Tessa smiles. Yes, she remembers. Whenever she’d wear her little skirts or cardigans, with her curly hair pinned up into a bun, Tristan would always lose his mind.
“There’s just nothing that I can do since he’s in a relationship. Nothing Ishoulddo.”
“I bet she’s nice too, huh? That always makes it worse, when you want to hate her, but you can’t because you really want to be her friend, instead.”
“Actually no,” Tessa says quickly, leaning forward and grabbing her drink again. “She’s not nice at all, and I have no desire to be her friend.”
“Ooohh,” Abigail says, suddenly intrigued. “So, she’s a bitch.”
“You could say that,” Tessa says with a laugh.
“Well then let’s have some fun with that.”
“No! I can’t. That would be awful.”
“Didn’t you just say he was flirting with you? Which like, duh. If he could’ve had his tongue down your throat every second of the day, he would have. I doubt that’s changed, girlfriend or not.”
“I am not even going to go there in my mind, okay?” Tessa says sternly. “It’s not an option, and I’ll just be sitting over here angrily thinking about him until this god forsaken assignment is over.”
“Well, now that I know everything, you know I’m going to be obsessively checking in with you, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of,” Tessa says with a chuckle. “Well, I’m going to head to bed. We have a long day tomorrow. There’s press in the morning and then I have to submit my first quarter review of the article to my boss, and then we have an evening game and some kind of party after. I’m going to try to get some rest.”
“You do that, you big shot NYC reporter girl.”
“Goodnight,” Tessa says, her smile soft and warm, like it always is after she talks to her friend.
“Goodnight. Charlie, say night night.”
“Ni ni.”
“Night night, Charlie.”
Tessa finishes off her wine before finding her way to bed that night. And much like she’s done almost every night when she crawls in bed, she looks at the handful of photos she has saved in a private photo album in her phone of her and Tristan. There’s one of the two of them after a game, one of her sitting on his lap at a party, and her favorite one, the night of the Football and Family gala – the night she lost her virginity to him. She looks at the photo wistfully, her and Tristan in the middle of the photo, Jordan and Katie are standing next to Tessa, and Tristan’ parents, Diane and Ed, are standing next to Tristan. She studies herself in the picture, the bright smile plastered across her face, and she suddenly realizes that she’s not sure she’s ever smiled like that since.
The next morning goes by in a flash.
With the football season in full swing, there’s media all over the facility on game day, an electric buzz in the air as the players alternate between interviews, warming up on the field, spending time with the athletic trainers, and scarfing down more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than Tessa ever knew was possible. She can’t help but feel the same energy flowing through her veins as she walks around the facility. She’s been interviewing the coaches all morning and spent some time on the field watching the guys doing some warmups.
She hasn’t run into Tristan yet today. According to Phillip, Tristan is usually the last to arrive at the stadium, which doesn’t surprise her at all. And she’s honestly thankful for a little reprieve from him and all the tension between them. She finds herself hoping that she won’t see him at all until after the game so that she can get some work done.
“Hey Tessa!”
She turns around at the sound of her name echoing down the long corridor and sees Caden walking towards her. She takes a deep breath and plasters on a smile, hoping that he won’t bring up the date or ask her out a second time. Again, not because he’s not a great guy, but because she simply is too wrapped up in other things, or person, to be on the same page as him.
“Hey!”
“I was hoping I’d see you,” he says, finally catching up to her and wrapping a casual arm around her shoulder for a hug. She hugs back, but then quickly takes a step out of his arms and gives him another smile.
“Yeah, I’m so busy today,” she says, gesturing to all the notebooks and the large laptop in her arms.
“Game days are crazy,” he says with a smile. “Will you be at Craig’s birthday party after the game? His girlfriend Ana puts on a great party.”
“Yeah, I’m planning on being there,” she answers with a smile. “I’ll see you then, okay? I need to submit this stuff to my boss before the game starts tonight.”
“Oh, sure,” his face falls and he seems to notice that he’s being brushed off, which makes Tessa feel a pang of guilt. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She smiles and gives him a wave before turning and walking back in the direction she was originally headed.
