H is for Hawk (Men of ALPHAbet Mountain)

“Bye,” Greg said sternly. It was probably supposed to sound menacing or protective. It just came off squeaky and fake.

“Later.” I turned my back and headed back to the group of guys back at the start line.

Coach was waiting for me, looking at his watch and then at me. Usually, I made my way right back over after a race to get a rundown on what he saw. Taking a detour was unusual, and I could see the confusion on his face.

Behind me, I barely caught the sounds of conversation between Greg and Dee. It sounded flirty. Oh well. If she had a boyfriend, that was all that mattered. He would ask her to Homecoming, and that was that.

That just meant I either went stag or asked one of the gaggle of girls I had gone out with once or twice and who made it clear they were still available. None of them interested me, though. They were all the same girl, it seemed. For one, they all seemed to be named some variation of Emily. Emily or Emma or the real fancy ones were Emile. All blonde, short, and completely devoid of any personality that didn’t fit with whatever was socially acceptable, which at the moment was booty shorts, combat boots, and T-shirts with writing on them. No, thank you.

I continued on with my day and tried not to think about Dee anymore. When I glanced over at the sidelines, she wasn’t there. She had left with Greg. I figured I’d see her around again, maybe after Homecoming. Maybe after she dumped the jock.

Or maybe she wouldn’t. I decided to be fine with that idea too.

2

DEE

Eight years ago…

Greg was a good guy. He really was. He might not be the brightest guy, and he was kind of dismissive in that way that jocks tend to be of anyone who isn’t also a jock, but he was always very sweet with me. Considering I had been, essentially, a wallflower for the first two years of high school, the fact that he acknowledged my existence at all felt like an eighties movie win.

But he wasn’t Hawk.

As a junior, I wasn’t in many of Hawk’s classes. Only one, actually, and that was because I was advanced in the subject. But I saw Hawk on my first day of classes as a freshman and had developed an insanely hard crush on him since that moment. He had been leaning against a locker, wearing a jean jacket and an Iron Maiden T-shirt with dark jeans and his hair at his shoulders. His square jaw relaxed into a grin when I passed, and I pulled my books tight against me and blushed. He probably didn’t even remember it, but I did.

Then, I didn’t see him again for a week. It wasn’t until Monday morning classes rolled back again that I realized I was going to pass him every Monday at his locker. Purely the happenstance of our class schedules. The vast majority of the time, he never saw me, and if he did, he didn’t notice me. Not that year.

The next year, I found him after third period on Wednesday and Friday, passing by if I got out of the classroom fast enough. I always did. Again, he either wouldn’t see me or would pass right by without noticing me. Until one day I dropped a notebook as I rushed out of the room and he happened to be there already. He picked it up and handed it to me, grinning like he did that first day. I nearly swooned.

So, when I got a class with him my junior year, I made sure to make eye contact with him every day. When roll was called, I tried to see if he was paying attention. I couldn’t tell if it worked.

Then, today, I heard that the track team was doing some qualifying meets and that Hawk was running in them. Something came over me. I knew he was graduating at the end of the year, and I already was kind of seeing someone, but I had to give him the chance. If he asked me to Homecoming, there wasn’t anything that was going to stop me. Quasi-boyfriend or not.

Then he noticed me watching him from the stands, and when I went down to the railing, he talked to me. It wasn’t the first time we had spoken, but it was certainly the flirtiest. I felt like he was just about to ask me out, and my breath was so short I thought I might pass out, when Greg showed up.

It was my fault, really. I’d casually mentioned to him that I was going down to the stands after school. When he asked why, I told him I had some homework to do, and it was a nice day. Both of those things were true. They just weren’t why I was down there.