✏️ Under One Roof

33. One Agreement

Tegan watched two boys bouncing a ball around a court. They looked like they knew what they were doing, so far as she could tell, but she didn't really understand the rules of the game. They were only using one of the hoops, for one thing, when she'd always thought that each of them would be aiming to score at opposite ends of the court. But Tegan was happy to admit to herself that she didn't know if the game was more complex than she'd thought, or if this was some kind of training drill. There was a lot of standing still in different parts of the court before trying to take the same shot, so she guessed the latter.

She could have called out to them, to at least make sure that she had the right people. But she got so carried away watching them that she barely even noticed when half an hour had passed. She only emerged from that fugue when she heard the rattle of the doors opening to let two boys out of the cage-like space of the court. She watched them leave, and quickly corrected her inner monologue. Not boys; young men. They were surely older than her by at least a couple of years, and both were tall, muscular, and looked like they could have been professionals. Both had sleeveless tops bearing a logo that declared 'Moistville Saracens' too; although the shorter one had it tied around his waist as he played. Given how much they were sweating, they probably didn't care about the weather slowly sliding down to winter temperatures.

They walked right past Tegan, not noticing that she was staring after them. She regained her composure in just a second, and chased after the pair.

"Hey, Dean?" she called. And she knew she must be right, because the shorter one turned and smiled. His grin showed off perfect teeth, to go with a perfect body, and she really hoped that he wasn't going to get the wrong idea. It was easy to imagine that sportsmen like this would be starting to get a lot of attention from girls, and she didn't Dean to assume she was just after one thing. Not that she would have been opposed to spending some more time with someone who looked like that; she just didn't want her first relationship to be accelerated like those jocks would expect.

She shook her head to clear away all the intrusive thoughts as he spoke:

"He's taken." That must mean that Dean was the tall one, she guessed. Or rather, the taller one, because both were well above average. "No fangirls, them's the rules. We don't make 'em but we gotta take 'em. And if that's not enough to put you off, I should warn you that we live together. So whatever you get up to, I get to watch."

The other guy, Dean presumably, shot him a withering glance but didn't say anything. Tegan tried to collect her thoughts together. She thought that Theo had said the piper was Dean's roommate. So if the huge jock was Dean, and the two lived together, then the cute one was probably the piper. Of course, she still had to consider the possibility that this was all part of some in-joke or routine. She was sure that she'd seen the 'we don't make em' line online before, so it was probably a song lyric or a quote from some movie she didn't know. Still, she could only work with what she had.

"Fine by me," she replied with a smile, just to see the overconfident guy deflate for a fraction of a second. That was a response he hadn't expected, wherever he was coming from. "Just so long as you can play the bagpipes."

The cute jock seemed dumbstruck, and Dean hesitated just a second before erupting in a deep belly laugh.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Even after I got kicked off the team, we still get people staring who don't realise that I've got a personality beyond my physique. And Pete likes to make a joke of it. But I'd guess you know us, even if we don't know you."

"Pete?" she said, filing the words away in her mind. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Tegan. We're putting together an alt rock band, but it just doesn't sound right. We've got an eclectic set of instruments, but I figured that what we need to complete the sound is bagpipes. And one of my friends, Theo, said she knows a guy who knows a guy, kind of thing. Didn't say anything about you, just set me off on this quest to find Dean. And I've asked everybody I can think of where Dean might be found, until a chipper goth chick said I might find you here. So... did I get the right Dean?"