Never Fall in Love with the Fisher Boys

17- After All This Time

“So, you aren’t going to tell us what happened on your date?” Paige asked Sophie with a level of incredulity. “Come on, Soph, I’m dying to know where he took you!”

“I’m not saying,” She stubbornly refuted as we ran around the outline of the soccer field during Monday practice. “My lips are sealed. But I will say that it was just absolutely amazing. Really. It was the best date that I’d ever been on. I have no idea how I ever hated this guy. I just made so many wrong assumptions.”

“Well, I’m glad that you’re happy,” Paige sighed but obviously not happy about Sophie’s secrecy.

“Look, it’s not like I don’t want to tell you,” Sophie said. “It’s just that it was our night, you know? I don’t want to share it with anybody else.”

“I know, I get it,” Paige assured her although I didn’t get that. I didn’t understand that a night could be so amazing that you’d want to keep it to yourself. It was just one night and even though it was amazing, it couldn’t hold so much specialness. Not in my eyes.

“So are you two like, together?” I interjected since I hadn’t asked Andy that question. When he came back from his date on Friday night, I was asleep but when I woke up on Saturday morning for breakfast, Will had told us that when he came home, Sophie wasn’t with him. He’d dropped her off at her house before coming back home, which he’d never done before, and then Andy wouldn’t say a thing about the date at all. I knew it went well though considering he was in an amazing mood all weekend and wouldn’t stop smiling. It was adorable yet sickening.

“No,” She sighed. “I just want to go on a few more dates before we make it really official. I just want to make sure that he wasn’t just pretending to be amazing on the date just for my benefit. I just want to be sure that I’m falling for the real Andy Fisher, you know?”

I didn’t know.

Paige nodded as we continued to jog with everybody else until the coach blew her whistle and then we started doing dribbling exercises which quickly ended our conversation about Sophie and Andy. My weekend wasn’t nearly as exciting or rainbows and flowery as both Sophie and Andy’s were. It was bland, pretty much. I watched some movies, texted Paige a lot, and if I’d run into Carter in the kitchen or the hallway, we’d hold a conversation before we went our separate ways.

For the rest of practice, we didn’t get much time to talk but when the coach called it quits for the day, we all met up at the bleachers to grab our sports bags and headed to the parking lot.

“So we’ll be the first to know when Andy asks you to be his girlfriend, right?” Paige wondered with a level of authority in her voice as if she wasn’t really asking Sophie a question, it was a demand. We must be the first.

“Of course,” Sophie confirmed with a nod. “I’ll text you as soon as we have that conversation but I’m warning you that it probably won’t be for at least a few more weeks.”

“Take your time,” Paige told her. I took a big gulp of my ice water and when we got to the front of the rock, I saw that Carter wasn’t there yet so I’d have to wait for his practice to get out. “As long as we know. Anyway, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” I offered her a wave and then a smile as she and Sophie both walk passed the bright spirit rock towards the parking lot to go to their cars and drive back home to enjoy the rest of their days.

I sit down on the hot rock and then I start playing games on my phone while I waited for Carter to show up. After ten minutes, I heard deep groups of laughter coming from the school so I turned around and saw Carter and a few of his basketball friends coming out of the school with other players coming out of practice emptying out behind them.