How to Steal a Happy Ending

~Interlude: what could've been~

~~~ Sophomore Year. ~~~

I couldn't feel my butt anymore. I'm pretty sure that had less to do with how cold it was and more to do with the fact that I'd essentially been sitting on an unforgiving hard, wooden plank for the past two hours.

I squirmed on the bleachers.

"Cat, let's leave," I whined, "We can drop by Shelly's on the way back and it will totally be on me."

Kate turned to me, eyes gleaming with untoward glee. "Aww, where's your school spirit?"

The cold wind bit at my arms, "If we don't go somewhere with heating within the next ten minutes, I'm gonna turn into the school spirit."

"Aha, you've always been so punny, Claire." She then stared at me for a whole 2 seconds biting back a snigger and, knowing her, the urge to repeatedly ask if I got it.

I let out a lackluster ha ha just to put an end to her goggly eyes and went back to my moping. Nonetheless, Katie burst into giggles.

Another strong gale threw my bangs out of place. Why the hell did I decide to wear a camisole in the middle of September? I tucked the stray hair behind my ear.

"Dude, I'm going to go home before I get pneumonia or something."

Katie jabbed her elbow into my ribs and whispered loudly, "Oh my god, he's looking at you."

My eyes snapped to the 'he' she was talking about. "Yeahno, he's looking at that cheerleader's big, bouncing bosom. Now let me go, pleasee." I dragged the last word on till she swiveled her head back to me.

Her stained lips matched her flaming anger and the two tangoed in annoyance. "You can't leave because then Vincent Wright is going to think you never even showed up."

I exhaled in defeat. I guess it would be a waste of effort if I left at the last minute.

She threw an arm around my waist, "Now, at least pretend you're paying attention."

"I hate football," I muttered. I wiggled out of her grasp and crossed my arms. You can take a girl to the game but you can't force her to be excited about it. I glared at the green field and sulked.

"Hey." Warm air fanned over my bare shoulder, making my body jerk.

Turning to look behind me, I was greeted by a pair of highly amused blue eyes. Then, when they briefly flickered towards my chest, I just as quickly dropped my hands into my lap.

"Oh, hey James." I gave him an awkward three finger wave.

He slid a leg over the bench to come sit next to me, "I didn't know you were into football."

"I'm not." I replied a little too quick getting a quizzical expression in return. "I mean, I'm just here for," I gave him a sheepish laugh, "you know, school spirit."

A loud snort came from my right.

"Er-this is Katie," I motioned to her, leaning back a bit so that James could see her. "She goes to the same school as us."

Kate simply simpered at him. "Hi, I've never seen you around here. Are you new to town?"

He cocked his eyebrow at her before pursing his lips and giving her a blithe nod. "Sure, something like that." He shifted his attention back to me, "Have you seen Nate? I've been looking everywhere for him."

"Oh." My ego deflated slightly, realizing that he wasn't here for me. "He's out on the field, obviously."

I gestured towards the huddle our players had formed, "He's on the team. Didn't you know?"

James gave me a small huh and leaned forward, squinting at the field and trying to catch sight of Nate. His right hand brushed against my thigh as he tried to look past the heads of the people in front of us. And at that moment, I knew that I resembled a freshly plucked tomato.

Seemingly oblivious to my sudden change in skin tone, he dropped back into his seat... hand still on my thigh. "On the team?" he laughed, "He's more like the water boy."

Katie tittered at the way he pronounced water while I tried to inconspicuously slip my leg out from under his palm.

Taking notice of my efforts, his eyes darted first to his hand and then to me. "Sorry," he slowly picked his hand up and ran it through his hair, giving me some sort of deadly smolder along the way.

I felt like my heart had dropped down from my chest to the space between my legs and decided to beat there instead. It was those damned raging hormones that parents warn us about, of course.
Just in case though, I shuffled closer to Kate and kept my eyes firmly glued to the 50 yard mark for the rest of the game.

~~~~~~~
A/N: so I've diedr for a while. AND before you blame me, let me tell you now-  I've had writer's block. no worries.