STUFFED (The Slate Brothers 2)

Desi meets me at the gate with a ticket and a big hug. She chatters as we get in line to have our bags checked. “Look, you might be a reporter, but Carson clearly likes you. My boyfriend said that Carson seemed happier than he’s been in ages this morning, and then next thing you know, I’m getting a text asking me to meet you with a ticket…”

“That’s really nice to hear,” I say, blushing, trying to pretend that the idea of making Carson noticeable happier doesn’t elate me.

“I’ll say. And he plays better when he’s happy. Everyone on the team knows it. That’s why he’s been kinda meh this year,” she calls to me as a security guard probes her purse. “I bet this game will be totally different.”

“We won the last game, though. He played great,” I argue as I retrieve my purse from security. We walk together through the stadium, Desi in the lead— she clearly knows exactly where she’s headed.

“Trust me, Astrid, you haven’t seen anything,” she tells me with a grin.

We’re sitting in the friends and family section, a patch of gold-painted seats right by the fifty-yard line. There aren’t many seats here— only a hundred or so— and it’s clear that we’re surrounded by other significant others, moms, grandmas, and high school buddies. Desi greets everyone like an old friend, and when I’m introduced as a guest of Carson Slate, eyebrows rise.

“I can’t wait to see how he plays,” someone murmurs loud enough for me to hear.

“I can’t wait either,” I whisper just to Desi. “Also, this is sort of a crazy amount of pressure, people thinking I’m responsible for the team’s quarterback doing well.”

“Imagine being the team’s quarterback,” Desi answers with a meaningful look.

She’s got a point.

The game begins to a flurry of cheers and confetti and face paint and blue and gold everywhere. It isn’t long before I realize that Desi was absolutely right— I hadn’t seen anything, based on that last game. Carson played great back then, but now, it’s like he’s come to life. He’s faster, smarter, leading the team like a general leads a battalion. He’s a curious blend of the Carson I saw at the last game and the Carson I saw at practice— controlled and fierce, but more communicative with the other players too.

“He’s relaxing,” Desi says, nodding. “That’s good. He’s been so tense at all the other games, it freaks the rest of the team out.”

“You go to a lot of games, don’t you?” I ask her.

She laughs, loud and cheerful. “Steven and I have been together since seventh grade— no, really— and I’ve never missed seeing him play. So, yes. I go to a lot of games. He’s a junior too, so I’ve been watching him and Carson play together for four years now. Steven once said that Carson is the second most important relationship in his life.”

“After you?”

She rolls her eyes. “Well, he said after his mother, but meant it as a joke. I still refused to sleep with him for a week, though. Don’t expect a biochem major to have a sense of humor three weeks before finals.”

We laugh together, and the game rolls on. Bowen wins by a landslide, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting to watch— and it doesn’t appear to make the Bowen team play any less intensely. When the game is over, there’s an explosion of confetti, and the stadium begins to empty into the city streets.

Desi loops her arm with mine to keep us from being separated. Rather than following everyone else out the gates, she leads me down an access hallway, then to a stairwell that goes to field level. There are security guards, but they clearly know her— they wave as she goes by, their eyes sliding right over me.

“Where are we going?” I whisper.

“The locker room— oh, right, you’d have gone to the press entrance last time. We’re going through the players’ entrance,” she explains.

“We’re allowed?”

Desi scoffs. “Of course. There are many, many perks to dating a football player, Astrid.”

I consider reminding her that Carson and I aren’t dating, but once again I find I wouldn’t know how to correct her— there’s not really any term for whatever is happening between me and Carson Slate, is there?

And besides, I have to admit that a large part of me wants to feel like Carson and I are dating.

Which is very, very bad news.

I need to get a hold of myself but I don’t seem to have the willpower to do so…

The player’s entrance to the locker room is alarmingly nondescript and unlabeled, I suppose intentionally, since it must keep prying eyes away from the door. Once we’ve pushed through it, however there’s a Bowen navy set of double doors nearly identical to the ones at the press entrance. I realize we’re on the opposite side of the locker room than I was last time.