Chapter 1 – Beau
BEAU
“Yo, Ricci.” Aaron juts his chin in acknowledgment as we get to the gate for our flight. “A bunch of the guys are going to grab dinner. You in?”
I drop my backpack onto a seat by the window looking out at the runway and take the chair next to it. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Shake it off. We’ll get them next time.”
“Yeah.” Nodding, I give my buddy a playful smile that is all show. “Of course, we will.”
When my teammates are finally gone, I let out a breath and put on my headphones. I don’t feel like listening to music, but it helps drown out some of the airport noise.
We are catching a flight back to Colorado after a tough loss. All losses are tough, but this one stings especially bad for me because I should have stopped the final play, the one that let the other team take a one-point lead with three seconds left.
I’m a cornerback. THE cornerback. The best on my team, maybe in the entire conference. I’m known for my ability to anticipate plays, my quick reflexes, and my all-out, never-give-up mentality.
Once you get me started, there’s no stopping me. Some call me reckless or destructive. Some call me determined. I don’t know which is right. I’m just trying to do my best for my team and for my family cheering me on from home. It means everything to them that I’m playing college ball.
I see a new text from my dad, ignore it, and pull up Twitch to watch my favorite gamer. This guy is legit. He’s a world-class speedrunner on Super Mario. I wonder if his parents critique his every game. Probably not.
While I watch, the seats around me start to fill up. It’s the weekend before Thanksgiving, so there are a lot of families, just a lot of people in general.
A shadow falls over me and I glance up to find a girl looking at me with big, brown eyes, like she might have said something I didn’t hear.
“Sorry. Did you say something?” I ask as I move one headphone off my ear.
“Are you saving that for someone?” She points to the chair next to me, where my backpack sits.
“No. It’s all yours.” I move my bag to the floor in front of me and she drops into the chair.
“Thank you,” she says with a sigh. “You just saved me from watching my ex and his new girlfriend make out like they’re about to get on two different flights. Making out at the airport should be reserved for couples who are parting ways, or are reuniting, or I don’t know, anyone but them.”
I give her my attention, which prompts her to add, “That sounded mean, didn’t it?”
“A little, maybe.”
“Sorry. Ignore me.” She waves a hand and slumps in the chair. Without looking at me, she says, “Thank you for the seat.”
I do ignore her, for a moment. My hand goes to pull my headphone back over my ear, but then I stop. She’s more interesting than anything I have on my phone to kill the time. “But it’s also pretty insensitive to make out with someone in front of an ex that you know still likes you.”
“Oh, I don’t like him.” She undoes the braid in her hair. It’s a light red that could almost be confused as blonde, if the light from the window at our backs wasn’t hitting it just right. She finger combs it, and then begins to braid it again. “You don’t believe me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I could see it on your face,” she says. She pulls her feet up into the chair, crossing her legs like the airport chair is roomy—it is not. “I broke up with him.”
“Then why does it annoy you so much?”
She thinks for a second, which gives me a chance to check her out more closely.
Her skin is fair, which makes her brown eyes and long, black lashes stand out.
Her lips are shiny and pink, and as she thinks, she purses them slightly.
The center of her top lip is wider than the bottom, making a perfect heart.
She’s wearing a Valley U Swim & Dive Team sweatshirt with black athletic pants and sneakers.
“I think relationships require a mourning period when they’re over. A time to think about what went well, what went wrong, how that person was or wasn’t the right fit.”
“Yeah, I don’t know any guy that does that. Sorry. We pretty much live by the get-drunk-and-move-on-to-forget philosophy.”
She laughs, a soft sound that makes her lips pull apart to show off straight, white teeth. She has a great smile.
“Why’d you break up with him?” I find myself wanting to know more, to prolong this conversation. She’s a perfect distraction.
“You’re gonna think it’s dumb.”
“Well, now I definitely have to know.”
She angles her body toward me. “He whistles.”
My brows rise. “Whistles?”
“Yeah. Like all the freaking time. At first, I thought it was sort of endearing, but it’s all the time. While he’s watching TV, walking to class, in class, during sex.”
“He whistles during sex?” I bark a laugh, then cover it with a fist.
She nods adamantly. “If he wasn’t under the water or my mouth wasn’t plastered to his, then he’s whistling. And don’t get me wrong, I love kissing, but my lips were chapped, and I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Under the water?”
“He’s a swimmer.”
“Ah. Did you ask him about it?”
“He was like, ?Oh, yeah. I don’t even realize I’m doing it.?” She grimaces.
“And I realize it’s a stupid reason to break up with someone, but I couldn’t imagine myself getting used to it.
Not with him. And I guess that’s really the thing.
If it’s the right person, you shouldn’t want to choke them for their annoying, quirky habits, right? ”
“Probably not.” I whistle, just to poke a little fun at her, but then laugh.
“See? It’s not annoying when you do it. Not yet at least.” She settles back into her chair.
“Not until we’re dating for a month or two and you’re looking for an excuse to break up with me?”
“You should be so lucky.” There’s a sassy glint in her eyes that makes my pulse kick up a notch.
“You’re a swimmer, too?” I ask, pointing at her sweatshirt. “Or still wearing his clothes even though you claim to be over him?”
“I am over him, and I’m a diver.”
“A diver. No shit? Like flipping in the air from a really high diving board?” I make a circular motion with my pointer finger.
Her mouth pulls into another big smile. “Yep. It’s called a platform or a springboard.”
“That’s awesome. How’d you get into that?”
“I did swim team every summer when I was a kid, and then in middle school, I started diving.” She shrugs.
“That’s really cool.” I move my headphones down around my neck. “You’re coming from a game? Meet? Competition? I just realized I don’t know what they call swimming events.”
“Meets. And yes. We were at UT and now we’re heading home.”
“Did you win?”
“We did,” she says proudly.
“Nice. Congrats.”
“Thanks. Do you go to CU?” She points to my sweatshirt with the college name written across the front.
“Yeah.”
“Are you heading home for Thanksgiving?”
“No, I—”
I’m cut off when she ducks low in her seat and mutters, “Oh, crap.”
I look around us to figure out why she’s freaking out, but everyone near us is minding their own business and perfectly calm. “Are you okay?”
“My ex,” she whispers. “Two o’clock. Blue hat, standing a foot above everyone else. Cute blonde attached to his hip.”
I find the guy. He is tall. Lean and lanky, making him seem even taller. I’m six foot one, and I doubt he’s more than a few inches taller than me. The chick beside him stares up at him adoringly. She’s wearing a sweatshirt, just like the girl next to me.
“Are they gone?” she asks, still hiding.
“No.”
She sits up a little straighter and peers around me at the same moment he scans the crowd.
“What is he doing here?” She whisper-hisses and ducks back down, moving a little closer to me like she’s using me as a shield. She smells nice, like mint and flowers. “Our gate is all the way at the other end of the terminal.”
After a thorough glance around the gate (I’m half-convinced he’s looking for the girl hiding next to me), he walks in the opposite direction, hand in hand with his new girlfriend.
“They’re going,” I say.
She lets out a breath and sits tall, but still close to me. She has freckles across the bridge of her nose, and I’ve finally placed the minty smell—wintergreen gum. Her eyes lock on mine and we both freeze for a moment, before my phone captures her attention. “What are you watching?”
She moves away, but still stares down at the screen in my hand.
“Twitch.”
“Speedrunning?” she asks, still staring down.
“Yeah. You know it?”
“Beating games superfast.” She nods. “I’ve seen some of those.
My brother was obsessed with it when we were younger.
He used to drive me crazy when we’d play video games together because I’d be trying to get all the coins and check things out, and he was racing to the finish or finding glitches to skip levels. ”
“You have a brother?”
“And sister. You?”
“No. Only child. Lots of cousins, though.”
“Can I creepily watch over your shoulder?”
“No need to creep,” I say, and angle my phone so she can watch. I take my headphones from around my neck and hold them between us.
With a smile, she leans closer, resting her ear to one side, while I listen through the other. And that’s how we kill the next twenty minutes.
It’s . . . nice. We only talk to comment on the stream, but I’m having a good time and can’t seem to stop stealing glances at her.
The lull of the airport noise around us just sort of fades away.
After a game, I like to have space. I need time to get my head straight, digest the good and bad from the game, read through the texts my dad always sends with feedback (mostly criticism), and let it all drift away so I can go back to being the happy-go-lucky guy everyone expects.
But right now, I’m not thinking about anything but the girl next to me.
When the attendant working the closest gate announces that we’re about to start boarding, we both snap out of our happy bubble.
“Looks like you’re about to leave.”
“Yeah,” I say, and swivel until I locate my teammates. They’re three rows over, a mass of red. “What time does your flight leave?”
She looks at her watch. “Oh crap. We started boarding fifteen minutes ago.”
While she scrambles to get her stuff together, I stand and wait for her. Something like disappointment tugs at me.
“Do you want me to AirDrop you the link to the stream?” It’s a weak attempt to prolong some sort of contact with her. She’s hot and I had a good time.
“Yeah. That’d be great. I have a feeling I’m going to need a distraction on the flight home.”
“Cool.”
“Thanks. This was fun.” She waves with a hand around the strap of her backpack and then starts to takes off for her gate.
I grab the link and am about to send it to her, when she pauses in her tracks. “Text it to me. I don’t have AirDrop turned on for non-contacts.” She rattles off her phone number.
I walk with her, since she really needs to get on her plane before it leaves, repeating her number back to her as I tap it into my phone.
“Got it.”
She smiles a little more timidly than she has since she walked up and asked to sit beside me. “Thanks. I really better hurry. It was nice hanging with you.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
I keep following, walking away from my gate, as she puts space between us to get to her flight. She looks over her shoulder and finds me still looking at her, then hits me with another smile.
“I didn’t even get your name,” I yell. “I’m Beau.”
“Stella.” She jogs backward. “Stella Walters.”