Sparks Fly

Chapter Nine: Soccer and the Solar System

I know it's really late, but technically, I made my deadline (finally!), so it's all good.

Hope you enjoy this chapter. I tried to balance the cute moments with the darker parts.

Vote and comment (if you liked it). And I'd like to thank @BixBixAeney for the lovely covers she made for this story!

--VIVKELLER23

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Rain

She hadn't meant to be late. In fact, for awhile, she hadn't meant to show up to the game at all. For some reason, she felt that going to watch Teagan and the boys he coached was overstepping some sort of boundary that she wasn't sure she wanted to cross.

Besides, it wasn't like she needed another reason to think of him. The last thing she wanted was to find another side of him that made her want to know more.

That was dangerous, and she already knew she was in trouble.

As much as she wanted to continue ignoring Teagan and his unmistakable charm, she couldn't deny the very real attraction she was having to fight off. While she was certain Teagan's interest was little more than a side-effect of his serial flirting, to her it would be so easy to confuse it for something else.

Something that might last.

And the irony in that was that she wasn't sure she wanted whatever this was to last.

Hence, her predicament. What should have been another routine Sunday for her had turned out to be the complete opposite. She'd woken up bright and early this Sunday morning, helped Isa make a nutritious breakfast she knew her father would never eat, and then walked down the gravel road to the small chapel her mother had always attended while alive. But through all of this, Rain had battled with whether or not she was going to attend Teagan's soccer match.

It was insane and against everything she'd worked so hard to make herself into to actually like someone as unreliable as Teagan Miller. She was the Ice Queen, her walls built up around herself from brick and cement which was as practical as it was strong. But none of that seemed to matter when she came face to face with what she truly felt around Gray's playboy.

And it was annoying as all H-E-double-hockey-sticks.

Yet, she found herself driving down the scenic roads of Granite Woods until those roads turned into old pavement filled with potholes. Not until she'd crossed over the worn train tracks into the ugly side of the town she lived in, did Rain realize her stubborn mind had made up its decision for her before she'd been able to process it.

And when she finally came to grips with where she was going, and who she was going to see, it was easy to justify not turning back around. She'd already wasted the gas to make the trip, so there was no sense in heading home without at least getting a glimpse of the dark-haired, green-eyed Casanova outside of his prototypical scene.

After all, it was only fair since he'd been a plague stuck to her side since that darned party she hadn't even been invited to.

Somehow, the deep, rational part of who she was had known it would be a mistake to go. Past experience had proven that the intuitive part of her was always right, but, of course, she thought she knew better.

How stupid could she be? While the most traumatic experience of her life had been foreshadowed by that same side of her, Rain still had the nerve to overlook the warnings. As if she could take the pain this time when she knew the last time had nearly destroyed her.