When a Player Meets a Player

Chapter 15

"Maps are over there, look for your team's number and follow the trail" Sir said, pointing us towards a table with maps laid out on. Eddie went up and got one before returning to my side, still not talking to me. "When you have your maps, off you go" A few pairs scattered, as well as Libbie who didn't look happy paired with the redheaded geek from the back of the class.

"We're number 3" Eddie said, not looking at me but walking towards the beginning of the trail we were taking. It was silent after that until we were about 10 minutes into the wood. "Huh?" Eddie asked.

"What?"

"Sorry, I thought you said something" he walked ahead, leaving an awkward silence in between us. "You do know it doesn't have to be like this" he stated after a few more minutes.

"Huh?" I was confused

"We don't have to ignore each other"

"You insist on talking and I insist on not talking so ignoring each other is meeting in the middle" he stopped in front of me.

"I won't talk about that then" knowing well what he was on about, "I'll change the subject then but please don't ignore me"

"Fine" I said, seeing in his eyes how hurt he actually was by me ignoring him.

"Friends?" he asked

"Friends" I couldn't help but smile as his face brightened up but then his face turned expressionless.

"Fuck sake! I can't find a single one of these turns and what not!" he yelled. Shit.

"Let me look" he handed me the map.

"Erm... the other way around" he turned the paper upside down so it was the right way.

"I knew that! I was... testing you! And you passed" I stuck my tongue out at him, childishly. I looked at the map for a few minutes "OK, so I don't know how to read maps" I admitted.

"You can't read a map?" he raised his eyebrows.

"I've never needed to be able to since I always had a GPS" That gave me an idea! I took out my iPhone and clicked on Google Maps, trying to get the GPS up. "Shit! No signal" Eddie walked over to a giant tree and sat on the base of it. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting till another group comes this way and we can follow their map with them" that was quite a logical idea actually.

"So..." Eddie said

"So..." I repeated

"You do realize we could be here a while. We should really think of something to talk about since we cant just sit here going 'So...' forever" I thought about it a little.

"Tell me about yourself" OK, so that wasn't usually something I asked people. I was surprised at myself.

"Well..." my question had obviously caught him off guard. "My name is Edward Lawson. I like to play football" he smirked "And get chicks-"

"That's not what I meant" he looked at me side ways "Tell me about you. Not the Eddie that you put on show for people. I want to know who you really are" Wow. I didn't even know I could be this deep.

"Wha-"

"Tell me about the real Eddie. The one that no-one knows because you hide behind this fake one. Tell me who you really are"

"Promise you won't laugh?"

"Promise" we shook pinkies like 5 year olds. He puffed out a breath dramatically.

"I like to bake"

"What?" I spluttered out.

"Bake. You know like cupcakes and such" he gave me a toothy grin. It was nice to see something other than a smirk and I found myself having to bite the insides of my mouth not to return it. "You can try one of my double chocolate chip muffins one day" he winked.