"This is impossible! How do people do this?"
I grin at my whining boyfriend. "Practice."
Jordan scowls at the basketball innocently rolling away from him. "The ball doesn't even want to be near me. It's repelled by my complete and utter inability to be even remotely competent at this."
"You just need to play more," I assure him, grabbing the ball and dribbling it as I casually jog across the court, shooting at the basket and making a layup. When I recover the ball and look back at Jordan, his glower has deepened.
"That's unfair."
"If you devoted all of the time you spend playing football to playing basketball, you'd be great," I tell him. "Sure, there's some natural talent involved, but anyone can get good if they try hard enough."
He mutters something under his breath and I grin to myself before passing him the ball again. He catches it and dribbles halfheartedly (I have to restrain myself from calling him out on traveling several times) until he's closer to the basket. He squints up, throws the ball, and glares as he completely misses. I wrap my arms around him from behind. "Don't get so worked up over it. You can do everything else. All you need to practice is shooting."
"It feels so wrong," he whines. "The ball is way too big. Basketballs are basically just glorified beach balls."
"Beach balls aren't firm enough to dribble well. And they're too light. But that's not the point, the point is that you're perfectly competent at basketball. Just not shooting. Which makes sense, since it's so different from throwing a football, which is what you're used to."
He leans into me, turning his head so he can peck my cheek. "When are we going to play football? You'd probably be better at that than I am at this. It's basically just catching a ball and then running, it's very simple."
"And dodging, tackling, blocking, and in some cases, kicking. And the 'catching a ball' isn't necessarily as easy as it is in basketball."
He makes a face. "It's not hard, though. I can throw it right to you. It'll fall right into your arms. Nate'll tell you how easy it is."
"You and Nate communicate telepathically during your football games. And you've been practicing together for three years. Practice is key."
"You know, I tell my parents that sometimes, when they get mad about my practice schedule. And then they get mad at me for talking back."
I kiss his cheek. "Alright, so you don't like basketball. Got it."
He gives me a cheeky grin. "If I was good at it, then I'd like it."
"If you practiced, you'd be good at it."
"If I liked it, then I'd practice."
I sigh, though it's hard to keep a small smile off my face. "Fine. Football, then?"
His face lights up. "Yes."
"Don't expect me to be good at it," I warn him as we start towards the car.
He waves dismissively. "You can't be any worse than I am at basketball."
"Save your judgement until you've seen me play."
"If you insist."
I reach into my pocket to for the key fob, unlocking the car. Jordan opens the passenger door, grabbing a football and closing the door again, starting towards the open field without waiting for me to follow. I lock the doors again and jog up behind him, seeing the pure excitement written all over his face. I'm a little apprehensive because I know that he's probably going to be less thrilled when he sees how bad I am, but I decide to worry about that later.
He explains everything to me patiently, before we finally get to the actual throwing part. We spread out, and he throws first. His throw is a thing of beauty- a mesmerizing arc through the sky. It does fall directly into my arms, just like he said. I fumble it but manage to grab it again, finding the small size and shape awkward.
And then I have to throw it back. I wince, consider a prayer but decide it would probably be useless anyways, and chuck the ball as hard as I can in Jordan's direction. My throw is absolutely horrible: the ball goes almost completely sideways, flying not even half the distance between Jordan and I before hitting the ground unceremoniously, spinning crazily and bouncing a few times.
Jordan bursts out laughing. I glare, even though he's too far away to see it. That's probably a good thing, though, because it's not easy to keep myself from smiling when I kind of want to laugh along with him. His happiness is kind of contagious.
He jogs towards the ball, scooping it up, before coming over to me, grinning. I roll my eyes at him, which he ignores.
"I told you I was going to suck at this."
"No, it's my fault, I should've shown you how to throw properly."
"Yeah, that might have been helpful."
Still smiling, he holds the ball out. "See these laces? Your fingers should fit in there, like this. And then when you throw it, it should just roll off your fingers, and then it'll spin around like this instead of like this. Okay?"
I stare blankly at him. He laughs.
"Alright, fine." He puts the ball in my hand and adjusts my fingers the way he wants them, then comes around behind me.
I start to turn, but then his arms slide around me, his chin resting on my shoulder. I ease into him, smiling a little. If this is how he's going to teach me to play football, then I could get used to it for sure.
"Okay, so you're holding the ball like that, right? Then you bring your arm back like this..." he wraps his arm around mine to show me the movement, "and then you're going to release it like this." He goes through the motions, and I try to focus on that instead of the feeling of him wrapped around me. It's not an easy task. "... Got all that?"
"Hmm... I think I'm going to need you to show me again."
He snorts. "You're not listening to me, are you?"
I smirk. "Not really."
He kisses my cheek. "Fine. Just release the ball around here," he moves my arm around to indicate the part I should release during, "okay?"
"Okay."
He goes through the movement a lot faster this time. The feeling of his muscles moving against mine almost has me swooning. Since I'm distracted, I probably let go of the ball a bit late, but it still works. The ball goes straight, arcs through the air nicely, and then hits the ground, bouncing backwards before settling again.
Neither of us seem to be in any huge rush to go and get it.
I turn my head a little to smile at him. "I don't mind football as much as I thought I would."
He cranes his neck to press a gentle kiss to my lips. "Does that mean it's your fault that I don't like basketball?"
"Yeah, I'm a bad teacher."
He hums a little in agreement, kissing me again. "Don't worry, I'll give you another chance."
"Oh? I thought you decided you hated basketball."
"If you teach me how to shoot properly, I'd probably like it a lot more."
I turn in his arms, leaning down to rest my forehead against his. "Sounds good to me."
"Me too." He leans up to leave a brief peck on my mouth, before hesitating and pressing his lips to mine properly. I smile into the kiss a little, kissing him back. He shifts so his arms are hooked around my neck, and I hug him by the waist, holding him close to me. He pulls back for a moment, sounding slightly breathless when he speaks. "Wanna learn tackling next?"
I kiss him again, grinning now. "That's not a bad idea."
-
We drive back to Chase's place after it gets dark. I drive with a lot of help from the GPS, while Chase orders pizza over the phone in the passenger seat.
"And when should it be here?" Pause. "Okay, thanks." He hangs up and looks at me. "Pull over."
"What? Why? Did I take a wrong turn? Siri says I'm fine."
"That's a GPS, not Siri. And the pizza is going to be at my house in ten minutes. You'll probably take fifteen."
Begrudgingly, I pull over. Chase gets out of the car, while I just hop over the console. He gets behind the wheel, turns off the GPS, then almost breaks the speed limit.
"Chase!"
He slows down a little.
We make it to his house just in time to see the delivery person pull up. Chase sighs in relief as he goes to pay them, then comes back to lock the car, passing the box off to me.
Chase's place is a house that he shares with a couple of other students, just off campus. Not enormous, but probably better than living in residence. We get to the door and he pulls out his key to unlock it. I peck the back of his neck. "Do you have your own room?"
He gets the door unlocked and turns to kiss me properly, before resting his forehead against mine, smirking rakishly. "Of course. I wouldn't take you somewhere we wouldn't have privacy, would I?"
"I mean, I'd hope not," I say, grinning as he lets me in.
It's a pretty nice place, surprisingly clean for a bunch of university students. I listen for a moment, then turn to Chase. "Is anyone else here?"
He smirks. "Nope. Two of them went home for the long weekend, one went to a party, and the other one is staying at his girlfriend's place tonight."
"Convenient."
"Isn't it?"
He leads me to the living room, where he turns on the TV and puts the pizza box on the couch while we get settled. I curl up to him, not sitting directly in his lap only for the sake of having somewhere to put the pizza box.
It's really good pizza. Chase tells me it's from some local place that a lot of students order from, due to the fact that this place has both delivery and pretty decent prices. Plus, the pizza is actually really good.
When we finish, I'm about to just toss it on the floor, but Chase insists on taking it to the kitchen to put it in the recycling bin. It's no longer a surprise why the house is so clean. I also can't say I'm totally shocked that my boyfriend is a clean freak.
I wait for him on the couch for longer than it takes to put a pizza box in the recycling bin. I figure that, knowing Chase, he's probably cutting out the greasy spots and putting those in the compost, since he's such a perfectionist.
Until he comes back.
He's holding a small dish with a brownie and vanilla ice cream, topped with caramel sauce. I blush a little as he sits next to me again, giving me a soft smile.
"I figured, since we've been together for a year, now..."
That's as far as he gets before I kiss him.
"That I should make this different from the rest of our dates," he finishes (a little breathlessly), once I've pulled away.
"I love you," I murmur before kissing him again. He smiles, kissing me back.
"I love you too. But as much as I'm enjoying this, the ice cream is going to melt."
I grin.
We feed each other spoonfuls of brownie and ice cream like a really stereotypical couple, trading kisses and 'I love you's the whole time. And then the dessert is all gone, and we're just kissing. Like our lives depend on it.
A few hours later, we're lying in his bed, on the verge of falling asleep, and I don't think I've ever felt more loved, or more in love, in my entire life.
So...
Fine.
Maybe football players and basketball players can get along. Maybe it's not always win or lose, us vs. them, survival of the fittest. Maybe they can learn to love each other. Maybe anyone can.
If they put aside their pride.
END.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!!!!!!! THIS BOOK IS NOW AT 1.1K READS AND I AM BLOWN AWAY!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO HAS EVEN READ A SINGLE WORD OF THIS BOOK, I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR EACH TINY LITTLE BIT OF SUPPORT!
What did you think of the epilogue? I really liked the idea of Jordan and Chase playing each other's sports for their anniversary date, since it kind of summed up the point of this book to me... what are your thoughts? And how about their night at Chase's house acting like a really stereotypical couple? And the ending? Let me know!!!
I've been playing around with some ideas for bonus chapters, so keep an eye out for those! Plus, the sequel to this book (Nate and Levi's story), titled Fine, is currently available on my profile! And if you really liked this book, you can find some new books to read on my profile as well! Again, thank you SO MUCH for all of your support, it truly means the world to me!
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