First Down

6. Adrian Brown

I walked into the room I reserved for Jaelyn and I. Surprisingly she had beat me there as she sat typing, humming a song with her AirPods in. Her back was to the door so she didn't see me come in, and probably didn't hear me either with her AirPods in. I rounded the table to take a seat beside her. She jumped slightly as she took out one of the AirPods, "you scared me." She admitted with her hand on her chest. "Can't see or hear your surroundings sitting like that." I informed as I started to pull out my laptop.

She rolled her eyes as she took out her other AirPod, putting them in their case. "Well aware Dad," I smiled as I pulled up my finished part of the paper. "How was your weekend?" I asked before jumping right into the project. "It was decent, yours?" She asked as she looked at me, I nodded, "it was cool." It was almost the weekend again, it was now Thursday so I saw her in class on Tuesday and earlier today, but the last time I spoke to her was at Tessie's Treats. "Was that your boyfriend?" I asked, letting my curiosity take the lead. I had made it known I was single, but we didn't dive into her relationship status.

She rolled her eyes, "absolutely not." I chuckled lightly, "and who was the lady you were with?" She questioned as she rested her arms on the table, bringing her face to rest on her fist. "Just a friend" I answered with ease as my eyes dropped to my laptop. ""Mhm." She let out as if she didn't believe me. I smiled as I looked up at her, "I told you I was single, if she was anything more I'd make that known. I don't hide girlfriends."

"Well good, cause plenty of niggas do. She's pretty though, and you two look good together." She responded as she put her eyes back on her laptop as well. "Appreciate it." I let out before changing the topic, "ready to review?" She nodded, "let's do it. Commenter or editor rights?" She questioned referring to the level of access we wanted to give each other to review our work. "Commenter, we can discuss the changes before making the edit." She nodded as we both shared our google docs and went to work. It was quiet for the next twenty minutes and as we read and commented on each other's writing, I had to give it to her; her shit sounded good as fuck, she could write the fuck out of a paper. There were few changes that I suggested. I even put the shit into a plagiarism checker to make sure she wrote it, and it passed. I might have done a little too much doing that, but I needed to make sure I wasn't about to fail because of no shit like that.

"Damn." I let out lowly, she looked up at me, "what?" I shook my head, "this was good as hell" I admitted. A smile started to rise from the corners of her mouth. "Thank you, you didn't do too bad yourself." She admitted. "I guess we can look at each other's edit, put it all together, and then start discussing how we want the PowerPoint to go." She finished. I nodded, "sounds like a plan." I opened up my document to review her suggestions and comments. We worked silently again for the next fifteen minutes, asking questions here and there about the comments left. We put our parts together, formatted it correctly, added a header page, and did the references before deciding to call it a day on the project."Good work." I let out as I closed my laptop, "I guess next week we can focus on the PowerPoint, I think we can finish that next week too. Then we'll have a free week before it's due." She nodded in agreement, "sounds like a plan, the worst of it is done."

Seeing her writing intrigued me. She was definitely more than meets the eye, more than what her reputation made you think she was. I found myself wanting to get to know her a little bit more, just on friendly shit. As we packed our shit up the room door opened as two of my teammates, Daquan and Savon walked in.

"Adrian!" Daquan yelled out, his eyes going to Jaelyn once she turned around to see who walked in. "Damn, hey beautiful." He let out with a smile. I watched as lust filled her eyes as she returned the smile, "hey." Daquan's focus was fully on her as he asked her name, clearly about to try and run game. Savon shook his head with a smile, "this nigga," he let out to me, "aye, coach canceled practice for today but do you know why he moved the practice time up for next week?" I shook my head no, "I didn't even know it was moved up."