Football players are assholes. I know; I'm related to their king. My older, and annoyingly overprotective, brother Jake is the star quarterback at Santa Cruz High School. I love him but hate living in his shadow. Everyone worshiping the air he breat...
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On a beautiful fall in Northern California Friday afternoon, I sat alone on the football stadium's cold, hard metal bleachers. My mind drifted until I obsessively thought about a guy I'd barely known for five weeks. And a guy who was, of all things, not just a football player but my hot-headed brother's biggest rival.
"What am I doing?" I muttered to myself after I attempted to read the same page of Pride and Prejudice for the fourth time. The book Logan ruined.
Reading was pointless, so I folded the book closed and tucked it in my backpack. I leaned against the metal chain link fence behind me and sighed. The empty bleachers and field offered no comfort. All by myself, I was a big loser. The team warmed up, ran some drills, then disappeared into their locker room thirty minutes ago. The band petered out. I abandoned my book and turned to my only company – distracting thoughts about Logan.
How could he do that to my school? And why the fuck can't I stop thinking about him? I'd never thought about any guy except Alex for the past three years, and I'd only known Logan for what, five weeks? Two of those weeks, he was in camp, and I ghosted him. Half the time, he put on an act, and the glimpses of him being genuine were as confusing as his crickets.
That's hardly anything. You can't know someone after three weeks... Can you?
I also kissed Logan out of gratitude for dropping the arrogant façade and showing a real, vulnerable side of himself. In that sense, I probably should've kissed his mom. Yes, that was it. Nothing to do with how his gorgeous blue eyes looked at me, how warm and secure his arms were, or how his energy drew me closer to those beautiful, kissable lips...
Stop it, Ellie. You sound like a bad romance novel.
I shook my head as if the movement wiped out these thoughts. It didn't. Logan was right; I looked forward to our phone texts. I didn't realize I felt that way until my phone grew silent. Its ringing jolted me out of my conflicted and confused mental fog, but not even when Logan stood face-to-face with me did I believe he was there. He what now? Here? He's here!?
I sucked in the stadium's worth of oxygen. My heart flipped, and a rush of flutters rippled through it. Stop, Ellie! He was just a boy, and one I should've never wanted to speak with again, but I couldn't hold back the smile from tugging on my lips. My heart jumped out of my chest, and my mouth dropped open. The smirk he sent me was beyond disarming. "And I'm here to see you, baby."
"Logan?" My wide eyes stared at him, and my lips stayed parted. I was almost afraid to blink and send him into my imagination.
"You shouldn't be sitting here by yourself," he said. My mouth dried out as it hung open. Four days of no communication, a fly-by football prank, and now he was right in front of me? "Someone might come in and snatch you away." While I sat frozen, speechless, and immobile, he smirked from ear to ear.
I swallowed hard to find space in my throat for coherent words to form. Unfortunately, when I spoke, a high-pitched squeak came out, "Me!? You shouldn't be here," I squeaked. A burn tingled my strained eyes. How was Logan two feet from me? His tall frame leaned against the railing, one long leg crossed over the other. The late afternoon sun painted golden highlights on all the parts of him that I'd also thought about this week. His dazzling blue eyes looked at me intently.
