The Wrong Way: Hanson University: One

by McKenna Kerrick

  “That’s not fully true,” Nina chimes in. “She used a lot of ugly words and raised her voice. I’m thinking she might be a little hangry.”

  “Hungry, baby doll?” I grin at her.

  “This place only has nachos,” Lila shrugs her shoulders. “How is that a proper meal? I want a burger. And I want to go to a place that’s not crowded and I don’t want this to turn into a five hour drive.” She claps her hands together. “Come on, move it, Killian.”

  “She’s a little feisty when she’s hungry,” Alex snorts.

  He didn’t even know the half of it. When we were little, Lila used to stop and glare at me or yell my full name while stomping her foot if she was hungry and I wasn’t paying attention to her. That thought makes my lips twitch in amusement. Not much has changed since then, either.

  “I'm feisty all the time,” Lila lifts her chin in the air. “Now,” she turns back to face me, “are you going to hurry up or what?”

  “Blane!” I hear my last name resonate out of Coach’s mouth. He looks from me to Lila, then back to me in a silent gesture of what the hell is your girlfriend doing back here now?

  “Oh good,” Lila eyeballs Coach as he comes over to us. “Are we done here? I'm starving and Killian is moving slower than a snail moving on super glue.”

  This time it's Coach’s lips that twitch in amusement. “Killian,” the old man sighs heavily, “for God's sake, would you keep her out of the locker room?” He waves his clipboard toward the neon exit sign. “Go ahead and get gone.”

  Lila tilts her head back and lets out a long sigh. “Finally.”

  “Okay,” I wrap one of my arms around Lila’s shoulders as I step beside her and fling my bag over my own shoulder. “Let's go feed you.”

  “Oh yay,” Nina snorts. “She comes barreling in here and gets what she wants.”

  “Coach looks a little afraid of her,” Jackson shrugs then eyeballs Lila. “Not that he's wrong not to. Your girlfriend is a little hellion, Blane.”

  “She's a cute hellion, though,” I say.

  “Why do I have to be a hellion?” Lila raises her hands in frustration. “Why can't I just be a girl who wants some food?”

  “It's all about your approach,” Nina tells her.

  “Hello, I got my boyfriend and your boyfriend to leave early so I could get some food,” Lila states proudly. “Clearly, I'm doing something right.”

  “Yeah, by scaring the poor guard at the door to get back here,” Alex snorts.

  “Well it worked, didn't it?”

  She's got a valid point there that causes everyone to laugh. Of course it was going to work. Lila Summers didn't understand the word no. And thank goodness for that.

  “Let's go!” She claps her hands again before walking out from under my arm and marching back towards the exit door like a girl on a mission. A mission for food, but an important mission nonetheless.

  It takes a few minutes and holding Lila’s hand like a leash to keep her from running through the crowd of people and getting lost like a small child, before we're able to get outside and into the massive parking lot. I'm not sure where she parked, but I'm praying that it's close. My muscles are starting to feel the burn and anger of being overworked, as usual to feel after an intense game.

  “Babe,” I hear Jackson wheeze from behind me, “can we take a minute to breathe?”

  “We’re almost to the car!” I hear Nina respond. “Plus, if we don't keep up, Lila’s bound to leave without us.”

  “It's true!” my spunky, hangry, hellion girlfriend hollers back towards them.

  Jackson lets out a heavy sigh. “Fine.”

  After fighting the crowd in the parking lot where everyone wanted to congratulate Jackson and me, we made it to Lila’s car. Cramming myself into her car was bad enough, but two football players into a car? It's a bit of a squish.

  “Babe,” I huff as I bring my knees closer to my chest in the front passenger seat, “you need to invest in a bigger car.”

  “I like my car,” Lila says as she turns the car on and pulls out of the parking spot.

  “Nope, I'm on Killian’s side on this one. Your car is fucking tiny,” Jackson said.

  “You're both ridiculous,” Nina says before leaning forward so her face is hovering between Lila and me. “Do you know if Jackson stays squished like this for too long he tends to fart in a deadly silence that will suffocate us all. I barely made it last time this happened.”

  I can't stop that laughter that escapes my mouth in bursts. She looks so serious and that just makes her whole spiel worse. “Man,” I rub my hand over my face, “what the hell?”

  “Get back here,” Jackson huffs and pulls Nina back into the backseat. “Look, long car rides make me squeamish and instead of puking like a normal person, I fart, okay? Now, shut the hell up.”

  I'm still laughing though as Lila pulls out of the parking lot and immediately onto the highway heading north.

  “Does Killian do anything weird since he can't stop laughing his ass off at me?” Jackson demands to Lila.

  “Oh, no,” I immediately perk up. “Don't tell him anything.”

  “Why not?” Lila smirks. “All’s fair in love and war, right?”

  I arch an eyebrow at her. “Are we at war with each other? Because if we are, I wasn't aware of that.”

  “Sorry, Jackson,” Lila sighs dramatically, “I guess I'm not supposed to tell you about the time that Killian peed his pants while in the car in fourth grade.”

  I hear Jackson let out a booming sound of laughter from behind me.

  “Okay, first of all,” I point my finger at her, “I did not piss myself and you damn well know it. Especially since you're the reason it happened.”

  Lila gives a little shrug like that major detail doesn't actually mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

  I turn around in my seat to look at Nina and Jackson who are still snickering. “Seriously, someone wasn't supposed to have any soda in the car. We were doing a photoshoot with her mom for my birthday and I had on white shorts because we were going on the boat. And Lila here decided to sneak lemonade into the car then take off the lid.”

  “Oh my God,” Nina wheezes.

  “So her mom pulls over, and of course I'm pissed the fuck off, and Lila is pissed that her lemonade spilled. Not that she just ruined a pair of my shorts.”

  “He looked like he pissed himself,” Lila snorts.

  “Yeah,” I say as my face goes red. “We had to pull over into a McDonald’s so I could wipe off what I could, but kids in there still laughed at me.”

  “I'm still mad my lemonade fell out of the cup holder,” Lila grins. She doesn't look mad at all.

  “And then she starts trying to say I must've peed myself so she wouldn't get in trouble,” I roll my eyes. “And then, because she got in trouble and got grounded, she told everyone at school I peed my pants to get back at me when I didn't do anything to her.”

  “If you had just agreed that you'd peed your pants, then I wouldn't have gotten grounded,” Lila says like that makes complete sense.

  For the record, it doesn't.

  “You two are so cute,” Nina laughs. “I take back every bad thing I said about you, Killian.”

  “Wait a second,” I turn around to look at her again and frown. “What do you mean? You've said bad things about me?”

  “Well, with the whole cafeteria incident, yes. And then in the beginning, I was a little unsure of how this would all go,” Nina shrugs. “You're a lot different than the guy from the beginning of the year.”

  “I think he's the same,” Lila interjects softly. “This is the Killian that I've always known. The one that's always been my best friend. It might have just taken it getting here for the rest of the world to see who he is, too.”

  Lila’s words stir something inside of me and a proud feeling settles over me. This girl saw me the whole time. She was there for every good and bad moment in my life. The one person I never shut out if I could help it
.

  And, man, if that's not that soul-gripping, deep-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach type of love, then I don't know what this is.

  Every day that passes it gets a little bit harder to keep it to myself. That urge to caveman beat my chest and tell her she's mine and that she's the only girl I've truly loved outside of my family. That it's a deeper love than just a best friend kind.

  I need this banquet to hurry the hell up so I can announce it to the world.

  A light bulb goes off inside of my head. That's it. That's my plan to tell her.

  Lila pulls off the interstate a few seconds later and steers the car towards a Pizza Hut. She looks longingly at one of the posters plastered to the window before parking the car.

  “I thought you wanted a burger?” I ask my beautiful girlfriend.

  “I did,” Lila nods before looking back towards the poster. “And then I changed my mind.”

  Yeah, I think to myself, like how we both changed our minds about each other.

  But that's too mushy to say in front of friends, so I hold it in.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Lila

  Two weeks later…

  I don't know what changed.

  Whatever it was, it definitely isn't a bad change. But there's a difference in the way Killian looks at me now, like how his eyes go softer and his smile has more charm. If that's even possible.

  Who knows, maybe I'm going crazy and seeing things that aren't really there.

  But it would definitely be nice if they were there.

  “Okay,” Nina claps her hands together as she comes out of our bathroom. She has on a glitzy, dark blue gown and her hair in some kind of funky updo that I have never seen before. “Are you ready?”

  “Sure,” I say and lean down to adjust the strap on my high heel. Whoever thought letting me walk around outside of cowboy boots was a smart idea, is clearly an idiot in not realizing I would be like a baby gazelle trying to maneuver on stilts.

  “Stand up straight and let me get a good look at you to make sure you're perfect,” Nina says and plants her hands on her hips.

  I wobble into an upright position and hold my hands out in a well gesture.

  “You look so pretty,” Nina smiles. “I wish I had your legs. I swear they're a mile long.”

  They definitely felt like a mile long in these shoes.

  “Your hair turned out really nicely too. Especially since you let it down.”

  I finger one of the curls and watch it bounce a little before looking off towards my bedroom. “And you're sure that cowboy boots are off limits?” I ask. “Just to be clear, my dress would cover them. And they're way more comfortable to wear.”

  “You are not wearing cowboy boots to an athletic sportsmanship banquet,” Nina jabs her finger in my direction. “So help me God, I finally made a preppy looking girl out of you, and you are not going to ruin my work with sun-dried leather with horse shit stains.”

  The corners of my mouth twitch so I don't laugh at her. She's not wrong in the least bit, and I did agree to let her doll me up for the occasion. And cowboy boots were off the table the minute I got the dress code for this shindig, unfortunately.

  A knock at the door tells us that our dates are here. At least, hopefully, both of them are standing there since they decided to get ready at Killian’s so we could all carpool in Killian’s truck together.

  “Well, open it,” I say impatiently.

  There are few times in my life, in fact probably only two, that I can recall seeing Killian Blane in a suit. And now I get to add a third time to that list.

  It's a perfectly tailored suit. One that is a deep black with a white button-up beneath. His hair is still just as short as ever, and the tie is loose around his neck as he walks in to see me.

  Except he stumbles.

  Killian Blane just saw me and stumbled with his mouth hanging open in awe or shock, I'm not sure.

  “I know,” Nina smiles proudly. “She looks good, doesn't she?”

  “Yes, babe,” Jackson tells her. “She does and so do you.”

  I wasn't even aware that Jackson had come in since all I saw was Killian. “Hi,” I give him a half-wave.

  Killian still just continues to blink at me.

  “Uh, hello in there?” I sigh and snap my fingers in front of his face. “I thought I looked pretty good for someone who doesn't know how to walk in heels, and you can't even say anything. Rude much?”

  Nina laughs from behind me. “I don't think he's being rude, Lila. I think he's in shock.”

  “Wow,” Killian finally manages to get out of his mouth. “Lila, you look,” he pauses to blink at me a few times, “amazing.”

  “You don't look so bad yourself, hot stuff,” I tease.

  “Damn, baby doll.” Killian rocks back on his heels and I notice something that makes me spin and almost topple over to point at Nina accusingly.

  “You said cowboy boots were not allowed in the dress code!”

  Nina leans around me to spot Killian’s nicely polished Tony Llamas. “Huh, well, would you look at that, I guess guys can wear them.”

  I feel my right cheek twitch and ball my hands up to rage some more about how unfair it was that my boyfriend gets to wear comfortable shoes and that I'm stuck in stilts and have to wobble around.

  “Woah there, slugger,” Killian steps up and locks both of his arms around me to stop me from going after Nina. “You look breathtaking, Lila,” he murmurs in my ear and kisses the side of my head. “Absolutely beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” I blush, forgetting my slight annoyance with Nina for a moment.

  “Let's get going before it starts to get crowded,” Killian says.

  “Hey!” a voice says from the doorway and I turn just in time to see Ian and Alex standing there.

  “What are you two doing here?” Nina asks before I can.

  “Wasn't Killian driving us?” Alex asks. “I thought that's what we agreed on in the locker room the other day.”

  “We,” Jackson says while pointing first to himself and then to Killian, “decided that we were carpooling so the girls could stay together while everyone talks about sports tonight.”

  “Yeah, I remember,” Alex stared blankly. “But Ian and I were right there.”

  “That doesn't mean you get an invite,” Jackson rolls his eyes.

  “But we're already here,” Ian shrugs. “So, it would be a waste to not carpool.”

  “You drove here,” Nina shakes her head.

  “Of course I did,” Ian scoffs. “It's too far of a walk to get here.”

  “Oh my God,” Nina throws her hands in the air. “How did this happen? How are we all going to fit? Why can't you just follow us in your car, Ian?”

  Ian simply blinks a few times at her. “Then how am I going to talk to everyone?”

  “We're going to the same building,” my roommate stresses.

  “Just give up,” Jackson sighs heavily. “They're being obtuse on purpose to make you mad.”

  “Well, it worked,” Nina grunts.

  “And we got a free car ride out of the deal,” Alex grins before turning to high-five Ian.

  “It's a good thing my console lifts up to seat six,” Killian chuckles. “Come on, let's go. I have a surprise that I want to get to tonight.”

  “A surprise?” I ask.

  Killian merely winks at me before tugging me by my hand out the door.

  It takes a few minutes to get everyone situated in the truck. I'm sitting beside Killian because Alex deemed the console seat too small for his large frame, and he wasn't wrong. However, that left me smushed between him and Killian up front. While Nina sat squished behind me between Jackson and Ian.

  Our little mismatched group.

  The banquet hall wasn't nearly what I thought it would be. “Banquet hall” just sounded a lot better than the third floor of the Union’s student ballroom where Stress Less Fest was usually held, or the blood drive every few months.

  But, I had to adm
it, they did a pretty good job of setting up the tables and making the place look eloquent. To be honest, we all probably could have walked across campus to get here, but high heels and long distance didn't go hand-in-hand. At least not with my limited experience.

  Killian wrapped his arm around my waist as he guided me through the room. Several guys stopped us to congratulate Killian on going to the playoffs, while the dates of said guys ogled him.

  No matter how much I had been used to it before we started this whole liking each other and then dating thing, now the girls just tended to piss me off.

  He was mine, dammit. How was that so hard to see?

  “Come on, let's find our seats,” Killian murmurs in my ear after steering me away from someone else who wanted to congratulate him.

  “A lot of people sure do know you,” I say quietly.

  Killian wrinkles his nose as he sits down at a table with our name cards placed on it. “Honestly, I probably know maybe two people who stopped me. The rest just kind of muddle together on faces. Which is a mean thing to point out, but there's just too many people who keep tabs on me.”

  “Won't this just get worse if you go pro?” I ask.

  My boyfriend scratches his jaw and shrugs his shoulders that look a little stiff now. “Probably, and I can handle it.” He eyeballs me. “Could you handle it?”

  I know the right question I should be asking myself is: could I? But the the only thing circulating through my brain at the moment is: does that mean he wants me around when he goes pro?

  “Did I just render you speechless?” Killian grins slyly. “Huh. I never knew I could do that to you before.”

  The witty part of me is long gone, still spinning my previous thought in my head over and over. My mouth opens and closes without actually spewing any words out. So yeah, I guess he has rendered me speechless.

  “You’re so cute when you don’t know what to say to me,” he adds on.

  “You boggle my mind,” I roll my eyes. “But I could definitely handle it. I just have to remember that I want you for you, and not for whatever everyone else wants.”

  “Which is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me.” Killian glances around as the place begins to fill with more and more people. He tugs on the tie he managed to tie while driving, something that should never be attempted by anyone sane. Especially when he started to drift lanes and I felt everything I ate today curdle in my stomach in anticipation for a crash. Thank God Nina had the gall to yell at him before I could get my wits about me.