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“I don’t,” she immediately defended. “I’m just saying that it’s okay for you to admit you like Racquel more than you’re leading on. I mean, homegirl has you pulling up to a random ass flag football game on what I assume would otherwise be a rest day to support her. That says something, Lance.”
Honestly, now that she’d said it out loud, I was wondering if me showing up to the game was giving the wrong impression. But I also knew that Racquel wasn’t the only reason I’d gotten my ass out of bed, peeking Yani’s way to ask, “How you know I’m not actually coming to support you?”
“Are you?”
“I mean, that’s a part of it.”
Subtly rolling her eyes like she didn’t believe me, Yani replied, “Yeah okay. Whatever you say,Hawk.”
Between her calling me that name in particular and the little attitude in her tone when she’d said it, I couldn’t help frowning as I groaned, “Wowww. So now I’m Hawk to you?”
Innocently, she defended, “What? That’s what everybody else calls you.”
“You’re not everybody else though,” I told her, the both of us knowing that as a fact regardless of how distant we’d been before she’d moved back to the city. But for whatever reason, that statement seemed to create some tension in the car, the rest of the ride spent mostly in silence until we pulled into the parking lot near the field Racquel and the other women were already congregating at.
Recognizing my car, Racquel jogged over to greet me damn near the second I stepped out, wrapping her arms around me in a hug as she sang, “Oh my God, you actually made it!”
“I told you I was coming,” I reminded her, pulling my hood over my head in hopes of not causing too much of a scene while Yani stood nearby waiting to be acknowledged. But it took her loudly clearing her throat for Racquel to even look her way, staying near my side when she gave a little wave and said, “Nice to see you again, Briyana.”
“Happy to be here, Racquel,” Yani replied, the fake ass smile she was wearing making it hard for me not to chuckle as Racquel realized, “I guess I need to introduce you to everybody, huh?”
With a nod, Yani agreed, “That’d be great,” Racquel shooting a quick smile my way before she took off towards the field with Yani in tow. But for whatever reason, seeing them together -and knowing them individually- lowkey had me nervous for whatever was about to go down. And I was grateful that I wouldn’t be experiencing it alone once my boy, Gerald, pulled up to join me on the sidelines.
The disappointed look on his face as he approached had me confused until he asked, “Fuck is this, man? I thought you said they were gonna be playin’ in lingerie?”
Chuckling, I shook my head and responded, “Nah, man. I said Rocki used to play in the lingerie league. This is just like a pickup game.”
Sucking his back teeth, Gerald tossed a hand towards the field and decided, “Man, I’m out,” the fact that he really started heading towards his car tripping me out until he turned back around and laughed, “Nah, I’m fuckin’ with you.” But even then, I could only shake my head again as we watched the women divide themselves into two teams, seeing Yani and Racquel be put on opposite sides only making my nerves worse as each group started warming up.
For Racquel, it was more or less business as usual as her and her team ran a few drills. But since Yani had never played before, she had to figure things out on the fly, her teammates being nice enough to do a quick run-through of how everything worked before the game actually got started with Racquel’s team set to kickoff first.
Well… more like throw-off first since they weren’t actually kicking it. But once the ball got launched down the field, I wasn’t at all surprised to see that Yani had put herself in the best position to receive it since,if nothing else, she had speed on her side, making it look easy as she recovered the ball and then blew past both her teammates and the other team for the first touchdown of the game.
Clearly her athleticism hadn’t fallen off much since college,if at all, her teammates immediately meeting her in the end zone to hype her up like they were supposed to. But of course, Yani’s early success meant Racquel was pissed as she yelled at her squad about tightening up like her ass hadn’t gotten blown past too, her energy amusing me as Gerald commented, “Damn. Baby girl in the red is quick as hell.”
“That’s Yani,” I told him with a proud smile before correcting, “Briyana.”
“And you sayin’ that like I’m supposed to know her, why?” Gerald asked, his eyebrow piqued curiously until I explained, “We used to be best friends in high school. She just moved back to town recently.”
“Wait a minute,” Gerald said, moving closer towards me with amusement already written all over his face when he inquired, “Nigga, don’t tell me you got your current love and your high school love out here ballin’ for your heart.”
Laughing, I responded, “Nah, man. Yani and I aren’t like that. Hell, Rocki and I aren’t even like that.”
The way people kept insinuating that Racquel and I were a lot more serious than we were told me that I probably needed to set some boundaries so there wouldn’t be any confusion, especially once Gerald frowned and asked, “Then what the fuck are we here for if she’s not your girl?”
“Cause she’s our friend,” I answered. Though Gerald was quick to add, “Who you, as an individual, also happen to be smashin’.”
“Anyway,” I sighed, focusing my attention back on the game as Racquel’s team took their first possession on offense. And as expected, the first pass went to her for a gain of about twenty yards before her flag was pulled, the way she immediately started talking shit to the woman who was guarding her making me shake my head with a huff of a laugh through my nose as Gerald commented, “Yo, they ain’t fuckin’ around.”
He wasn’t lying. And that only became even more apparent on the next play when Racquel went long and snagged an easy catch on her defender for her team’s first touchdown, the fact that her quarterback had thrown a damn near perfect ball under pressure lowkey amazing me more than the actual reception as Gerald said, “Nigga, fuck QB1andQB2. We need to put her ass under center.”
Nodding to agree, my eyes were locked in as Yani’s team got set up to receive another kickoff. But this time, Racquel’s squad wisely chose to throw as far away from the former track star as possible, one of Yani’s teammates recovering the ball and getting her flag pulled after a short return before they lined up for their first real offensive possession of the game.
Now that her team knew what she was capable of, it made sense that they’d made Yani the running back, taking a handoff from her QB before using her speed to get her squad an easy first down and change. But it almost seemed like Racquel had taken that shit personally considering the way she immediately got on her teammates and then positioned herself to guard Yani on the next down, her instincts to rush the ball impressive even though it was obvious she was feeling a way when, instead of just pulling Yani’s flag like she was supposed to, she also knocked her to the ground.
“Oops. My bad,” Racquel chirped, giggling as she offered Yani a hand to help her up. But when Yani knocked the hand away instead of accepting it, my nerves returned since it was clear Yani had not only picked up on ol’ girl’s energy, but she was also about to match that shit, seeing them line up for second down making my heart beat a little faster until the ball thankfully went to someone else.
On third down, Yani moved to wide receiver with Racquel following to guard her on the outside. And while I honestly didn’t think the matchup was in Yani’s favor since Racquel was a little taller than her, I was pleasantly surprised to see Yani use her quickness to create just enough space to catch the ball and then use her strength to pull further away from Racquel who hadn’t gotten a good enough grip on Yani’s flag to bring her down before she went on to score another touchdown.
