Page 12 of This is Me

“But it could be!” Leroy exclaimed, and I decided to pick up my walking pace to catch up to Blaire and Andy.

“Just drop it, Leroy,” I warned before we caught up to the other two.

“Oh, look. It’s the slowest walkers in the world. Good to see you two again!” Andy greeted us, and I gave him a sarcastic smile.

“Let’s get some seats?” I suggested, and the other three nodded in agreement.

It wasn’t long before we did find somewhere to sit, and the game started. The cheers of two schools’ students filled the air, and I soon lost myself in the sound.

“Well, that was bullshit!” Andy mumbled as we were walking back toward the car. “Can’t believe we lost. Again.”

The game had finished way too soon for my liking, but then again, it always did. I would’ve liked to say it was close, but our school’s team got demolished on the field. Though I still enjoyed myself. I always did when I was out with my friends. It didn’t matter what we were doing, as long as we were together, I still found myself having fun. Watching a game of football was just a bonus—even if our team did lose.

“Ah, well. It’s just because Leroy wasn’t on the team,” I stated and shot Leroy a quick wink.

In return, I got a bright smile. One that lit up his face, crinkling his light brown eyes and showing off the slight dimples in his cheeks. It was a sight to behold.

Tearing my eyes away from Leroy. A weird feeling had made its way through my body as I’d watched him smile. A warmth unlike any I’d felt before.

Yes. I have seen guys that I had found attractive, and I had developed slight crushes on them. Andy was an excellent example of that. But they had all been brought about because of lust and nothing more. Whatever the feeling I just had was, I had never gotten it before. No one’s smile had ever done that to me before. Leroy’s smile had never done that to me before, and it had me panicking slightly.

I stole another glance at Leroy, but he was looking in the other direction, slightly down at the ground. I shook my head to get rid of the thoughts and the feeling and quickly unlocked my car.

“Shotgun!” I heard Blaire suddenly scream, and I looked up to see her knock Andy out of the way and jump in the car. “Suck it, fuckers!”

“Son of a bitch!” Andy yelled before getting into the back seat with Leroy, who still wasn’t looking in my direction.

I couldn’t say that it didn’t hurt that he wasn’t looking at me, but I had to see it as a good thing. If he didn’t look at me, I wouldn’t feel that flutter in my stomach, or the heat rush to my face. But at the same time, I still felt something, and I only hoped that it went away.

Doing all I could to push all the thoughts out of my head, I got inside the car and looked over at Blaire who was clearly very happy about the fact she was sitting in the front seat.

“Can we go to The Coffee House?” she asked, turning her attention to the two boys in the back seat who nodded in agreement before turning back to me.

“Well, three against one. Guess I don’t have a choice.” I let out a small chuckle and kicked my car's engine over, giving Blaire a small smile while doing so. “Twenty-Four-Hour Coffee House, here we come!”

“Hell, yeah! Caffeine!” Leroy yelled, and I looked in the rear-view mirror to see him smile again, though as he caught my eye, I saw it falter slightly, along with my stomach.

Taking my eyes off him again, and silently cursing myself, I pulled out of the carpark and began driving to The Coffee House. The Coffee House that Blaire and I had gone to that morning, the same one our group went to almost every morning, was one of the great things about where we lived. Twenty-Four-Hour coffee. Seven days a week. They also sold food. It was heaven on Earth.

When we arrived, I saw that there was no one else around, so I parked right in front of the doors, signalling everyone to get out of the car. Soon, we found ourselves sitting inside the warm, empty coffee house, waiting for our drinks to arrive, talking about the game we had just watched.

“I think that if Kyle knew how to play football, we would have won,” Andy stated, playing with a few straws that had been left on the table.

“I don’t think Kyle was the only problem on the field, Andy,” Blaire said with a chuckle. “I’m pretty sure the whole offence sucks ass.”

“True, but even so… it was mainly Kyle.”

“You just don’t like him,” I stated knowingly, taking one of the straws he was playing with.

Andy and I were sitting opposite each other on the inside of the booth, both leaning up against the window that sat beside us. Blaire was seated next to me, much to Leroy and Andy’s pleasure, while Leroy had slipped in beside Andy.

“He stole my rubber ball!” Andy defended himself.

“Like, three years ago! Let it go!” I retorted letting out a laugh.

“Never. I haven’t bought another rubber ball since then.”

“I don’t think that has any correlation to what Kyle did.”