by C. L. Stone
“The more people he has, the more it’s likely someone will screw up. We’ll be able to figure out who Mr. Hendricks hires, and why, and maybe they know something about why Mr. Hendricks is so eager to get us out of his school.”
I kept an eye on the car, not willing to share his enthusiasm.
DOUBLE DATE
At the school, the parking lot was already starting to fill up with cars. Our tail passed us when Kota turned into the lot. He wasn’t going to join us for a football game. It would have been too easy for us to get close in a crowd.
Kota spotted Silas’s blue sedan and parked next to it. When we got out, the sun was already starting to set beyond the tree line. I could feel the coolness Kota had mentioned settling in and almost wished I had brought a jacket.
“Come on, Peanut,” Nathan said, finding my hand to hold. “Let’s go get a seat.”
“We’ll have to buy tickets,” Kota said.
This surprised me. I’d never been to a school event but I didn’t imagine having to pay for a ticket. For some reason I assumed it would be free.
We followed the crowd flowing toward the football stadium on the other side of the school grounds. It was odd seeing Ashley Waters in the near dark. The place, surprisingly, looked even gloomier than it did during the day, which didn’t seem possible. The school almost appeared asleep, with only a handful of lights on inside.
When we made it to the sidewalk that guided the way to the stadium, Nathan held my hand and walked on my left, and Kota stood arm to arm with me on my right. I was tempted to reach for his hand, too, but felt awkward doing it while Nathan was holding my other hand already.
Still, I didn’t want to leave him alone. Kota was my friend, too.
While we walked the path, I slipped a pinkie toward his, brushing against it.
It seemed to be all he needed. He hooked his pinkie with mine, holding strong to me next to him.
We walked together like that until we approached the booth where we had to get tickets. There, Kota let go, reaching into his pocket for his wallet and paid for three passes.
“When’s homecoming?” Nathan asked after we left the booth and started toward the gate to the already lit up stadium. “When are we going to take her to that?”
“I think you have to ask her to that first before you assume she wants to go.”
Nathan laughed, shaking his head. “Let’s find out when it is. Hopefully we’re not working.”
My heart thundered. They were already planning future dates and I hadn’t been through this one yet! And this wasn’t even a date! Or was it? They were confusing.
We approached the entrance, and I fell back behind Nathan when Mr. McCoy appeared at the gate, apparently put in charge of checking tickets for the evening.
Kota positioned a soothing palm against the back of my neck, urging me to step up next to him. “You’re doing nothing wrong,” he whispered to me.
Nathan’s grip on my hand tightened, and Kota held on around my neck as we stepped closer, our turn approaching. Mr. McCoy was barely glancing at faces. When we arrived at the gate though, he paused, glancing at me, and then at the boys on either side.
“Two dates tonight, Miss Sang?”
“Yup,” Nathan said, as if challenging him to say anything further about it.
Mr. McCoy’s eyes shifted over my clothes but he grunted and ripped our tickets, handing back the stubs. There was nothing he could do. My clothes fit into the regulations. He couldn’t leave his post, and there were too many people.
It didn’t stop the deep shiver inching up my spine.
“You’re fine, Sang,” Kota said again in my ear, letting go of my neck to return to holding my pinkie with his.
It was over with for now. At least I knew where Mr. McCoy was. It had escaped me that being at a school event meant Mr. Hendricks and Mr. McCoy would be here tonight.
As we got closer to the stadium seats, my grip on the guys’ hands tightened. I bristled at the number of people already filling in the stands. Most were sitting as close as possible to the fifty yard line. Kota scanned the bleachers, pointing to a spot in the middle of a section closer to the scoreboard. We picked a spot in the middle. For now, our section was mostly empty.
“If it doesn’t get too crowded, they might be able to see us out here,” Kota said. He settled into the seat. I fell in next to him and Nathan slid in close to me on the other side.
My skin electrified with the crispness in the breeze and the excitement of being out of the house with the guys. I didn't have to worry about my stepmother finding out, and while I felt guilty about why she wasn’t able to, it felt amazing to know that for right now, I was almost normal. I was out with friends on a Friday evening.
As more people filled in the seats, I was absently staring out onto the field. I was eager to see Silas and North play. I ruffled my fingers over the blue and pink wrist band that Silas had given to me.
There were screechy announcements and people started walking onto the field. The attention on our side of the stadium turned to the impending game.
When the football team finally entered the field, I stood up, trying to spot Silas and North. Kota and Nathan stood next to me, scanning the players.
“Right there,” Kota said, pointing.
Since they were all wearing the same uniforms, it was hard to tell even with him pointing. Eventually my eyes focused on Silas’s olive skin and dark hair; next to him was North. If they had their helmets on, it would have been impossible to find them. I was excited for them, but we were so far away. I wasn’t sure they would know we were there.
“I wish we could get closer,” I said.
“Let them get through this beginning part,” Kota said. “When they get ready to play, we’ll see if we can’t go down and wave to them.”
The other team lined up on the field alongside the Ashley Waters team. At first, I thought maybe they were only presenting the opposing team’s star players. When no one else joined them, and no other players stood on the opposite side’s benches, it stunned me.
“How come our team has so many people?”
Nathan turned to me. “What?”
“Our team has like a hundred people out there.”
“A hundred and twelve,” Kota said quickly.
“And the opposite team has…” I started counting off.
“Fifty seven,” Kota replied before I could finish counting.
I grinned. He was quick. “But why do we have almost twice as many players?”
“Our school is bigger,” Nathan said. “More people in the school, more people on the team.”
Is that how it worked? I understood only a few of them would be on the field at any given time. Wouldn’t it mean that fewer people would get to play? It just seemed odd. I tried to remember my old high school football team. I didn’t keep track, but it didn’t seem like they had a hundred players, even if a lot more students wanted to be on the team.
And didn’t Ashley Waters have a JV team? This was varsity. So two football teams with so many players seemed like a lot.
“Sang,” Nathan said, dragging me out of my thoughts. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Come here.”
Nathan wrapped an arm around me and towed me into cuddling close. He held the phone out in front of our faces. “Smile.”
I did my best, tucking my head next to his. The flash went off and he grinned, flipping the phone around to look at the result.
“I said smile, not look like I’m about to kill you,” he said, smirking.
I giggled. I lifted my hand, intending to point to the picture and show him where I was smiling, but he grabbed my hand, redirecting it to his mouth to chew on my finger.
“Yeah,” he said, around my finger. “Let’s take this picture.”
I leaned in again, and he used his free hand to push a finger into my mouth. I chewed on it, and he snapped another picture.
He pulled my fingers from his mouth. “Better.”
“
Let’s take one, Kota,” I said.
Kota had been focused on the field, but he turned, a smile lighting up his face. “If you’d like.”
I pulled my phone out, trying to figure out the camera option. I hadn’t played with it at all. “I don’t know how this works.”
Kota leaned in, pointing a forefinger. “Push this,” he said.
With patience, he described the photo features of the phone. My heart fluttered a little as he told me a little more than I was able to absorb, but I couldn’t find it in me to stop him.
“Okay,” I said once he paused, I leaned back, pointing the camera at his face. “Test this out.” I snapped a photo.
He grinned for the flash, and I flipped the phone around to look at the picture.
Kota’s cheeks tinted. “Missing part of the top of my head.”
“I like it,” I said, feeling some sense of false pride for my first picture with the phone and the fact that he looked incredible no matter what. “Let’s get one of us.”
“Let me hold it,” he said. He took my phone from me, holding it out like Nathan had done. I moved in. He tilted his head until we were nearly cheek to cheek. He flashed the picture. He flipped the phone around. “You blinked.”
I laughed. “I’m terrible at pictures. Take it again. Move over a little bit.”
This time I got up on my knees so my head was even with his. Leaning in, I wobbled. I clutched his shoulder to balance myself.
Kota opened his arm up, pulling me close. I caught the scent of his sweet spice. I kept my arm around him, too, as he clicked for a picture.
This one I really liked. I wasn’t blinking, and Kota looked happy. His face was usually so serious and in that shot, he shared that warm smile I really liked.
“Perfect,” I said.
Kota beamed.
I twisted back, aiming the camera at Nathan and snapping a picture of him while he was dazed and looking at the field. He blinked at the flash, turning his head at me and grinning. I snapped another picture.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Nathan said to Kota. “You taught her how to use it. She’ll fill her phone up.”
“We’ll show her how to save them to the computer.”
“I don’t have a computer,” I said. “Well there’s my dad’s in the living room ...”
The corner of Kota’s mouth lifted. “Remind me to talk to Victor about a new computer for you.”
My mouth popped open. “No, don’t ...”
Nathan laughed, nudging me in the arm with an elbow. “Your fault. You opened your mouth.”
After the singing of the national anthem and the other fanfare, the players ran off of the field so they could begin the game.
“Now?” I asked Kota.
He nodded, smiling. “Let’s see if we can get their attention.”
“I’ll hold our seats,” Nathan said.
I wasn’t sure we needed our seats held, because there still weren’t many people in our section of the stands.
I followed close behind Kota down the stadium steps. This time, when my pinkie found his, he nudged my finger away to take my whole hand. I realized how often I’d held the hands of the others, but Kota’s not as much. For the moment, I fell into a sense of what a real date must feel like. Excited by the event, my heart pounding at him being so close, an unbelievable sense of wanting to be there with him, half wishing not so many people were around.
We made our way to the base level of the bleachers. While we were still a distance from the players on our side, I could see North and Silas better.
I held out my phone over the top of the safety banister, trying to take a picture of Silas and North sitting together on the bench. I wasn’t sure how well the picture would come out. I thought it would look good to have Taylor and Korba sitting together looking out toward the field. I snapped a second photo just in case.
Kota cupped his hands together in front of his mouth. “North!”
North and Silas turned their heads simultaneously toward us. I was in time to snap a picture as recognition hit their faces and they started to smile. I moved the phone out of the way, smiling and waving.
They stood together, jumped over the bench and dashed toward us, dodging around people walking by between the stadium stand. They broke into a run and went straight for the barrier. It spooked me enough that I took a step back away from the rail, wondering if there was something wrong.
Kota stood by, and pressed a hand at my back. “Hang on,” he said, but rolled his eyes, as if he completely disapproved, but wasn’t able to stop them.
Silas and North started hefting themselves up the side of the high platform, grabbing the rail. When they were at the top, they leaned over it, reaching out for my arm. North grabbed my phone, and Silas grabbed me, pulling me up to stand with them on the rail of the stands.
“Careful, guys,” Kota warned.
“Hi, aggele mou,” Silas said, his broad smile radiating. He was already sweating under the lights and the padding on his already huge shoulders seemed to make him a giant.
“Hi, Silas.”
“Smile, Sang Baby.” North twisted the camera toward our faces.
Silas and North leaned in. I hung over the rail to get between them. Silas pushed his cheek to my forehead and North buried his nose into my hair, snapping a picture. They shifted, Silas’s cheek found mine and North’s forehead touched mine. North snapped another picture.
“Hey!” someone from the field called. “Take pictures on your own time.”
“One more,” North said.
I was leaning in again, staring at the camera in North’s hand, trying to be ready with a smile, despite being nervous someone was shouting at them. When North and Silas moved their heads close, I thought they were going to tilt in a different way.
Instead, they pushed their noses to each of my cheeks, their lips smacking and making kissy faces. They didn’t touch, just hovered. When I realized what they were doing, I started laughing.
North snapped the photo.
“Taylor! Korba! I’m about to kick you both off my team.”
“Gotta go to work, Baby,” North said, pushing the phone back into my hands.
They dropped down together onto the grass, waved at us and rushed back to the bench. The coach waved a fist and shouted at them, but they ignored it, sitting on the benches again.
Hands found my waist. Kota had stepped up. He held me as I backed off down from the rail.
“Got what you wanted?” he asked.
I nodded, unable to stop smiling. “I can’t believe they did that.”
“They’d do it again if you asked.”
The words he said made me pause. “They’d get into trouble.”
Kota’s smile softened. His hand found mine and he clutched it. “Let’s go before you’re tempted to try.”
JEALOUSY
About half way into the third quarter, North and Silas were still on the bench. Kota and Nathan speculated that the coach might be mad at them for pulling the photo stunt earlier. Ashley Waters was on the brink of gaining ground every quarter, but never took the lead.
I was freezing. The metal seat below my butt seemed to bite into my skin. Despite Kota and Nathan sitting close next to me, a breeze occasionally picked up around them, and it seeped right into my bones.
I rattled with shivers as another wind caught me in the back.
Kota glanced over, his eyes meeting mine. He raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” I said, not wanting to be a nuisance. I remembered what he told me earlier and was expecting to hear him say he told me so and I didn’t want that.
His green eyes bore into mine, as if picking apart the lie I’d just uttered and finding the truth underneath. “Cold?”
I blushed. Caught. “A little.”
A soft smirk touched his lips. He shifted, unzipping the hoodie he wore and placing it over my shoulders. “Tell me when you need something,” he said softly.
“
What’s wrong?” Nathan asked, watching as I stuffed my arms into Kota’s hoodie.
“She was cold,” Kota said.
“Well shit.” Nathan backed away for a second as I finished putting the hoodie on. When I was done and had my legs up and my arms in my lap to warm up, Nathan hooked his arm around my back, putting a hand on my shoulder and pulling me into him. “Can’t have you freezing.”
I glanced back at Kota, unable to hide my surprise and partial embarrassment. They both had held my hand in front of each other but Nathan’s move, while he seemed to mean well, and did it absentmindedly, felt possessive. It was the sort of thing I’d worried about. What happens when someone made it clear they were interested in something more than friendship? Was I supposed to say something?
As I was trying to think of a joke to get Nathan to back off a little in a friendly way, for Kota’s sake, Kota’s face changed. His lips set. His eyes drew serious. He slid closer to me. With his thigh touching mine, he sought out my hand, clutched it and drew it into his lap, holding it between his hands.
“Your fingers are cold,” he said.
“They are?” Nathan asked, blinking after him and seeming oblivious to the entire situation. Nathan collected my other hand, popping one of my fingers into his mouth.
My heart thundered. With both of them being so obvious about their affection, I felt numb. I concentrated on the field, seeking out Silas and North, waiting for something to happen so I could comment. Nathan chewed my fingers. Kota’s smooth fingertips slid against my palm. Both touches made me shiver with delight and, at the same time, pray they stopped to avoid any problems.
But nothing happened. The game continued. Nathan eventually popped my fingers out of his mouth just to hold my hand in his lap as he complained about a bad call. Kota agreed with him, reciting a rule to let me know what was going on. As the minutes ticked off on the scoreboard clock, my nerves started to settle. Since they weren’t saying anything, they had to be okay with the situation. It made me think about what North had said about trusting the others to make their own decisions and understand they probably knew what they were doing.
I breathed a sigh, trying to let go and let them take over.