Up in the Air

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"I swear you're not human; it'd be unfair to the rest of the human race if you were," Allie was still talking the dodgeball game we'd played in PE. "First off, you're already freakishly smart then you have to go off and be athletic too?"

I laughed.

Jenny just shook her head at her sister who, even fifteen minutes after the game had ended, was still yapping on about my apparent 'fierceness' on the field. She made it sound like we'd just come out of a war.

Then again, Allie and I had been playing on different teams and I've always been competitive.

In all our years of high school, this was the first time all three of us shared a PE class. We'd skipped on the school showers – a perk of last period PE – because we were all heading off to my house to work on a particularly difficult AP Math problem set due Friday. We'd shower there instead.

"Today was nothing. That flag football game in freshman year still blows everything else out of the water," Jenny laughed.

I didn't make any move to deny it because the game Jenny was talking about had been brutal.

The left side of my body was black and blue after being tackled by four girls from the opposing team. I'd sprained my wrist and bruised a few ribs but my team had won. While scoring the winning touchdown though, the same four girls had managed to sprain my left ankle too.

"Don't blame me, Allie, blame Nate and all those years of -" I stopped walking. We'd just exited the school. My truck should have been in my immediate field of vision but it was blocked by the sight of a gaggle of boys standing around and leaning on it. I could feel the beginnings of anger creep into my head.

Jenny laughed when she saw what caught my attention. "Since when has your car become a magnet for football players?"

I hadn't noticed it earlier but she was right. It was the football team standing around my truck. That only meant -

"Nate, what the hell?!"

The sea of boys parted to reveal Nate leaning against the hood of my truck, a casual smile on his face. I felt the vein in my temple tick. He was going against one of the few rules when it came to my truck – absolutely no leaning on the truck. This was the one secret to why the truck didn't look its age.

"Oh, right. I forgot. I'm sorry." As he stepped forward so he was no longer leaning against the hood, he flashed a gorgeous smile in my direction.

The mythical eyes behind my head could see Jenny and Allie worriedly looking at each other. That was the same smile that threw me off my rocker in freshman year.

I steeled myself. There was no way that stupid smile was getting to me now.

"Those two things seem to be recurring themes as of late."  I glared at the rest of the football team and they all cleared out. Nate stayed behind, still smiling obliviously at me. "Look, I know that this is your parking spot so there's no need to stake any claim even with my car in it."

"What?"

"That's why you're here isn't it? When you don't have practice, this is where the team hangs out before you go off to do your cool kid stuff. Don't worry, you'll get your spot back tomorrow," I dumped my gym bag into the truck bed, opened the the driver side door and dropped my school bag on the passenger seat.

Nate was frowning as he moved my school bag to the back seat and sat down right next to me. "I'm not staking some stupid macho claim on the stupid spot," he laughed. "You're my ride home, remember?"