Page 14 of The Prospect

“So what you’re telling me that you didn’t see the way guys were checking you out when we walked in here?” I throw back at her.

“‘Checkingmeout’?” she repeats in disbelief. “In what way?”

“Googly eyes? Following your trail? Periodically staring over at you in between their conversations?” I suppose I hadn’t realized I’d recalled all the details either until now. “All of the signs are there, Hazel,” I mimic her line from earlier. “It’sobvious.”

Stumped, Hazel runs a hand along her forehead and through her brown hair. “Well then, I suppose we both have something to learn from one another, don’t we?”

A moment of silence passes between us, enough time for an idea to electrify through my mind like a lightbulb exploding into a million pieces.

I know what we can do.

I’ve got it.

“Uh oh.” Hazel’s got that worried look on her face, one that I combat with a sly smirk on my lips. “What are you thinking about?” she asks, almost hesitant to even pry.

I lean in close, pulling her in tightly against my shoulder as I speak, “What if I told you, Haze, that I had an idea to solve our singleness? What would you say? Would you do it for me?”

I can feel Hazel's breath on my cheek as she looks up at me, swallows deeply and responds, “For you, you know I’d do anything.”

FIVE

H A Z E L

“There you are!”Chelsie, Wilks’ girlfriend, wraps me in her tender embrace after I weave through the stands and plop myself beside her. “I was starting to think you weren’t going to show.”

“Do I ever miss a game?” I throw back at her with a playful raise of my brows.

The question is rhetorical in nature. I’ve never once missed one of Crawfield’s home games. I make it my priority to clear off my calendar whenever their season schedule comes out. It’s been this way for years. It will continue to be this way for the foreseeable future.

Nothing beats watching Green…the teamplay. It makes me happy. Sure, I didn’t grow up in a football-centric household, but that didn’t stop me from becoming a fanatic.

“You never do.” Chelsie folds her arms across her chest as she leans back into her cushioned chair.

Recently, the friends and family section got a major upgrade. Now, it’s like we’re in our own little booth up here, staring down as we admire the team that begins to line the field.

“How come you were running late?” Chelsie asks, a questionable look in her blue eyes. “It’s not like you to be late.”

“Just some traffic,” I lie, opting for the easiest response with a shrug of my shoulders. It’s much simpler to lie than divulge to Chelsie the real reason for my tardiness—that I laid awake until the early morning hours thinking about Green’s idea…

I need to stop thinking about that right now.

“Traffic, huh?” Chelsie refuses to back down when it comes to this barrier I’m evidently trying to put up between the two of us. “Since when has traffic ever been an issue for you, Hazel Collins? Usually, you’re the first one here.”

I look over at her. She’s got her short blonde hair pinned back behind her ear and her Crawfield jersey, along with a scarf I once gave her paired over a warm hoodie.

Since the day we met, Chelsie has become my companion up here, and over the span of the past six months, the two of us have become close friends. It’s part of the reason why I know she knows I’m trying to bull-shit my way around her questions. She knows me, and it sucks in the best way possible.

“I’ll stop if you really don’t want to talk about it.” Chelsie gives me an easy way out of this conversation. “But you know that I’m always here to listen, right, Hazel?”

Before I can so much as nod, my attention is drawn onto the field, where I watch Green stretch from side to side, waiting for the ref to blow the whistle.

I’ll never get over how he looks on the pitch. He’s always got this intense look on his face, one that makes him scary to look at. But I know him. It’s all a front—a façade. Green may be mighty on the green itself, but he’s a Goddamn teddy bear in real life.

He’d hate me for saying that.

But it’s true, during games, he’s laser focused, honed in. The only time his hardness will even remotely dissolve is when he finds me in the crowd and flashes me a subtle wave. He’s done it upward of a hundred times by now, but still, every time he does, it manages to make my heart leap out of my?—

“Hazel?” Chelsie snaps, bringing me back down to earth as she grows slightly impatient—concerned. “You okay? You’re really not acting like yourself today.”

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