I snicker. “That’s the same term we use in football. Impact player.”
“No way. How funny.” She shifts her weight. Scratches her arm. “So how’d your game go? Tell me everything. Not that I’ll understand any of it.”
My wide smile broadens even more. “We won by two touchdowns. That’s fourteen points.”
Chelsea whoops and we high-five again. “Did you do well in the game?”
“I got two sacks and tons of tackles. So, yeah, I had a great game, personally, on top of the win.”
“You’re a killer, baby!”
“Yeah, baby!”
She motions toward the front doors of the lobby. “Youdon’t want to go out and celebrate with your team tonight? I’m sure you can still catch them.”
“Hell no. I’d much rather be here with you, another mathlete, celebrating you making the finals tomorrow.”
Her breathing hitches. Her cheeks turn pink. “Okay,” she squeaks out, batting her eyelashes in the cutest way imaginable. “Oh! I brought you something!”
“Really? I brought you something, too.”
“You did not.”
“No, really.” I motion toward the coffee table on the other side of the lobby. “It’s over there. Come on.”
Blushing, Chelsea follows me across the lobby toward the couch. And when we get there, even before we sit down, I grab the long-stemmed red rose, the one I meticulously picked out at a florist down the street, and present it to her.
“For me?” She clutches her heart with one hand as she takes the flower with the other.
I nod shyly. “I asked for the ribbons to be your school’s colors.”
“Oh my gosh. Wow, Luca.”
“I figured if you advanced to the finals today, this rose would be in celebration of that, and if you didn’t, then it’d be to console you.”
Chelsea smells the rose daintily, and as her chest expands with her deep inhale, my eyes involuntarily drift to the tiniest hint of cleavage peeking out of her formfitting shirt.Damn.
“I feel embarrassed about my gift now,” she says. “It’s not nearly as good as yours.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll love it.”
“It’s a gag gift, basically.”
“Great, because I love gag gifts.”
Biting her lip, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a plastic “gold medal” on a ribbon—the sort of thing placed around the necks of elementary school kids on field day.
“Best giftever,” I say.
“No, it’s silly.”
“It’s awesome.”
“You said you’d be there in spirit today, so I wanted you to share in our victory. Especially because this morning you unwittingly supplied the answer that clinched the finals for us.”
I feel electrified. “No way. Seriously? The winning answer was ‘the limit does not exist’?”
“No, no. It was, ‘The proof of alcohol needed to make a sorority girl barf.’”
