Page 109 of Bitter When He Begs

“I hateyou.”

“I know. It’s mutual.” He claps me on the back like I’m a toddler who just learned how to walk. “So proud of you. You’re in so deep it’s adorable.”

I don’t argue because he’s not wrong.

After halftime, the game turns messy. The opposing team steps it up, the score tightening with each play. There’s a moment in the third quarter where Luca gets sacked hard and stays down longer than I’d like, and my entire body locks up like it wants to jump the barrier and run down to the field.

Nate must see something on my face because he squeezes my shoulder. “He’s okay, Sage. He got up.”

Luca does get up, limping slightly but waving off the medics, adjusting his helmet, and motioning to keep going.

And yeah. It’s official.

I’m a goner.

The game ends thirty-one to twenty-four, with Luca throwing the final pass that seals the win in the last two minutes. The stands erupt, students losing their shit, the noise deafening. The players pile onto the field, helmets off, hugging and shouting, and I watch from the bleachers like I’ve been hit by a truck full of feelings I’m still trying to name.

Nate whistles low beside me. “Goddamn. Okay. I get it now.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Get what?”

He waves a hand at the field. “The obsession. The drooling. The whole boyfriend-worship thing you’ve got going on.”

“It’s not worship.”

“It’s at least light idolization,” he counters. “Which, honestly, is deserved. That man just made grown athletes cry with a single pass.”

I shove him. He shoves me back. Then I look down toward the field again, and I see him.

Helmet off, jersey drenched in sweat, blond hair a mess, and eyes scanning the crowd again. He’s smiling when he finds me.

And this time, he raises two fingers to his lips, then tips them in my direction.

My brain shorts out like someone yanked the plug on my entire nervous system.

I don’t know how long I sit there, just staring, frozen in time while the stadium moves around me. There are people yelling, screaming, jumping over seats, probably starting drunken chants, and fist-pumping to the fight song. But none of it registers.

Because Luca Devereaux just kissed his fingers and pointed them at me.

In front of a stadium full of people.

Like it wasnothing.

Like it wasnormal.

I think I forget how to blink.

“Sage?” Nate’s voice slices in, just on the edge of laughter. “Are you still alive, or do I need to call someone?”

I can’t move my mouth. I feel heat blooming across my face and down my neck, probably coloring the backs of my ears. My whole body’s gone full traitor.

“He just—hedid that,” I manage to croak, my throat dry.

“He did,” Nate agrees, nodding slowly like he’s witnessing a rare animal sighting. “He made the‘I see you, you’re mine, everyone else is irrelevant’face and followed it with a public display of affection that managed to be subtle and dramatic at the same time. That’s some quarterback-level showmanship.”

“I’m gonna combust,” I whisper into my palms. “My organs are soup. I am a walking bowl of gay panic.”

Nate loses it. Full-on wheezing now, clapping a hand over his mouth as he doubles forward, nearly knocking over what’s left of the nachos. “Oh, my God, I wish I had filmed that. Your whole face just malfunctioned. Like, screensaver mode.”

---