by Zoey Shores
I pull out a chair next to her and ease myself down. A warm, red blush inches up from her neck and lightly colors her face, bare of makeup but adorned with a natural, delicate beauty.
“Actually, the drunk LSU students cursing you outside the bar was good enough to spice up my article a little bit.”
A burst of laughter booms out of my mouth before I adjust my volume, not wanting to draw the ire of the strict, roaming libraries. “Comes with the territory, being hated, I guess.”
“Well, next time I need to know whether or not Carson Wright is an asshole, I’ll be sure to use you as a confidential source.”
I shake my head. “No, that one can be on the record. Luke Tanner reports that Carson Wright is the biggest asshole on the team. Put it in your next article. No objections on my end.”
“I think that’s more of a man bites dog story. Not something too many people are unaware of.”
I chuckle. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Actually, I can think of a colorful story your readers might be interested in.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You know how Coach Riker is making us all home-cook healthy meals and post them on the team Instagram as proof?”
Heidi chuckles and winces. “I’ve seen the results. I don’t know if any of the pictures you guys have posted can really pass as food.”
“Hey, we’re college athletes, not chefs! Most of us have barely learned to order a pizza by ourselves. Anyway, to make up for bait and switching you about a story on Saturday night, I’ll extend an open invitation: stop by our house anytime to watch us make fools of ourselves in the kitchen. You can snap some pictures and write about what a debacle it is. I’m sure the readers will eat it up.”
“I think most of the readers would rather eat an issue of the paper that some of the dinners I’ve seen posted on that Instagram,” Heidi says, laughing.
“Hey, most of the really bad ones are from the Alpha Kappa guys! Those guys grew up with person chefs, so what do they know about cooking their own meals? We can’t do much at my place, but at least we can boil water. What do you say? Sometime this week?”
An ambivalent but tempted look plays on Heidi’s face. “It is the kind of thing my editor said he wants more of … alright, deal.”
We exchange numbers. “I’ll text you when we’re about to get cooking.”
We never did set an actual date for when Heidi would come over, but when it gets to be around five-thirty, and the rest of the guys are reminding me it’s my night to try to make something that passes for a healthy dinner, I decide that tonight’s as good as any.
I open her contact in my phone and type out my message.
Me: It’s my turn to cook tonight. As good a time as any for your next story.
A couple minutes later she responds.
Her: Tonight? Kinda short notice.
Me: We’re playing a dud of a team next week, so you're already going to struggle to try to come up with an angle to make next Monday’s article as interesting as your first two weeks. And this is my day of the week to cook, so I figure if I’m going to volunteer for one of us to be embarrassed by a story about us in the kitchen, it should be me.
Her: Haha. Alright. When should I come over?
Me: Now.
I slide my phone into the pocket of my athletic shorts and head downstairs, where the rest of the guys are lounging in the living room.
“What culinary delight are you treating us to tonight, mon chef?” Chase asks me in a mocking French accent.
I open up the refrigerator and poke around. “I’ll figure something out … by the way, Heidi’s coming over.”
“For dinner?” Archer asks, his head perking up from his phone. “Damn, bro. Am I hearing wedding bells? She’s coming over for dinner already?”
I expel a pull of air dismissively. “It’s nothing like that. She’s writing the sports column for the student paper, and she needs, like, a personal interest story to make her next article more interesting. Watching the star quarterback making a fool of himself in the kitchen sounded like a good angle.”
I take out a carton of orange juice and pour myself a glass. I notice a sly look on Archer’s face from across the room, his eyes locked on me in a teasing gaze.
“What?” I direct at him, rolling my eyes.
“Sounds like an excuse to me. How about you, Chase?”
Without even looking up from his phone Chase sounds back, “Lamest excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“That’s for sure,” Lincoln chimes in.
I groan. “Shit, Linc, not you, too.”
Lincoln shrugs his shoulders. “When Archer’s right, he’s right.”
Archer dramatically places his palm over his chest. “I may not be right often, but when it comes to matters of the heart, I’m never wrong.”
“A regular cupid,” I answer, ironically. “Where’s your girlfriend then, if you’re such a fuckin’ love doctor?”
Archer tisks and wags his finger. “It takes a special woman to tie Archer Brighton down all for herself. She hasn’t come around yet. You, on the other hand … a long-lost love comes back into your life after lonely years apart, and you’re concocting a total bullshit excuse to get her over for dinner? Yeah, I’m thinking there’s something here.”
Obviously, he’s right that I pulled this idea out of my ass as an excuse to spend time with Heidi.
If it’s so obvious that even Archer – and all the other guys – realize that … does Heidi realize it?
She did agree to come over after all. Could it really be that she realizes, too, that this is a stupid idea, but actually took my bait just to spend more time with me?
Lincoln turns the TV onto ESPN, where they’re playing college football highlights. I allow myself to focus on the TV, scoping out the competition, to calm my nerves, jittery in anticipation of Heidi coming over.
“Better figure out what you’re gonna botch in the kitchen for your girlfriend’s article,” Archer teases slyly, not even looking up from his phone, while the commercials play.
I fling a couch pillow across the living room, sending it flying into Archer’s face, drawing laughter from the rest of the guys.
Archer laughs himself and tosses it back. “Talk about irony, that’s kinda how you two got reunited, isn’t? That pass you threw that hit her.”
A chuckle in recognition of that fact as I ease myself up off the couch. “I guess you’re right. And it was your clumsy fingers that let that ball slide through your hands behind you.”
“Then it’s all thanks to me you two are back together again. Better name the first kid after me.”
“As long as it’s a boy,” Chase jokes.
“No matter what,” Archer snaps back in response. “If it’s a girl, I’ll be happy to be godfather to little Archerette Tanner.”
I roll my eyes as I saunter over to the kitchen. “First of all, we’re not together. Second of all, can you guys please not act like such knuckleheads when she’s here? It really is for her newspaper.”
“Just for you, lover boy, we’ll be on our best behavior,” Chase says.
There’s not much in the refrigerator. There’s a pack of pork chops I took out of the freezer yesterday, but they’re still kind of frozen. There is, however, a big package of ground beef. Seeing it puts an idea into my head – a favorite dish of my mom’s to make.
“How about meatloaf?” I ask the guys.
“Pretty ambitious,” Lincoln laughs.
“Man, our boy really wants to impress his girl, huh?” Chase follows up.
“How hard can it really be?” I ask, walking back to the couch I just got up from in search of my phone to look up some recipes.
I google meatloaf recipes and scroll through the first couple results. “Shit, that’s a lot of ingredients …"
Lincoln laughs. He’s the only one of us who’s proven to be even marginally competent in the kitchen ever since Coach Riker started forcing us to make healthy meals at home for dinner. “It mi
ght be a lot of ingredients, but you basically just put them all in a big bowl with the ground beef and mash them together.”
I scrounge through the cabinets in the kitchen. “Ketchup … Worcestershire sauce … garlic … breadcrumbs ... eggs … wait, eggs? Eggs go in meatloaf?”
Lincoln laughs from the living room. “They make it all stick together.”
Sheesh, what am I getting myself into?
As I arrange all the ingredients on the counter opposite the stove, the doorbell sounds.
Archer gasps, his face lighting up. “It’s her,” he mouths breathlessly to me.
I take a deep breath and collect myself. “Guys, please don’t make me regret this.”
“Don’t you worry, Romeo. We’ll be perfect gentleman, as always,” is Chase’s not-so-reassuring reassurance.
“Don’t keep here waiting!” Archer implores.
I roll my eyes and head over to the front door. Luckily, the entrance to the house is at the end of a brief hallway that puts the other guys out of view. I look down – shirt is clean and not wrinkly, my shorts fit well, clean pair of socks … shit, it’s not like we’re meeting for dinner at an Italian restaurant or anything, but I at least don’t want to look like a total slob.
I turn the doorknob and open the door.
Fuck.
She’s gorgeous.
She wears a long sleeve, grey Winthrop shirt. It’s casual, not too tight fitting, but the fabric frames her body beautifully. She has on a light blue pair of jeans, hugging her soft curves and showing off the sweet slide of her hips. Her legs are long and shapely, graceful. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail, revealing her angelic face. Her swanlike neck, her cute, tiny nose …
Her face is colorful, lively. A semi-smile teases on her lips. I can tell there’s a nervousness to her. She’s unsure how comfortable she is, unsure how comfortable she even wants to be … she’s unsure of how formal or how casual the visit should be.
Shit, it reminds me of our first date. She was just like this. We’d known each other and talked for years, but when it came time for us to have our first official date, she was so nervous – so adorably nervous. Shit, I was, too, but that didn’t feel so adorable. Stumbling over my words and making an idiot of myself. It seemed I couldn’t possibly say the right thing that night.
Hell, I’d thought I’d blown it.
But that’s not how it turned out. We went out together again a couple nights later. Before long, we were “going steady.” Each other’s first relationship.
God, all the time that’s passed …
And after all that time, here she is. In front of me. At my doorstep.
There’s a charge between us. It’s excited, but tentative. Unsteady. It feels like gunpowder placed next to a fireplace. It feels like it could explode at any moment.
“Hi, Heidi. Find the place okay?”
Talk about a lame hello.
She nods quickly. “Yep, I know the town well. So … ready to get cooking?” She nervously flashes her notebook and pencil she brought with here.
“You gonna stay for dinner and share the result?”
She cringes and giggles. “No promises.”
I wave her in and close the door behind her before leading her to the living room. I introduce her to the rest of the guys -- even though she already knows them from covering the team. She’s already scribbling in her notebook.
“I’m glad we cleaned the place before she came over, otherwise the readers of the student paper would be hearing about what a pigsty we live in,” Lincoln laughs.
“You guys … cleaned before I came over?” Heidi asks, her face deadpan, casting a skeptical eye around the living room, where an old pizza box rests on the end table next to the couch Chase and Archer are sitting on, accompanied by a couple empty beer cans on the coffee table. The kitchen sink is pretty well piled up with dirty dishes, too, now that I notice it …
“Let’s get cooking,” I announce, clapping my hands.
I place the big bowl in the middle of the kitchen counter and double check to make sure I have all the ingredients necessary for the meatloaf mixture handy.
“I’ve never been so excited to watch someone cook meatloaf,” Archer jokes, leaning over the armrest of the couch.
“Yeah, it’s almost like we’re watching a playoff game,” Lincoln chimes in.
“Just pretend I’m not here,” Heidi says, still jotting something or other down in that ubiquitous notebook of hers. “I’m just trying to get a peek into the day to day lives of the Wolves players. Nothing fancy or out of the ordinary needed.”
I start to put all the ingredients together in the big bowl. The first fuck-up occurs early on, when I dip the Worcestershire sauce over and about half of the bottle falls out.
“Shit,” I exclaim. “I thought it would come out slower than that.”
The muffled sound of the three other guys holding back lauggter travels from the living room to my ears. I silently shoot them a middle finger as I take the bowel over to the sink and try to drain out the excess sauce.
“That, uh … should do it.”
“Two tablespoons of ketchup …" I read off my iPhone screen. “How the hell do you measure ketchup with a spoon?”
Heidi has to stifle a laugh.
“Hey!” I exclaim. “You’re supposed to be impartial.”
“You’re right, sorry,” she answers, her cheeks big and rosy with suppressed laughter. Holy fuck, she’s so sexy. A supermodel could wear the most expensive Italian designer dress known to man and I won’t look at her twice if Heidi was standing next to her wearing jeans and an old shirt with her hair tied back.
I made up my mind after the Michigan game that I wanted a shot at us being together again, but damn, now I’m really realizing that I’m full-on falling for her all over again. The knowledge worries and excites me in equal measure.
“Guess I’ll, uh … eyeball it,” I say, unsure. I squeeze the ketchup bottle over the bowl. Damn, that’s gotta be more than two teaspoons, whatever the hell a teaspoon is … right?
“That look about right to you?” I ask Heidi, observing the mixing bowl with an askance look on my face.
“Impartial observer, remember?” she quips.
“Smartass,” I murmur under my breath. As I turn toward the refrigerator to get the eggs, I catch her looking up at me with a wide smith. Our eyes meet for a moment, before she wrenches her gaze away and directs it back down to her notebook. I see the sides of her mouth return to level with a great effort.
I chuckle to myself as I bring the carton of eggs next to the mixing bowl. She doesn’t want to admit – to herself or to me – the chemistry that’s still there between us. But I know she feels it, too, now.
Just like this egg I’m lifting out of the carton, I can tell at this point Heidi’s shell is thin – and easy to crack.
Just like this, I think to myself, as I adroitly bring down the egg against the side of the mixing bowl.
It splatters against the side, yolk flying everywhere.
“Shit, I hope it goes better than that,” I say, absentmindedly, to the result.
“Huh?” Heidi asks.
Oh, shit, I said the quiet part out loud.
“Nothing,” I answer.
I guess I wasn’t so adroit as I thought.
“Cracking an egg isn’t like throwing a football, Luke,” Lincoln’s voice comes from the living room. I glance over and see Chases with a wide grin on his face, shaking his head back and forth. Archer has his hand over his mouth, trying to hold back hysterics.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter my respond. I try again and this time I’m able to crack the egg and deposit the contents into the mixing bowl.
“Now I guess I … mix it together?” I wonder out loud. With no response to my rhetorical question coming from any quarters, I decide to just get to it. I mush together the mixture until all the ingredients seem evenly distributed.
I bring over the cooking sheet and mold the ground beef
mixture into what seems to me to be traditional meatloaf shape.
“Let’s have a look at it,” Archer exclaims, springing to his feet. The three other guys gather around to pass judgment.
“Where’s the glaze?” Lincoln asks.
“Glaze?” is my reply.
“Meatloaf needs to have a glaze,” he responds.
“That’s right, Tanner,” Archer says with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Meatloaf must have a glaze.”
Heidi giggles at the guys giving me shit.
“Enjoying this?” I ask her.
“Sorry, impartial observer.”
“Just mix together some Worcestershire sauce with some ketchup, some red wine vinegar … do we have brown sugar?” Lincoln adds his relative expertise.
“Yeah,” I answer, checking the cabinets. I combined the ingredients together in another bowl and mix them together, creating a think, savory-looking glaze. I spoon it over the meatloaf and stand back, admiring my handiwork.
Welp, one way or another, it’s not going to get any better than this. Time to cook the concoction and let the chips fall where they may.
I open the oven door and slide the cooking pan onto the rack. “Alright, cook time … forty-five minutes!?”
“But I’m hungry nooowww,” Archer pouts, pretending to be a petulant child.
Not that it takes that much pretending from him.
“You sticking around the find out the results, Heidi?” Lincoln asks.
“You bet. The entire Winthrop campus is going to be spellbound at this point in the story. They all want to know if it will turn out edible or not.”
“I think I could spoil that outcome for them,” Chase jokes.
I punch Chase in the shoulder as I walk past him to the living room. “Let’s not talk about last week when you tried to cook pasta sauce.”
“Let’s not,” he agrees.
“I still have nightmares about it,” Lincoln joins in.
I plop down on the couch. “Let’s just hang out for a while together until it’s done then.”
The three guys and Heidi join me, Heidi sitting tentatively on the single chair across the coffee table from me. She’s easing into being here with us – with me – but I can still tell she’s far from totally at ease. She’s fidgeting and can’t seem to find a comfortable sitting position.