Page 30 of A Play For The Heart
“Sure, kid.”
After re-organizing the kids into teams, Jack, Deon, and I spent the next two hours playing flag football with a bunch of children. They tackle us in an attempt to grab our flags and we teach some of them how to throw the ball or how to run a pass route. At one point, there are seven kids trying to take Jack down. Micah gets over the initial reaction of meeting us and peppers us with every football question under the sun. My favorite question was what flavor of Gatorade they hand out on the sideline of games. It's the blue one. It's the crowd favorite and there would be riots if the trainers changed the flavor.
It’s the most fun I've had in a long time. Sawyer ends the game and tells the kids the snacks are waiting in the craft room, corralling them out of the gym and into the room down the hall. As she guides the kids into the room, she looks over at me and smiles, bright and sunny. Her eyes crinkle at the corners. She radiates joy.
I want more of that smile.
CHAPTER 15
“Every once in a while, the little things make me smile”
Longshot—Catfish and the Bottlemen
Sawyer
WhenSandytextedmeto come to the lobby, the last thing I expected to see was Henry, Jack, and Deon. Her exact message was ‘There are three massive men in the lobby asking for you. Do I need to use my taser?’. Initially, I thought the taser would probably be a good idea, until I spotted the three of them standing awkwardly, looking around the lobby. My heart nearly leapt out of my chest. At first, I thought maybe something had happened, but it didn’t make sense why the other two would be with Henry if that had been the case. When Jack explained why they were at GameChangers and that it was Henry's idea, butterflies erupted in my stomach. Freaking butterflies.
His gesture is one of the most thoughtful things he could have done. I've told him about how much I love my job and about Micah, and he made the effort to actually get to know the kid,andhe brought two others! I know how precious free time is during the season, so the fact that he made time for this means the world to me. The best friend side of me loves the gesture, but the Nancy Drew side is trying to pick apart what it means. Was it only a kind gesture or does it have more meaning behind it?
Watching the three of them play football with the children, letting them pull their flags, and teaching them routes may have been the cutest thing I've ever seen. That is until we stepped into the craft room. On the other side of the room, Henry, Jack, and Deon are all squished into small, plastic chairs, at a table much too small for them. Jack’s in the worst shape, his knees pushed against his chest as he perches on the small chair. They color with crayons or cut construction paper while talking to the kids. As they move around, the glitter covering their bodies catches in the light. My ovaries are ready to combust, and from the gleam in Nathalie’s eye, she's not far behind me.
I need my brain to get control of itself. I have no room for my ovaries to explode or butterflies to erupt in my stomach while I try to figure out where he stands.
I walk over to where she's standing, watching the three massive men with their crafts and juice boxes.
“How did you not realize they are football players? We watched a game together,” I question, bumping my hip against hers. This is our first moment free since the snack debacle and I've been curious since the interaction.
Nathalie looks over at me, slightly embarrassed. “Well, they came up to me saying they were here to volunteer, and we needed snack help. But as I was explaining where to go, Jack interrupted me and asked if they could stay in the gym. I told him no and that’s when he tried to explain that they played football. But I thought it was just an excuse to get out of snack duty.” No one likes snack duty, so I can see how she went on the defensive. We have a volunteer complain about it at least once a week. “In retrospect, they do look like football players. They’rebig.” Her eyes bulge out of her head as she lifts an arm over her head, stretching it higher to show just how tall.
“They are in factbig.” Not every football player is tall, but those three definitely are.
“Also, when we watched that game, I was not focused on what any of them looked like. I don’t watch football often, so I have no idea who they are, and I don’t really care. I was too focused on keeping track of which team had the ball. I couldn't also watch and remember specific players.”
I can’t help the laugh the bubbles from my chest, the sincerity of her statement ringing true. Kids ask her who her favorite players are all the time. She responds with ‘the tall one’ or ‘the one that runs with the ball’. Given her connection to sports, you would think she would know a few popular athletes to name. I glance back over at the guys when a young girl walks up to Deon. She tugs on his shirt to get his attention. He peers down at her, a gentle smile on his lips. He listens intently as she says something, then shyly hands him a piece of paper. As soon as he thanks her, she runs away, back to her friends who all giggle and look in Deon's direction. Deon just shakes his head, folds up the paper, and puts it into his pocket.
“Holy shit, that may have been the cutest thing I've ever seen.” Nathalie swoons at the interaction between the two of them, fanning her face. I peer over at her and she's watching Deon intently.
“You look like you want to jump his bones, Nathalie.” She breaks her gaze at Deon and glares at me.
“Don't even try to lie and say that wasn’t the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen. And you don’t have room to talk. You keep looking at Henry with heart eyes.”
“I do not.”
Nathalie looks over at me and shoots me a look, suggesting she knows I’m full of shit. Which I am. I have totally been looking at Henry with heart eyes. It's honestly hard not to do it when he's playing with children and coloring with crayons and surprising me at work because he knows how much it would mean to me. I would like to see Nathalie keep her heart eyes to herself if she was in my position. I know she couldn’t. No sane person could. It's swoon-worthy, and I'm swooning, dammit.
My brain is frazzled by kind gestures and cuteness overload and it’s failing to do its job of remaining objective in my pursuit of project ‘Determine if Henry has feelings’. The title is a work in progress.
Confusion has been my constant state of being since our movie night. I was confident that I would be able to gauge if he's into me, but I couldn’t find any tangible evidence. I put my legs on his lap, and I felt his muscles lock up. I thought I had made a mistake. But then he rested his hand on my shin and didn’t move it for the rest of the movie. That small movement didn't make anything any clearer. It only made it murkier because there is nothing sexual about touching a person's shin. It's one of the most unsexy parts of the body. Arguably, a shin touch would be safely placed into the ‘friend’ category, but it felt charged, so I'm unsure. I have no idea what is going on in his head, and it's killing me. Ineedto know. His showing up here is even more puzzling because it doesn’t have a clear category it falls into friends or more-than-friends.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say, nonchalantly, responding to the look she gave me.
“Mhm. Sure.” Nathalie is not at all convinced but gracefully drops the conversation.
Eventually, the guys leave, having practice early in the morning. We have to peel Micah off of Henry, but after some intense promises to teach him how to throw a perfect spiral, Micah lets Henry leave. After they’re gone, I spend the rest of the day trying to figure out what everything means, but no amount of self-reflection or thought clears any of the perplexity.
CHAPTER 16
“And I thought about kissing you underneath kitchen lights”
