Blind Ambition | ✓

19 | Scary Hours

Kaia gave me a dramatic eye roll. "On the ways I'm going to engineer your untimely end if you don't stop bugging me? Not yet, I'm between eaten by bears and boiled in oil."

"Very funny." I offered her a deadpan laugh.

She slipped on a coy smirk. "I have my moments."

"But seriously, are you coming to my halloween party tomorrow night?" We stopped at her locker, and with nothing more than a glance I shooed away the person at the locker beside her. The cool of the metal was a shock through the material of my shirt as I leaned up against it.

"I told you I'd think about it the first time you asked me." Kaia dumped off her Calculus textbook and calculator in her locker. Her books were perfectly stacked at the bottom, and she had a collection of scrunchies hanging from a hook attached to the inside door. She pulled one off and tied her hair back effortlessly.

I scoffed. "Yeah and that was two weeks ago, which means you've had two weeks to think about it."

Kaia tugged at her backpack with a groan, yanking at a thin wayward strap that had gotten stuck in the locker below hers.

"Look, I have an away game tomorrow afternoon," she said between fruitless tugs. "I'll see how I feel afterwards."

"You don't even have to wear a costume, you can just come as a pretentious field hockey player."

Kaia huffed, although I wasn't sure if it was directed at me or her still stuck backpack strap.

"Why do you even want me to come so badly?"

"It's not me, I just think you need to get out and have a little fun." I gently nudged her aside and gave her backpack one hard tug, liberating it from it's locker jam. I dropped it into her hand. "Loosen up, that's all."

Kaia scowled. "You don't know what I need. Just because you were the first person to find out about what happened with me and Jackson doesn't make you obligated to be like this. Everyone knows by now, so just...let it go."

"I'm not being like anything." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Maybe this is just how I am, and you don't know me as well as you think you do."

"So you're nice sometimes," she said through a pinched smile. "Good for you."

She finally slammed her locker shut and slipped her backpack on.

"So are you coming or not?"

Kaia brushed past me, but the little glint of a smirk on her lips wasn't lost on me. "I'll think about it!" she called over her shoulder.

✗✗✗

The last time we played Calgary Prep, a fight broke out after one of their defensive linemen tackled me so hard my helmet came off, then proceeded to kick my helmet into my face and didn't get a penalty flag called against him. Our senior offensive captain at the time - a guard named Brett Lachance who went on to play at Iowa State - retaliated accordingly. He got the penalty flag thrown against him, and it cleared the benches on both sidelines.

Needless to say, when Chris, Anthony and I walked to the logo at the center of the field to take the captains' coin toss, the chilly night air was thick with the tense prospect of absolution. When I exhaled, my breath materialized in front of me. Scary hours were upon us.

The three captains from Calgary joined us at midfield. Even with his helmet on, I recognized cornerback Gordy Gibson from the angry, jagged scar that ran along his jaw. It was no secret in the elite circles of Connecticut private schools that Gordy regularly engaged in underground fighting, and his high-profile attorney father made sure he stayed out of any entanglements with law enforcement. Gordy played football the same way he fought - dirty, and with vengeance. He'd fit right in at the University of Miami next year.