Fans gathered their belongings from the bleachers and started leaving the stadium. The place was mostly empty by the time I reached the bench. When I picked up my water bottle, I noticed Tanner had left his things behind, so I grabbed them.
"Good going, man. That was sick," Duncan said, walking up to me with his hand out. I took it with a smile.
"No kidding. Thank for setting that up," I said, returning the compliment. He grinned, patted me on the back, and ran off to his buddies. I recognized a few faces as a headed out and offered kind waves. I took another sip from my water. As I tilted my head back, I saw dark hair and a pretty smile and I paused mid-sip.
Elizabeth sat, hunched over a large, leather-bound book, and was so engrossed in the novel that she didn’t notice that the game had ended. Or maybe she just didn't care. She reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she read. When she pushed her hair away from her face, I could see her glasses more clearly, and beyond them, I could make out the way her green eyes shone as she read.
I stepped up onto the bleachers behind her and sat down on the abandoned aluminum seating, but she didn't notice. She continued to read, her dark hair moving back and forth in the wind. With a wicked smile on my lips, I dropped my helmet on the seat next to her.
It let out a loud and powerfulbangthat vibrated through the bleachers. It caught the attention of a few fans who were lingering behind. They turned around for a second before continuing toward the exit. Elizabeth jumped and she covered herself instinctively as she pulled her earbuds out. She was on edge, but softened when she saw me.
"You're listening to music while you're reading?" I asked with a chuckle. I slid down next to Elizabeth as I collected my helmet. She shut her book. "Doesn't that get distracting?"
"It's just something soft to drown out the game," Elizabeth admitted quietly. The strand of hair that she had tucked behind her ear fell back out of place and I fought the urge to fix it for her. "I can usually read through anything, but a football game and a stadium full of people is a whole other level of distraction."
"For sure," I said, thinking about how I could barely drown out my own thoughts when I wanted to read. Let alone twenty-thousand screaming fans.
"You played really well," she said as she absentmindedly wound the cord of her earbuds around her fingers. She rolled the thin, white cord over itself so many times that the tip of her finger turned red. She released it and started again. "I was watching, you know,” she reassured me.
I smiled. "I know."
She rolled her eyes and held out an earbud to me with a smile. When I held it up to my ear, a Modest Mouse song played. It was the same song that we'd been listening to in the library earlier. Despite the tension in the air, both of us sat in a comfortable silence, listening to the music. Neither of us was bold enough to turn and look at the other, but I could sense that she was smiling.
As we sat together in the empty stadium, the sun set and the stars began to twinkle in the night sky. We sat until the song ended, then listened to another. Then another. Elizabeth didn't skip any of them. During an instrumental song with the gentlest violin thrumming I'd ever heard, my hand touched hers.
She had the softest skin I'd ever felt.
8
Elizabeth
“Ugh!Why do we have to go to an after party? Wasn't the game enough partying for the night?" I asked.
We were driving to the frat house to meet Tanner and his football friends. I knew I sounded whiny, but I didn't care. I hated sports to begin with and now, after sitting through an entire football game, I was supposed to celebrate the win that I couldn't care less about.
"Because," McKenzie said, rolling her eyes while she changed lanes, "it's a party! That's why! Come on. Can you honestly say that you don't want to go hang out with a bunch of super-hot frat guys?"
"I can honestly, from the bottom of my heart, say that, no, Kenzie. I don't want to do that." I stuck my chin out and crossed my arms. "Seriously, I just want to keep reading my book. I went to the game with you. Was that not enough to fulfill my friend duties for the night?"
"Absolutely not!" McKenzie glanced away from the road for a second to give me an affronted look. "I've let you stay in that dorm room reading or doing whatever else you do in there all semester. As your friend,I cannot let you waste your youth anymore."
"Waste my youth?"I laughed at her. "I'm not wasting my youth, I'm... I'm growing my brain. For my future." I didn't sound confident in the last part, and I knew it.
"Well, your pretty brain is big enough today," McKenzie said. "You're coming to the party, and that's that. Besides, I'm driving, and I’m not taking you home."
"I think that’s called kidnapping." I informed her.
The town looked pretty at night. The lights from windows and streetlights made a pattern that couldn't be mapped. I wanted to rest my head on the window and let it lull me to sleep, but I knew if I laid my head down, it would make getting out of the car even harder.
McKenzie slowed down as she came to the intersection. "Look, we're almost there. Oh my goodness, Tanner played so well, didn't he? Ahh! He is a shoo-in for the NFL!"
"Yeah, he was great," I said, not really knowing enough to comment on the game, much less how Tanner played. "I think the house is just up there."
There were cars parked all over the lawn in front of a big house that had all its lights on. We could hear the bass from down the street. It already looked like it was going to be a loud, rowdy party.
McKenzie parked the car. She was careful not to park behind anyone else, but also smart enough to keep the back of her car right next to the road so no one else could park behind her, either. She was a pro at these kinds of parties and I was thankful for that, since I knew I was probably going to be the one to drive home.
We got out, and McKenzie looked in the rearview mirror one last time to check her hair and makeup. I didn't bother. I was wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt and jeans. The shirt was, at least, the school color. It was my small bit of support. McKenzie was wearing fitted dark-blue skinny jeans that had strategically placed rips in them. They would probably be too revealing for anyone else, but she pulled them off perfectly. She had paired them with a flowy spaghetti strap top, a trendy denim jacket, and a necklace in school colors. Where my outfit looked like a lazy attempt at fitting in, hers looked like she had bought it straight off the mannequin at a boutique.
