Connor
Tweeet!
Coach Reno’s whistle pierced the air seconds before his booming voice. “Defense! Five burmas! I don't care if you're puking your guts out, everybody finishes.”
The huge defensive linemen, faces already purple from exertion, groaned collectively as they all headed to the imaginary trail leading all around the school campus that has been dubbed a ‘burma’.
“Conditioning.” Coach’s voice carried to the defense as they ran, heads hanging low. “You guys look like you haven’t left your mama’s couch all summer. Offense! To the line!” This new proclamation was met with no less groaning from my teammates on offense. “One hundred yard suicides!”
Lining up in the end zone, I crouched into my stance, deciding for the thousandth time I hated our head coach.
Tweeet!
I was just as frustrated with my team. This was my senior year. My last chance to catch the attention of the scouts from State. I needed that scholarship. I’ve worked my ass off all summer conditioning, doing drills, and studying film. If these dipshits didn’t get their act together, no way we were winning the State Championship this year. And I needed to win.
Glancing at the water table, my gaze landed on Allie. Just the sight of her sympathetic smile as she caught my eye, settled something deep inside me. Until she turned that bright smile of hers on Jared Maxwell, the water boy and the only guy on the team I hadn’t yet threatened with bodily harm if he dared to mess with Allie.
Of course, Jared was a freshman and weighed one fifteen soaking wet. I swear, the guy’s voice hadn’t even changed yet. I could probably forgo my usual speech, the one that kept Allie safe from asshole jocks like my teammates. I really didn’t think Jared was a threat.
“Dude, this sucks.” My best friend on the team, JJ Coleman grimaced as he headed back to the end zone from the twenty-five yard line. I was already at the thirty-five, a sure sign that all my hard work over the summer had paid off. JJ, on the other hand, spent the summer drinking and partying. He was paying for it now. I couldn’t afford to lose focus.
“Suck it up, man.” I harassed JJ, passing him again.
“Enough small talk, Sanders!” Coach Reno shouted, reinforcing my earlier conclusion that he was not my favorite person, not because he was a tough coach, I didn't mind hard work. No, I didn't like him because he was an ass.
I glanced at Allie again. She faced the field, the corners of her mouth lifted in a smirk as our eyes met again. She knew exactly how I felt about the coach.
Jared caught my attention again, too, looking overly enthusiastic when Allie laughed at something he said and suddenly couldn’t remember when exactly I became so damn protective of the girl next door.
It was nothing new, I supposed. I’ve been helping Allie out of scrapes since we were kids. Like that time I knocked out Billy Prescott’s front tooth for locking Allie in the shed during a game of hide and seek. It still pissed me off thinking about it. It helped that I was bigger than most of the other kids around our age (Thanks to genetics. But I’d also had to repeat first grade because of some virus I picked up on a humanitarian trip to South America when I was six, putting me one grade ahead of Allie instead of two.) I guess it was her freshman year when I realized how much Allie was going to need looking after. It all started when she signed up to be the student athletic trainer for football. At first, I thought it would be awesome, right? My best friend hanging out at football. And it was until it wasn’t.
The first week of summer practice, Allie was the hottest topic in the locker room. For the first time, I was exposed to how other guys looked at my best friend and it was Not. Cool. Everything came to a head when I went to find Allie after practice to give her a ride home only to find Travis Jacobs, a senior and the school’s biggest douche giving Allie a hard time.
I would never forget the relief on her face when she saw me walk in that room or the sudden, explosive rage that had me yanking Travis around by his collar, slamming him into the wall and threatening his future childbearing opportunities if I ever saw him messing with Allie again.
I probably could have handled that situation better. Typically, sophomores threatening seniors didn’t end well for the little guy, but I wasn’t that little. I even stole the starting quarterback position from Travis. After that no one messed with Allie in the training room, or anywhere else for that matter. Rumors started that Allie was my girlfriend. But I squelched those, too, by asking out Danielle Masters, a junior and one of the most popular girls in school. It didn't take long for everyone to believe I wasn't interested in Allie and some of them even forgot we were friends. What a bunch of idiots.
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“You ready to go?” I asked, poking my head into the training room after practice. Allie glanced up from slicing off Bruce Beckett’s ankle tape. He was a sophomore and played JV and he was looking at the top of Allie’s head like she was an angel sent straight from heaven- until he caught me scowling at him.
“Thanks, Allie!” Bruce jumped off the table and practically ran out of the training room. Smart kid. “See ya, Connor.” I barely nodded at him.
“Good grief, Connor. Stop scaring the underclassman.”
What? Ugh. Let me tell you something about Allie- she was completely clueless. Which was a good thing for the most part. She was sweet and unspoiled and completely unaffected by her own beauty. In fact, I’m pretty sure she had this crazy idea she wasn’t pretty. Wrong. She was gorgeous. Not flashy, but in a girl-next-door kind of way with a blonde ponytail swinging down her back, wide hazel eyes, and a few cute freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“What are you talking about?”
She turned to me, her brow furrowing in that cute way it did when she was trying to figure me out.
“Bruce. You just scared the crap out of him.”
“Oh. You know how it is with the JV guys.” And usually I was above all that. I remembered what it was like being a freshman and sophomore (remember Travis Jacobs?). I made a point to not be a jerk to the younger guys and got after anyone who did. Except when it came to Allie, who was still staring at me like she wondered what was going through my head.
“You done?” Seriously, she was gonna make me squirm with that glare of hers.
“Yeah.” She tossed the wadded-up tape from Bruce's ankle in the trash can and grabbed her backpack off the chair by the door.
We walked together to my truck and I opened the door for her just like I always did. Allie shook her head like it was completely unnecessary just like she always did. Pssht. My mom may not have taught me manners, but hers had.
“You got a lot of homework?” I asked, sliding into the driver’s seat.
“Nope.”
“Wanna play?” I didn’t know how much time we’d have once this year really took off. I wanted to hang out as much as possible and that usually meant kicking zombie ass.
“Sure. But only if you promise to behave yourself,” she threatened, pointing a finger in my face.
Right.
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Haha! Yes! There she was. With the controller in my hand, I backed to my character out of the darkened room visible on my half of the television screen and ran him down the hall. Glancing at Allie’s portion of the screen, I bit back a grin. Her character would hit the room in three, two, one-
“Allie, in there! Go in that room!”
Allie’s character raced into the room, full tilt- and woke up the witch hiding in the corner.
“Hahahaha!” I leaned over until our shoulders touched, laughing in her ear as the witch killed her character. “You fall for it every time.”
Scowling, she smacked me on the back of the head. “You suck. You know that, right?” Allie dropped her controller on the blanket where we laid on our stomachs, side-by-side, at the end of her double bed.
Just for that, I kicked her foot off mine.
“Hey!” she screeched.
You see, Allie had this foot thing. She was always messing with my feet when we played video games. She even instituted a no sock rule because footsie with socks on was apparently a travesty.
Looking injured, she attacked my feet with hers. “You owe me after tricking me...again.”
“You shouldn’t be playing footsie with me all the time. I have a girlfriend.” Allie scowled at the mention of my girlfriend, Kayla. I was just teasing her, though, because she’d been doing that foot thing since we were kids taking naps on mats in her mom’s daycare. “Besides, I can’t help myself. You’re just so damn gullible.” I laughed, and she kicked me this time.
“I am not gullible. We’ve been best friends all our lives. Heaven forbid, I actually trust you.” She nudged my shoulder, trying to make me feel guilty for getting her fake killed.
“Nah-uh. I cannot be manipulated by you anymore. I’m immune.” Allie rolled her eyes and then rolled off the bed, taking my controller with her.
“Fine, then I am done killing zombies for today.” Allie set our controllers on top of the console under her television. It was actually my console and my tv, but we never hung out at my house, so all of my games and shit were in her room.
“Awe, come on, Alberta.” She hated it when I called her that, but of all my favorite things, riling Allie up was my absolute favorite. Her eyes shot daggers at me and her lips flattened. See? It was hilarious.
“Jerk.” She punched my arm, then shook out her hand, making me laugh.
“Good grief, Allie, you think you’d learn.” I flexed my bicep, obnoxiously patting it with my hand.
“Arrogant jerk.” She stuck her tongue out at me.
“You know you love me, Al. Don’t try to deny it.” I meant the words playfully but the smile slipped from her lips as she began putting away laundry from a basket on her floor, making me feel bad. She tried to hide by carrying a stack of folded jeans into her walk-in closet. But I knew her, something I said made her sad.
It’d been like this all summer. Of course, we hung out every day. Playing video games, working out, helping her mom with her daycare kids. After all day together, we usually ended up sort of flirting. Nothing serious, you know, I never meant anything by it (not much, anyway). Most of the time I was just trying to get her to blush or I’d say something to make her eyes widen and say ‘Co-nnor’ the way she did when she couldn’t believe I’d just said what I did.
But sometimes, she got this look in her eyes, and I knew I’d gone too far. But I could never guess what was gonna put that look on her face until after it was already out. All I knew, it made me feel horrible. Allie was my best friend. Seriously, the most important person in my life. I didn’t even know what I’d do without her. Probably die.
We tested it out one time when we were little, without really meaning to. My jerk parents thought it would be fun for me to go to this sleepaway camp the summer I was nine and Allie was seven. I made it one week without her before the camp people called my parents and they had to come pick me up. After that, I threw the hugest fit whenever they even mentioned doing anything that would take me away from Allie for more than a day or so. See? Death.
Rolling onto my back in the middle of her bed, I stared at the poster of N’SYNC tacked to the ceiling. And I knew I had to say something to make her laugh again.
“You know, Al. The school printed these posters of all the senior football players. Full size.” I pointed to her boy band poster. “I’d be happy to give you one to put up right there. I’ll even help you hang it.”
“Sacrilege! How dare you?” She poked her head out of her closet, her face a mask of feigned outrage. “How would I ever fall asleep without J.T. and his boys right by me?”
I grinned at her, trying to hide the fact that her comment kinda made me feel hot all over. Allie was always saying things like that, stuff I could totally take the wrong way. Allie’s mind may never be in the gutter, but mine usually was and now I seriously wanted to put my poster up there so Allie could fall asleep every night looking at me and not some boy band from fifteen years ago.
Not that our relationship was like that. At all. No, Allie and me- purely platonic. I mean, sure I’ve thought about it. Ever since Mrs. B pulled me aside when I was thirteen and told me she wasn’t stupid and let me know it wasn’t appropriate for me to sneak into Allie’s room through her window anymore and have secret sleepovers, I haven’t been able to think of Allie as just my friend. Since then, I thought of her as my friend and a girl. It sucked.
Plus, I used to love our secret sleepovers. See, there's this treehouse outside Allie’s second story window that allowed easy and secret access to her room. We used to have so much platonic fun, playing video games with the sound down or watching scary movies and no one ever knew. Or at least we thought they didn't.
I wondered if Mrs. B knew I didn’t actually stop coming over until I was sixteen and it had become damn near impossible to hide my reaction to Allie and I sleeping in the same bed. Seriously, I couldn’t even tell you how tempted I was sometimes to take advantage of that stupid treehouse.
But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Everything was ‘just friends’ (well, mostly) because you see, I couldn’t lose Allie (please see the aforementioned sleepaway camp story). What if I tried to take things to the next level? Or even mentioned it and Allie ran screaming from the room?
Connor loses Allie forever.
Not. Going. To. Happen. I just couldn’t survive that kind of world. So instead, I kept up a steady stream of girlfriends that didn’t really mean anything and spent every spare minute outside of school, football, and stupid social obligations to the popular crowd- with Allie.
And, for now, I wouldn’t let on that my mind had gone down completely inappropriate paths, because she was smiling at me again. Instead I asked, “How do you feel about physics after your first day?”
And all was right with the world as she launched into a detailed description of the huge homework assignment Richardson laid on her class the first day (but wasn’t due until next week, she reassured me, since we’ve been playing video games for three hours). See? That’s what happened when I kept my non-platonic thoughts to myself- Connor still had Allie.