Page 166 of Jocks

I meant my feelings, not her scholarship. However, I’m glad that Harrison didn’t fuck it up.

“Asher?”

“Mhm?”

“Thank you…for what you said you’d do. I know how much football means to you. It was a risk for you to—”

“Go out with me Saturday, and we’ll call it even.” Her whole body sags in defeat and I can’t help the smile that forms on my lips. She’s impossibly stubborn with trying to keep a safe distance between us.

“What would we even talk about? We have nothing in common.”

“You think we have nothing in common?” She blinks at me and maybe I was stupid enough to think that, just because we lived in the same town, that she really didn’t pay too much attention to me. “I love art.”

“What kind?”

“Yours. You made the mural at the elementary school in the art room. You painted the food truck for Mr. Michaels and his awful fried catfish. I think you even tried to fix that bear fresco at the visitor center off the highway.”

She tucks her chin into her chest. “It looked like a fat cat.”

“And what do you think I like?”

“Football?” She flicks her eyes up at me from underneath her eyelashes.

“And?”

“Listening to yourself talk.”

I smile because, oh yeah, I really like Magnolia. “I think we share that in common because when I have my lips on you, I really like when you speak.”

“For you to get away from me,” she counters placidly. “Nothing more.”

“I bet you didn’t know that I liked old movies.”

She shrugs. “So?”

“You’re really being judgy, baby. I think you’re scared that you may actually like me.”

“Asher, you think everyone likes you. I mean, they probably do. You’ve dated most of the girls in our town.”

“Because you wouldn’t give me the chance, nor the day. When I tried out for the Romeo part in the school play when we were in eighth grade, you dropped out.”

She lifts her chin higher. “I got sick.”

“You didn’t want to kiss me, Juliet.”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “Not true.”

“What about when we sat next to each other in tenth grade English class, and I asked you for a pen? You literally threw it at me.”

“What’s wrong with that? Aren’t you supposed to know how to catch when you play football?”

“Catch? With my face? You have literally gone almost our whole lives dodging me at every turn.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Because I dragged you out here. I had to fail a class because you wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“About that,” she says. “I spoke with Mr. Thompson about your grade and—” My immediate glower must do it because she shuts up for once.

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