Offside

He laughed again as he stood and offered me a hand. I took it, and he hauled me from the floor.

“I think I’ll give it a pass,” Greg said. “Fishing is more of a sport for my tastes.”

“Fishing? A sport? Seriously?”

“Of course it’s a sport!”

“Oh good lord,” Nicole groaned. She rolled her eyes as we walked in and sat at the table. “We’ll never hear the end of this one now.”

“Fishing is the greatest sport there is, right after baseball…”

She was right. He didn’t shut up through all of dinner.

Despite my gagging noises and complaints about how freaking boring both of those so-called sports were, before the meal was through, my stomach was cramping up due from laughing. Greg shook his finger at me, and as soon as the dishes were cleared, he dragged me around the house to show me all his sportsman spoils, including a deep freezer filled with enough dead fish to…um…well, to fill a deep freezer.

Nicole joined sides with me as we argued about how much better soccer was over baseball, and eventually, Greg gave up and went upstairs. He yelled down to Nicole and me not to be too loud before he shut his bedroom door for the night. Nicole sat down on the couch next to me and glanced at me sideways with her teeth embedded in her lip.

“You still look tired,” she said softly.

I shrugged.

“Do you want to go home and get to bed?”

I didn’t have to think about that one for too long before I was shaking my head vigorously. I reached over and grabbed her hand and pulled it over into my lap, suddenly feeling weird about it all, and thinking maybe I shouldn’t have touched her. I let go, but her hand was already in my lap, so that seemed stupid, too. I picked her hand back up again and just stared at our fingers laced together.

“You said your dad is out of town?” Nicole asked softly.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “He’ll be back next Saturday.”

“Do you…um…want to stay here tonight?” Nicole’s cheeks turned pink when I looked up at her.

“Could I?”

“Well, then you wouldn’t have to be alone all night, right?”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a nod. I looked up at the clock and saw it was a quarter past ten. “Um…I could run home and get some shit…you know, clothes for tomorrow or whatever.”

“Okay.”

“Be back soon?”

“I’ll be watching for you,” Nicole said with a smile and another lip bite.

“I’ll hurry,” I said. I stood up, and she stood with me. I grabbed both of her hands, stared down at them in mine for a minute, and then looked back to her eyes. She was looking up at me through her lashes and just looked so damn beautiful—I couldn’t help but lean in to kiss her.

Her lips were soft, smooth, and warm against mine. I tasted her gently, just running the tip of my tongue across her bottom lip before I pulled back from her warmth.

“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,” I whispered against her mouth. I took a step back and saw how her chest was rising and falling with her breaths.

“Do you always quote Shakespeare to girls?” she asked.

“Never have before,” I replied with a shrug. “I’ll be back soon.”

“You’d better be,” she replied.

I practically ran to my car and took the evil curves between our houses far quicker than I should have. I scampered up the front steps and left the door wide open as I leapt up the stairs, two at a time. I threw some stuff in a backpack and raced back the same way, barely remembering to close the door to the car before I ran back inside Nicole’s house.

Even though I had slept with her in her bed twice before, I felt weird standing on the porch with my backpack full of shit to spend the night at Nicole’s house. The other times had been pretty spontaneous, and this felt a lot more planned. Was I supposed to ring the bell or knock? I had been there just twenty minutes before, so maybe I should just go in. She said she’d be watching for me—did that mean she already knew I was here, and she’d just open the door without me doing anything?