Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

Veronica

I took a sip of my coffee. It was almost cold. After one of the servers had come to my table twice trying to take my order already, I had just given in and gotten a chai latte. I had tried to tell them that I was waiting for someone, but since I had been sitting here for thirty minutes with no partner in sight, I didn't believe myself, either.

Being late wasn't some kind of unforgivable crime. All Sean had to do was call me or text me that he was running late, just let me know in advance. Either that or he had to have a bulletproof reason why he was late once he got here.

What made it even worse was he was the one who had asked me on this date, the least he could do is show up. Sitting alone in a coffee shop was fine, I just didn't appreciate being stood up. I had rescheduled plans to accommodate this guy, and he didn't even have it in him to show up on time to a date he had asked me out on.

This was sort of just what I got though, wasn't it? It was just the same shit different day. He was always like this. Sean could be a nice guy sometimes, but then he would do shit like this and I had to wonder whether I could just stay home the next time he asked me out and see whether it even made a difference.

My phone lit up on the table next to my hand, just like he had heard me mentally talking shit about him. I picked up.

"Sean?"

"Veronica? Hey, where are you right now?"

"Where am I? I've been waiting for you for almost forty minutes, where the hell are you?"

"Listen, I'm not gonna make it for our date." I rolled my eyes. I wished I could be surprised by his behavior, but at this point, his flakiness was just expected. Just because I expected it, though, didn't make it any less infuriating.

"Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why won't you make it? You can't set plans with people and wait till the last minute to break them."

"Something came up, okay? Shit, what's the matter with you?"

"Don't call me making plans unless you know you can make it."

"What are you? On your period or something?" he asked.

I sighed and hung up on him. He was the one who had flaked on me and he was wondering why that would make me upset? What a loser. I drained my coffee and paid for it. I texted Tiffany when I got to my car. I had asked her to come to my place after I got back from the date with S

ean, but there had been a change of plans.

Sean tried to call me back, and I ignored it. He had gotten way too much of my time today – I didn't want to hear it. In the beginning, he had tried to throw an excuse in here and there about why he couldn't make it when he flaked on dates, but it was like he had given up pretending to cover his ass. I could understand being busy, but the man was not busy unless he was getting paid for playing Mass Effect in his apartment all day. He didn't have a job that I knew of. I knew from the number of times he was absent in class that that wasn't what was eating all his time up, either.

I was less heated by the time I got to my apartment. Tiff had been on campus, so I knew she would probably be there when I got there. We walked into my building minutes after one another and took the elevator together.

"Sorry if this was sudden," I apologized as I unlocked the door.

"I know you're only early because Sean canceled," she said playfully.

"How did you guess?"

"Because I'm pretty sure you've never made plans with him that he actually followed through with," she said. The sad truth. I couldn't even fight her on it because of what had just happened.

"I would have hung out with you anyway," I said defensively. She plopped down onto the couch, and I followed suit. I only had one because the apartment was small, and I didn't need another anyway. It was a one bedroom near campus and I knew that once I didn't have to be near school anymore, I was moving away. Saving money on furniture meant I had more socked away to do everything I hadn't been able to while living here.

"I know that the real question is why you hang out with him."

I shrugged, thinking about it a little. He was a nice... Okay, not nice, but he was an okay guy. He wasn't bad to look at, having brown eyes, sandy hair, and a face that blended hard and soft just right so the result was masculine, but still almost pretty. He was tall, which was always a plus, and lean despite never taking a lot of time to work out... Was that it though? Was that all I could come up with in his defense?

"I like him," I said hollowly.

"You have to be the only other person besides his mother who can make that claim," she quipped. I laughed.

"He isn't that bad once you get to know him," I said.