Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started to hang out with Yvette again, and Sara and Leah have offered me their own apologies. I’m still hurt, but they promised they would make it up to me, and they’ve been trying, to their credit. We’ve been eating meals together again, going to casual dorm room hangouts around campus.
But I’ve yet to go to a big event like this. I was planning to test out the waters slowly—go with Yvette to the game tonight and sit somewhere way up in the stands where nobody could see me. Or insult me.
This… isn’t what I had in mind. But Bette must read my mind, because she shrugs and takes a step back.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to. I get it. Just thought I’d offer.”
“No, I—” I hesitate. Bite my lower lip. Then I spin around and grab my bag. “Why not. Let’s do it.”
Her expression brightens into something that looks like genuine happiness. “Really? I mean… okay. Cool.” She starts off down the hall, and I trail after her, wondering why I was so scared of this girl when I first showed up on campus. Because she’s campus royalty, essentially? Who cares?
Underneath all the spoiled wealth and the shitty father, she’s just a person. Just another girl like me.
At the end of the hall, a cluster of Bette’s usual friends is waiting, along with Sara and Leah, who offer me waves and tentative smiles. I smile back, only pausing in the walk to knock on Yvette’s door so she can come too.
Then, my arm linked through Yvette’s, with Sara excitedly telling me all about something I missed after our Bio class ended earlier, Leah laughing along at her jokes, and Bette and her friends enveloping us, including us like we’re just normal fixtures of the school, I realize… I feel at home. I feel like I belong here, and I’m not pretending to be anyone at all. I’m just being me.
The game is more fun than I imagined it would be. I’ve only watched football games in passing on the TVs at the bar where I worked back in Boston. Being at one in person has a whole different energy to it.
I find myself really getting into it, screaming at the top of my lungs every time one of our players has the ball. Especially any time that Keanen touches it.
Watching him on the field is like watching a whole new side to him. He’s his same confident, cool, collected self as ever. But the things he can do with that ball—the way he always seems to know exactly where to throw it in order to connect with just the right player to rush through our opponent’s offense… It’s impressive as hell.
Not to mention sexy.
He pulls off a particularly wild pass, across half the length of the whole football field, to one of the players behind enemy lines already. Our guy catches it, and we all go wild, leaping to our feet, stomping and cheering, because the other team doesn’t have any defensemen within miles.
The rest of the school watches the guy with the ball books it for the end zone. But my eyes linger on Keanen. And I notice him doing the same—looking away from his teammate to scan the stands.
I jump up and down, waving with both arms. One row of bleachers down and a couple seats over, I notice Bette doing the same. We catch each other’s eyes and flash each other quick smiles and nods, before we go back to waving.
Keanen’s eyes catch mine first, then his sister’s. When he looks back at me, his smile widens about a million watts at once. He flashes us both a quick thumbs up, and then he turns to race up the field, because his teammate just ran the ball into the end zone, and all the players are clustering up, chanting and surrounding the guy who scored.
Then they line up across from one another again, and I prepare myself for more screaming myself hoarse.
By the end of the game, my throat aches, and my legs are sore from all the jumping on and off the bleachers. But I’m riding higher than I’ve felt in a long time, surrounded by classmates—by new potential friends, maybe?—and about to run down into the arms of the first person on campus to fully embrace me for who I am. To make me feel seen, protected, safe, in this unfamiliar and at times hostile place.
The buzzer sounds to end the game, but it’s hardly necessary–the score is a total blow out. Thanks in no small part to Keanen and that killer arm of his.
I watch all the guys on the team congratulating him as they huddle up, slapping his back, shaking hands.
I notice more than a few of the cheerleaders on the sidelines checking him out, too, but it only makes my grin widen. Because I know he’s all mine.
By the time I reach the fence at the bottom of the stands, Keanen has finally managed to extricate himself from the huddle of guys around him. He strides across the field, locking eyes with me as he walks. I’m not sure what to expect. We’ve not exactly hidden our status since that night in the chancellor’s office, since all of my other secrets came spilling out all over campus, but neither of us are big PDA people, and although we’ve held hands on campus, we haven’t done much more.
But with every stride he takes toward me, my chest swells more, my throat tightening. Because I recognize the look in his eyes.
He reaches me, and damn the waist high fence between us. But he doesn’t seem to care. He catches my face in both hands and pulls me into a kiss, right there on the field, with the whole school watching. I hear a ragged cheer somewhere behind us, but I don’t care.
I reach up and wrap both arms around his neck, as he shifts, his lips parting mine, his tongue tracing a familiar path across my lips, my teeth, my tongue.
He smells like sweat and grass and victory, but he tastes the way he always does, like molasses or honey, sweet and heady enough to make my breath catch and my knees go weak.
When he breaks away to take a breath, I seriously have to catch mine, leaning against him for support, wishing I could make the fence between us vanish, because—
“Do you want to get out of here?” he asks, his gaze searching mine, those deep, dark brown eyes of his just inches from my gaze.
I laugh. When he doesn’t join in, I raise an eyebrow, and reach down to press my palm flat against his chest. “Don’t you need to stay and celebrate with your team?”
He lifts an eyebrow. “I’d much rather celebrate with my girlfriend. In private.” Then he waves a dismissive hand over his shoulder. “I spend too much time at practice with those guys anyway.”
I laugh again. But there’s a bubbling, happy, hopeful feeling growing in my chest. Because he just said girlfriend. And because I can still feel the stares of everyone else in this stadium on us right now, and it sends a thrill through me to know that everyone knows we’re together now. And Keanen doesn’t mind. In fact, he seems to want them all to know.
So do I.
“Well…” I bite my lower lip, enjoying the way Keanen’s gaze immediately drops to take that in. “If my boyfriend wants to get out of here, then who am I to say no?” I reply, grinning.
He leans in to kiss me again, slower this time. When our lips part, my heart is beating so fast I can feel the pulse fluttering in my throat, right under my collarbone. “Let’s go,” he murmurs. Then he vaults over the fence in one move—who knew it was as easy as that?
I grin, watching him. At least until he catches my hand and tugs me along to walk with him.
As we head for the stadium exit, I spot Bette in the stands above us, surrounded by her usual cluster of girls. Yvette and Sara and Leah all wave excitedly. After a moment, even Bette nods, and I notice a small smile on her face when she looks from her brother to me. Almost like she’s happy for us.