Page 17 of Hitting the Goal Line
I chug the water down until the bottle is empty and once it’s finished, I take a few minutes to look up at the dark sky filled with stars.
It’s surprising that the sky is actually clear tonight, I wasn’t expecting it. Some snow fell it a few days ago and I thought that it was going to continue to fall through today, but I’m glad that it didn’t. Otherwise, it would be too cold to be out here without a jacket, but right now it feels perfect.
I’m too busy looking up at the stars that I don’t notice that someone has joined me outside until I feel something land on my shoulders.
Looking up, I find Blake right next to me, placing his suit jacket around my bare shoulders.
He must have seen me leave the party and followed me out.
I smile up at my best friend. “Thank you,” I say, taking the jacket even though I’m not cold.
“Figured you got peopled out when I didn’t see you come back, so I thought I would come check on you.”
“Aww, so thoughtful.” I say, the sarcasm bleeding though my smile.
“Yeah, whatever.” He takes a seat next to me and looks up at the sky. “I thought it was going to snow.”
I let out a laugh. “I was just thinking that before you interrupted me.”
“I guess that’s why we’re best friends, huh?” he asks, keeping his eyes up.
For some reason, the way he says the comment doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t know why, but it just feels like he was trying to say something else. Like maybe we shouldn’t be best friends, but I may be reading too much into it. I might still be a little butt hurt that he didn’t tell me about him talking to his brother, even though that happened almost a month ago.
I bump his shoulder with mine. “And you are never getting rid of me, I hope you know that.”
I mean the words as a joke but I still felt the need to drive that thought process through his head just in case he’s starting to feel a certain type of way about our friendship. And if he is, I hope he tells me.
“Never. My life would be a snooze fest without you.” He grabs my face and shifts it slightly so that he can place a hard kiss against my cheek. Something that I used to do to him when we were kids whenever we said bye.
“Gross,” I say, repeating the same thing that he would tell me whenever I did it.
Blakes laughs. “You ready for your Christmas gift?” he asks, pulling out a small box out of his pant pocket and twirling it in his hands.
Every year we get each other a Christmas gift.
At first it was just something small, like a stuffed animal or a book or a CD, but over the last two years, it’s been bigger things like shoes and hats or whatever our allowances will allow.
He told me in California that he wanted to give me my gift early, since he wasn’t going to be here for the actual holiday, but I told him last week to just wait until he got back.
“I thought we were going to exchange gifts tomorrow?” I ask because that’s what we had planned. We were going to have a small Christmas celebration just the two of us, with movies, leftovers, and gifts.
He gives me a shrug. “I figure you should open at least one gift at your birthday party.”
Because my birthday had already passed, my mom said it was best to make my quince “no gifts”. I’ve been handed cards but that’s about it.
“I can open it tomorrow,” I say, feeling bad that I don’t have his gift with me so he can open one too.
“Just open it, Soph,” he says, holding out the box for me to take.
It takes me a second, but I eventually take it and don’t hesitate in opening it.
Nestled in between all the tissue is a gold locket necklace.
It’s dark outside, but the locket still shines with the minimal light that there is.
“Oh my god, this is so pretty.” I take it out and place it in the palm of my hand so that I can look at all the details more closely.
“You should open it,” he says, bumping my shoulder.
