Page 26 of The Long Game

The doorbell rings and I get up to grab the pizza and hot wings. I drop them on the coffee table and head to the kitchen for drinks. "Want another beer?" I ask.

"No, one beer is good for tonight. I’ll take a bottle of water though, please," he says from the living room.

He’s already scarfed down half a pizza by the time I come back. "Wow buddy…slow down. Don’t you want to taste it? Isn’t that the point if you’re likely cheating on your diet right now?"

He brushes my comment off.

"So, how’s it going with your dad’s company?" he asks.

"Good. I have a part time job after school right now. I’m learning so much. They keep giving me more responsibilities. I feel like I belong there, you know?"

He nods as though he understands what it feels like to find something you feel incredibly competent at. And he does. He’s an amazing football player and he works hard at it.

"You're incredibly confident, knowing exactly what you want."

"Oh yeah? How do you know? You don’t see my mess ups at the office."

"True. But I’ve seen you walking around in those tiny bikinis at the lake. Strutting around without a care in the world." He smirks. "You drove so many upperclassmen crazy during those summers at the lake house."

How did we get here? We went from talking about me at the office to me half dressed in a bikini.

"What are you talking about? What upperclassmen?"

I search my memory but I come up short. Well, except that kiss with Tucker, but we both just pretended like it didn’t happen.

"Maybe Luca and I did a better job at keeping their fucking hands off you than we thought. We did threaten to make them disappear into the lake if they ever laid a hand on you. I always figured a few of them would try anyway. Didn’t the captain of the Varsity Soccer team ask you to prom?

I snorted. "Yeah, and then he took it back the next day."

Tucker grins. "I remember Luca threatened to end his career short by hitting him with his truck in the parking lot if he took you to prom."

He takes a swig of his beer.

"That was you!" I argue, throwing a pillow at his face.

He catches it just in time. My eyes flare at him and a little beer spurts from his lips as he tries to contain his laughter.

"How did you know?"

He’s smiling but there is a little rosy coloring to his cheeks.

Is he blushing?

"He told me, obviously."

"That little soft-dick-prick. You should be thanking me. We shared the same locker room. I promise you, it was little. I did you a favor."

He shakes his head as if it was the other kid’s fault that he told me he had to rescind his invitation to take me to prom because he feared for his full ride scholarship to Stanford. Or maybe he said he feared for his life; either way, Tucker was the name he used when explaining where the threat had come from.

Plus, I’d never heard Luca threaten violence, ever. I knew he was capable of it, but he wouldn’t have done it to scare away a measly prom date…

I’d only known Tucker to get in one real fight, if you don’t count fights on the football field for defending a teammate out on the turf. It was in the defense of a kid in elementary school,Desh Martin. Desh was getting picked on for wearing the same clothes back-to-back. Tucker punched the bully in the throat and got expelled for a week.

Luca had come to his defense but there was nothing the principal could do. The school had a strict "no violence" rule. Luckily, Tucker’s dad, Chris, believed Luca and so did my parents.

Luca, Tucker, and Desh became fast friends. Desh was a regular at casa Benson through the years and would often spend a night or two out at the lake house during the summers.

"So, does that mean you’re not going to come to my games?" he asks, almost in a pout.

---