Chapter 3
Things shifted after that night at the bar.
It started with a text from Jason the following day, asking my favorite song.
Every day since then, I woke up to a text with a random question from him.
Every time, it evolved into full conversations.
I knew his musical tastes, his favorite color, his favorite food, book, and movie.
I knew that he preferred whiskey to tequila, primarily due to an unfortunate night in college where he’d had too much tequila and streaked across the campus with a group of his friends.
I remembered hearing about that, though I’d not witnessed it. It had become a King’s Bay University legend, and the more I got to know him, the more I realized that his involvement in it tracked.
He was full of energy and curiosity. His text messages had me laughing at random points throughout the day.
Our lunch breaks occurred at the same time, and we spent most of them texting each other.
The more I learned about him, the more I came to like him.
One week into our texts, and I was starting to realize that I was beginning to like him.
My stomach fluttered every time I saw his name on the screen.
I found myself reaching for my phone first thing every morning to see his question of the day.
I stayed up later at night, texting him like a lovesick teenager.
And I’d seen more than enough lovesick teenagers at work to know the signs.
It made me want to see him again, to spend real time with him. I just needed an excuse.
A commercial for the Championship game between the Navigators and Marauders gave me the perfect reason to see him.
I could invite Jason to my apartment to watch the game.
I had it all planned out in my head. We could order Pie in the Sky, the local pizza place, and I could buy a case of beer.
I steeled myself to issue the invite and chastised myself for being an idiot.
I was asking a friend—and I could say that about Jason now—to watch a football game.
There was no reason to be nervous or in my head about an invitation.
We both liked football, and given that it wasn’t either of our teams, I could almost be certain that he wasn’t going to be the obnoxious man I’d sat beside at the Foxes and Gladiators game.
I sent a text message about the game, and my entire plan derailed.
Luckily, it didn’t derail in a bad way. He invited me over, claiming that he’d been thinking about it for a few days.
Those butterflies in my stomach swarmed and swooped as a collective being.
I accepted and offered to bring beer or wings or anything. He told me to just bring myself.
By the time the Championship game rolled around, my heart was racing every time I thought about going to his place.
He’d sent me his address, and I’d looked up the apartment building.
It was nicer than mine, newer. It was one of those complexes that had popped up on the other side of town within the past few years.
I knew he’d been in King’s Bay since college, so he must have thought the rent was worth it to live in a new construction.
Maybe it was near his family or friends.
I realized how little I knew about his early life, and it prompted me to send my first random morning question: asking how long he’d been in King’s Bay.
It turned out that he was a lifer, and it unlocked a long conversation about our favorite parts of living in King’s Bay, comparisons to where I’d grown up in Nevada, and even our favorite places that we’d traveled over the years.
It reinforced the fact that I didn’t know him very well.
What I did know, I liked. I had a crush on him, even if he had obnoxiously tried to ruin the Wild Card game for me.
It turned out that he just had a big mouth.
He’d made a few comments in our text thread that made it clear that it was just the way he was.
When it wasn’t directed at me or my team, it was funny; it just made for a terrible first impression.
On Sunday, the nerves doubled and then tripled as I got ready to go to his place.
It was ridiculous. Why was I getting this nervous about watching a football game?
I didn’t normally agonize about what I was going to wear.
I was a jeans and a tee shirt kind of guy, except at work when I had to wear slacks and polos despite the fact that high schoolers did not appreciate someone getting dressed up for them.
Especially not a teacher. That day, I kept trying on different shirts.
Should I wear one of my Gladiators shirts, even though my team wasn’t playing?
Should I choose the color of one of the teams that was playing?
But then, with that, I preferred the Marauders, but I owned nothing in their shade of bright green.
I wasn’t sure that anyone outside of their fan base owned a shirt in that garish color.
I sighed and chose a simple black tee instead.
It was the same type of shirt I wore almost every day.
After I put it on, I studied myself in the mirror.
My light brown hair wasn’t a complete mess for once.
I’d managed to tame the typical disheveled mess that lived atop my head, though I doubted that it would last. My shirt pulled a little at my waist, emphasizing the bit of stomach I had.
I tugged at the hem of my shirt, trying to get it to lay better.
It didn’t do anything to fix the perceived problem.
I sighed and accepted that this was the best I was going to get.
On the way to Jason’s, I stopped at the store for a case of beer. While there, I impulsively grabbed a pack of cupcakes decorated for the big game in the playing teams’ colors. I didn’t want to show up empty handed, no matter what Jason said. I paid and drove to Jason’s apartment.
He opened the door a few moments after I knocked, and I was hit by the smell of food.
My meager offerings of cupcakes seemed subpar, but he took them with a bright smile.
He led me to the kitchen, and I saw the spread he’d made.
There was a platter of wings, meatballs and those little party sausages in a crock pot on the counter, a small bowl of salad, a plate of chips and dip, and some kind of pull-apart bread that was covered in cheese and smelled so good it had my mouth watering.
My eyes went wide at the sight of it. “How many people did you invite over?”
Color flooded his cheeks. “Just you. I might have gone a little overboard.”
“A little?” I questioned with a laugh.
“A lot overboard.”
He took the case of beer from me and stuck it in the fridge. I caught a quick glimpse inside and saw another case of beer already there. He really had meant it when he said that I didn’t have to bring anything.
“Do you want to watch the pregame commentary?” he asked as he started grabbing platters.
I agreed, picked up two platters, and followed him to the living room, sitting them on the table he had set up by the couch.
He’d created a whole watch party just for the two of us.
The thought and effort behind it had my heart pounding against my ribcage and the swarm of butterflies that had been born from his texts take flight.
I didn’t need to be caught up in all these feelings for him, but it was hard not to when he went through this much effort for something as simple as watching a game.
I had to remind myself that he probably didn’t do all this just because I was coming over.
It was just the kind of person that he’d shown himself to be over the past two weeks.
I sat down on the couch, and he turned on the game.
We groaned as the commentators began talking about the two teams’ seasons, highlighting some of their best plays and games.
Which, in the case of the Navigators, included some nasty hits on both of our teams. I cringed as I watched highlights from the Divisional round, the one that knocked the Gladiators out of contention.
Jason, on the other hand, got vocal as they showed highlights from the regular season game between the Navigators and the Foxes.
I’d not watched the game, but seeing it play out in front of me?
It had been a really bad game for his team.
Honestly, it was nice to see that he was just as chirpy when it wasn’t my team playing. Hell, even when it was a game that we both already knew the outcome of. It felt less personal, and it just matched what he said about how he was during football games.
“What team are you rooting for?” I asked him as the pre-game show went to commercial.
“Marauders. You couldn’t pay me to root for the Navigators.
Not only did they kick the Foxes asses this season, but they lost me a hundred bucks when they did.
Plus, I had to humiliate myself when they lost?
” I raised a questioning eyebrow. “I made a bet with one of my friends. He’s a Navs fan, told me that if they won, I had to wear his Navs jersey on casual Friday. ”
“That’s not humiliating,” I pointed out. Though, to be fair, I couldn’t imagine wearing any team’s jersey other than the Gladiators.
He took out his phone and pulled up a picture. “See for yourself.”
I looked at the picture and tried to keep from doubling over with laughter. Jerseys were supposed to be loose, but he was swimming in the Navigators jersey. It fell almost down to his knees, and it had to be a good three sizes too large. “Is your friend part giant?”
“Feel like it sometimes,” he admitted. “Chuck would’ve been a hell of a football player, except he’s like me. More into watching sports than playing them. Hell of a singer though.”
“Size doesn’t always equal talent,” I told him with a shrug.
“You’re not rooting for the Navs, are you?”
I thought about telling him that I was, just to see his face.
I had a feeling his expression would be priceless, but that would then require me to keep it up.
I’d never been a big fan of the Navigators, and I still held a bit of a grudge for them completely dominating the Gladiators.
Cheering for them would take a lot of effort from me, and judging by the way the commentators were talking about them, they’d have more than enough support without mine.
“Marauders all the way,” I said after a beat.
“Though we did beat them during the regular season, so my hopes aren’t the highest.”
“No, that’s not the way to go about it,” he chastised.
There was a playful light behind his green eyes.
“You have to really believe they’ll win.
You gotta put the full force of everything you have behind it.
Even if it means cussing and screaming at the other team so they pick up all your bad juju. ”
“Oh, is that what you call what you did during our game?” I questioned.
“Absolutely.”
“And how did that work out for you again?”
He flipped me off, and I laughed. But when kickoff happened, I decided to try his way.
We shouted at the refs on the TV for every bad call, and we cheered every time the Navigators got hit with a penalty.
By halftime, the Marauders were up by three, and our energy was through the roof.
We had eaten our way through part of his spread, and it was some of the best game day food I’d ever eaten.
I’d noticed that we kept getting closer to one another on the couch.
We’d started on opposite ends, but by the time the halftime show started, there were only inches between us.
We watched together as some pop star put on a performance.
I recognized a few of the songs from the radio, but I couldn’t have told you the artist’s name or the song titles.
I didn’t even know the lyrics, despite having heard them before.
Jason, on the other hand, seemed to know every word.
He was singing and bopping along in his seat, and my cheeks hurt from smiling, just watching him.
Yeah, the little crush I had? I was pretty sure it had been upgraded to a big one.
I wondered if he felt it too, felt the heat forming between us or the energy bouncing around the inches between our legs. I wondered if he got little butterflies when he snuck little looks at me, or if he’d been too consumed by the game to glance my way at all. I wondered if I was even his type.
The second half started, and we went right back to how we were in the first half.
Except there were a few times I’d steal a glance and catch him looking at me.
By the time the third quarter ended, our legs were touching.
I could no longer focus on the game in front of me.
I couldn’t think of anything but the gentle pressure of his leg against mine and the way he lit up every time the Marauders did something good.
If I hadn’t been cheering for them beforehand, I would’ve converted just watching him.
It wasn’t like I had a vested interest in either team, after all, and I was developing a very vested interest in the man beside me.
Much more than I had in the game we were watching, though it was a good one.
The two teams were evenly matched, and they kept trading leads.
At the final two-minute warning, the Marauders were only up by three and the Navigators had the ball.
We were both standing up, screaming our lungs out, and praying on their downfall.
He wanted revenge for the ass kicking the Navigators had given his Foxes, and I wanted revenge for the game the Gladiators had lost two weeks prior.
Our open beers and the food were forgotten in front of us.
We were getting so loud that I worried his neighbors would make a noise complaint, but I couldn’t find it in myself to really care.
Not when the game was getting this good.
The Navigators made it to the forty yard line before getting stopped. It was third and eight, and their third down conversion rate had been terrible all season. At least according to Jason, and given his keen mind for football statistics, I decided to take him at his word. They called a time out.
“Field goal unit,” he declared after watching the team huddle up.
“You don’t think they’re going to try for it?”
“No way. The Marauders defense is too good. Field goal means they can tie it up and hope to win in overtime.”
With less than thirty seconds left in the game, the Navigators kicker came out. We both held our breath as he prepared for the kick. The ball was snapped, and the kicker made his move. The ball sailed in a perfect arc.
To the left of the goal post.
The buzzer sounded.
Jason grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. I didn’t know what came over me, but as he pulled me in, I closed the distance and kissed him hard.