Far From Perfect (Anderson Series #5)

Unexpected Confession

In the last six months of my life I have learned so much. I have learned that I don't have to carry everyone's expectations of my on my shoulders.  I have learned that your past mistakes can and will catch up with you and I learned that having that one special person to call yours is worth so much more than random hook ups.

I have learned all this because of the one special person in my life, who I never saw coming.  Her name is Laurel McKenzie.

Laurel was kind, caring and just everything that balanced out my nature.  Ever since that first tutoring session everything I thought I knew about her went out the window.

When I lost a football game or I was having a bad day, Laurel was there to just listen to me and that in its self was great.  She didn't offer her two sense about what I should be doing differently, she just listened and let me get it all out.  She had slowly become my rock and I was so thankful for that.

So here I am getting ready once again for another football game.  Sitting in the locker room and putting on my gear all I could think about getting this game over with.  After the game Laurel and I were skipping the game and heading to my house to have a low key movie night.

What she didn't know though was my parents were heading to my Aunt's for the weekend with my sister and I had some how convinced them that I didn't need to go. 

My knee is bouncing as I sit there fully dressed and wait for the coach to come in and give us one of his go out and get em speeches.  Right on cue he walks in and stands in the middle of the floor and pumps us all up.  Little does he know that I don't need any more adrenaline running though my body.  All that started when I knew I would have an empty house and Laurel all to myself for two days.

We head out onto the field and my eyes automatically scan the crowd for her.  I see her sitting with Sammy.  She looks beautiful sitting there with her hair pulled back in a pony tail and she has started to wear my old jersey to the games.  So I guess now it's even more public now that we are together.

I give her a wave and a smile and she blushes a little and waves back.  Fuck, this girl has me wrapped around her finger, but I would never tell her that.

I see my mom, dad and sister in the stands too.  They are sitting right in front of Laurel.  My mom is happy that I finally found someone, but my dad on the other hand just pegs Laurel as a distraction.  It's not that he doesn't like her because he does, he just thinks that I need to focus on football and then once I get into a good college I can get more serious.

What he doesn't realize is that Laurel is the reason that my game has become better.  Just having he in the stands watching me and cheering for my has put my mind at ease and I feel like I could do anything.

I get out on the field and thank fuck we are on offense first.  I line up with the guys and call the play.  Right out of the gate everything seems to be clicking into place and I throw the ball to Danny who runs it in for a touch down.  Bam, score one for the good guys.

I turn and see Laurel hugging my mom and high fiving my sister and it makes me smile to see how well she fits in.

By the time half time rolls around we are up 21 -7 and have no intention of slowing down.  Coach gives us the usual speech about not letting up and that we have to play as if we were down 21-7.  All the guys cheer loudly and want to get out there and finish this up just as badly as I do.

We head out for the second half and end up getting two more touch downs.  They countered with one and that left the final score at 35 - 14 good guys. 

I go into the locker room and it was like lightening speed to get changed and showered. 

"Hot date tonight?" Danny asks me.