice, I take a quick shower, get changed, and call Anna.
"Hello," she says. I don't know why but I feel a little nervous to ask her to come watch me play tomorrow. "What are you doing?" I ask her. "Homework. Why did you call?" she asks sounding rather uninterested.
"My team reached the finals," I say. "I know," she says. It's great she knows but why does she sound down about it? "Then you know the match is tomorrow. Make sure to come and let my parents see you."
"Okay," she says. I wait for her to say anything else. "Is that all?" she asks. I want to ask her why she sounds like she wants the call to be over already. "Yeah," I say. She disconnects the call. I put down my phone on my bedside table with a thud. What's with her? Can't she be at least a little excited for the game?
I know we are not that close, but after I went to see her in front of her school, I thought there was something between us. Now I feel stupid to be the only one thinking about it. Even though I'm the one who forced her to act like my fake girlfriend, why do I feel like I'm the one who is being treated like a fake boyfriend who she doesn't give a fuck about.
"We're not going anywhere," Peter says to me as he runs past me on the field. The game is not going good. Both the teams are neck to neck. To win, we must lead soon. I return to the bench with my teammates for the half time break. Our coach tries to cheer us up and gives us some pointers. The team is already doing everything right and yet we didn't get a single break.
In a bad mood, I turn to the audience. I notice my family. They chose a wrong day to see me play. Then I look around at the crowd. She's still not here. "Joe," the waterboy says as he hands me a small bottle of water that fits in my palm. I finish it in a single gulp and return the empty bottle to him. I look back at the audience where my family is.
A few rows behind them, I see three girls walking across towards the empty seats on the other side. The last girl sees me and taps on the back of the girl in front of her and points her to my direction.
When the middle girl sees me, she stops and waves at me with both her hands like someone who wants to be found in an airport crowd. I smile. She didn't have to do it. I was looking at her only.
My friends notice what I'm doing. They look at the audience, too. David says, "Your golden goose is here. Maybe now we'll get lucky."
I don't know if what he said was true or not, her being lucky for me, but within five minutes of resuming the game we get a touchdown.
Briefly I stop by my family to see them off after the game. Anna and her friends are with them, too. My dad congratulates me, while also reminding me that now I won't have too many practices and could visit the office. Then he leaves with my mom and sister.
My friends appear next to me. "You sure came late to the game," Peter says to Anna. "Had a minor emergency at one of my parents' shop. They are out of town, so I'd to drop by the shop before coming here. However, it's not like I missed much. It looked like the game really started in the second half only," she says.
"Ain't that true," David says, giving me a nudge. "Anyway, there's a party at Alan's place. You girls are coming?" he asks them.
The girls look at each other and then nod in unison.
Since I won't be able to talk to Anna freely in the party where a lot of girls from my school will be in, I ask my friends to take Anna's friends to the party first, and then I'll take her someplace else.
When I come to the parking lot, Anna is standing near my car looking at her phone. Her face is lit by the screen light. I notice strands of her hair swinging at the sides of her face in the cool night breeze. When she notices me, she says, "Your friends took my friends to the party leaving me behind! What sort of friends are they?"
"Are you asking about yours or mine?" I ask her as I click the remote to unlock my car door.
Getting in, she says, "My friends would never ditch me. Your friends took them away from me."
"Then how about I take you away from them? We're not going to the party yet. Let's grab dinner first, I'm starving."
"What? But my friends!"
"Your friends will be fine without you. Don't worry, my boys will keep them good company," I say winking. She furrows her eyebrows. "Please, my girls aren't that easy."
"We'll know tomorrow," I say as I drive us to a great pasta place I know.
I didn't notice the time pass, as we were having our dinner and talking about everything from football to fudge cakes, until she mentions it's late and she wants to go home.
On our way to her home, I ask her, "What were you doing when I called you last night?"
"Doing homework. Why?"
"You sounded a little distracted," I say. She sounded like she didn't care, but I tell her like this.
"It was nothing. I must've been sleepy," she quickly says. She's lying but I don't press her.
Since her parents aren't home I park in front of her house to drop her off. "Thanks for the dinner, and once again, congratulations on the win," she says.
"Thanks for showing up," I say.
She smiles. "You showed up at my school, too. Now we're even. Good night." When she reaches for the door handle I hold her hand, turn her around and crash my lips on hers.
She freezes at first, then slowly warms up to it. I press my torso against her wanting to feel as much of her body as possible. I slide my lips down to her neck. I feel her short breaths and the rhythm of her chest. I wrap my hand around her waist and pull her towards me, cussing at the centre console of my car that's keeping me from moving her to my lap.
And then she stops. Pushes me away in a panic. "I'm sorry, I can't," she says before opening the car door and running away into her house.
Maybe I came too strong on her, or maybe I took her by surprise, either way, she wasn't expecting that. And neither was I. I didn't know I would kiss her. I didn't know she would turn me on like this, and then run away. But now I know one thing for sure:
I want her.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
