Football Boys

Chapter Twenty

Tyler |

"Oh, their baked asparagus looks good, what do you think," Genevieve cheerfully asked aloud, looking back to get an answer from Greyson.

From behind the two, I watched as Greyson lifted his eyes from the tray of mashed potatoes to look further down at the asparagus.

"Uh... they look interesting," he struggled to say, sounding unsure.

Genevieve shrugged and hummed to herself as she forked a cluster of baked asparagus to dump into her to-go-plate.

Stepping forward, I noticed that Greyson was just grabbing scoops of different dishes from various trays without a second thought while Genevieve took her time, tracing her fingers over the ingredients labeled above each tray of food.

With every other tray of steaming eatables, unbeknownst to anyone staring at her, Genevieve either shook her head in disgust or quickly nodded with an approving grin as she stacked her plate full of a tray's contents.

I placed my plate down on the metal belt and slightly turned around to see what Ellie was interested in getting.

He was practically standing on the back of my heels, carelessly breathing down my neck to marvel over the food options with a look of wonder in his eyes.

I reached over to pull his empty plate next to my half full one and followed his finger as he began to point at what he wanted me to get for him.

"Ah, give me a burger... some fries and oh... some of those right there," he gestured.

Smiling, I did as I was told and tried my best to pack everything he pointed at onto the quickly augmenting mountain of food on Ellie's plate.

Compared to mine, it seemed as if my plate was for a child.

"Red, are you sure that you want all of this? I mean, the plate can barely hold more," I chuckled.

"Yea," he responded seriously, nodding his head in an of course I do fashion.

"It weighs a ton," I joked, pushing his plate and mine forward.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," he mumbled, eyeing more food options.

Shaking my head in amusement, I turned my gaze to the overflowing sea of murmuring students and unexpectedly found a pair of staring eyes intently focused on me.

Natalie wiggled her fingers at me and smirked, her devilish eyes seeming to become glued to me as I slowly turned to catch Greyson's innocent stare just as he was turning to face me.

Momentarily fearful that he saw Natalie staring at me, I tensed under his curious eyes.

"Gosh, are you packing food for the winter or something," he asked incredulously, staring at Ellie's plate.

"I wouldn't doubt it," Gen chimed in, interrupting me just as I was about to open my mouth to speak.

She was carefully closing her plate, not fazed at all as she scanned over Ellie's arrangement of food.

"Haha, I'm a growing man you guys... I need my protein," Ellie forced in a deep voice.

Just as I expected, upon picking up Ellie's plate, I fumbled with it a bit, finding myself glaring at him as he freely jumped ahead of the group with his crutches, seeming to scope out the room with one long glance.

Genevieve and Greyson both looked around the noisy, surprisingly small yet congested cafeteria and both whined as I stood next to them.

"Doesn't seem like enough seats somewhere for all of us," Gen mumbled.