“Then I’m fine. I’ll just have fun. I may be scrawny, but I enjoy football.”
“A lot of the guys are your size. My brothers are just giants.”
“Was that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Sorry.”
“So I thought Amber was coming too.”
“When I texted you guys to just meet at the house, she said she was running late and would meet us at the park.”
“Great. I thought another new face would deflect some of the attention off me.”
Well, the guys have never seen me in makeup, a fitted shirt, or skinny jeans, so that will probably do the trick, I wanted to say.
I squeezed his hand. “You’ll do fine.”
Most of the guys were already there setting up cones and throwing the ball around. I got a few odd glances that started on my face and outfit then lingered on Evan’s and my clasped hands.
“I take it you don’t bring a lot of boys home,” Evan whispered.
I just laughed.
My brothers walked over, shoulder to shoulder, and I felt Evan tense beside me. Gage was the only one with a smile on his face. I wanted to scream in frustration. It was obvious to me now I should’ve done this more so they didn’t act like defensive linemen, ready to take down the quarterback. Seriously, this wasn’t my life right now.
“Hey, guys,” I said. “Don’t be idiots. This is Evan. Evan, the angry-looking one is Jerom, the constipated-looking one is Nathan, and the goofball on the right is Gage.”
Gage laughed. “Constipated, Nathan? We said to look fierce.” All three of them laughed now, and I relaxed when I realized they were just joking around.
“Good to meet you, Evan,” Jerom said, shoving his hand forward.
Evan shook it. I looked around for Braden and saw him on the far side of the field, passing the ball to George. So he was still pouting. I should’ve been the one ticked at him, not the other way around. He was the one who’d called me not only stubborn but clueless.
“All right,” Jerom said, clapping once. “Let’s split up into teams. Me and Gage on one side, Nathan and Braden on the other.” All four of them played on different teams or the other guys complained. Not just because they were the biggest and the best, but because they all knew each other and could read each other so well that it made an unfair advantage. “Everyone else, pick a side, divide evenly.”
“Whose team should I be on?” Evan asked me.
“Jerom and Gage,” I said, because I felt like Gage would involve him the most, try the hardest to make him feel welcome. He stepped over to the circle forming around them, and I eased off to the sidelines, waiting for my brothers to realize I wasn’t playing.
Gage noticed first and gave me his “What’s the deal?” face. I just smiled. Braden shook his head, as if he still didn’t believe I wasn’t going to participate and now seeing it actually happening made him sick. Finally, Jerom looked over.
“Pick a side, Charlie,” he called.
I was saved when a bubbly voice called, “I’m here.”
Every head turned to look at Amber. Gage nearly tripped over his own feet. She wore some jeans with flip-flops and a tight black tank top that had sparkly words I couldn’t make out written across her chest. It seemed every guy on the field was trying to make out those words too. Her hair was wavy and flowed down around her shoulders.
“Hi, Braden,” she called. Now every head turned toward Braden. He blushed a little and then waved.
She had a foldable camping chair flung over one shoulder, and she took it out of its carrying case and set it up next to me. “If I had known you didn’t have a chair, I would’ve brought one for you, too.”
“I’m good.”
“Do you watch them play a lot?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And you just sit on the ground?”
What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I say that I usually played with them? Because I felt like if I told her that, maybe it would change her opinion of me. I’d be the weird one. The one who played tackle football with guys.
“Are we going to play, or what?” Jerom asked. And with those words, the game started. If I thought they were going to go easy on Evan at all, I was mistaken. Jerom, in his attempts to throw the ball to Evan, pelted him in the chest, the side of the head, and the middle of the back. He was able to catch a few, and that’s when Braden would tackle him harder than I’d seen him tackle anyone before. I was itching to play now, so I could get back at them.
Amber hummed beside me. “Geez, Charlie, you didn’t tell me your brothers were as pretty as you are.”
“What?”
“Your brothers. They’re very model-esque, with their gray eyes and high cheekbones. They’re beautiful.”
“Um . . . Don’t let them hear you say that.”
“I should’ve guessed with them being related to you and all that they’d be striking.”
I growled, watching the game. I should’ve told Evan to be on Braden’s team so Braden wouldn’t have the opportunity to tackle him like that. “Hold on a minute,” I said to Amber, and stood up from where I had been sitting cross-legged on the grass. After the play was over, I marched up to Braden and, not wanting to embarrass Evan, I said in a quiet voice, “Why are you treating a pickup game like the Super Bowl? Unless you want to get some helmets and pads, lay off, Bruiser. If you tackle him like that one more time, we’re leaving.”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes, but the muscle in his jaw was clenched as tight as could be.
“Why are you so mad at me? What is your problem?” I asked.
“You want to know what my problem is?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
I hesitated now, realizing where we were, but he didn’t stop. He took me by the shoulders and turned me around to face the guys, who were now all staring at us. “By a show of hands,” Braden said loudly, “who here would’ve asked Charlie out in the last six months had they not been given the ‘We will kill you if you look at Charlie’ speech by the three lugs over there when she turned sixteen?”
My first instinct was to yank away from Braden’s grip and never talk to him again. Ever. But the small thread of curiosity weaving through me seemed to have stitched me to the grass, because I couldn’t move.
A few of the guys shifted nervously and glanced at Jerom. Just when I started to feel extremely embarrassed that no one had moved, Tyler raised his hand. His bravery seemed to spur the others forward, because at least half a dozen of them put their hands up. Gage, thinking he was hilarious, had even raised his hand. Braden, I noticed, had both hands still firmly grasping my shoulders.