**Note to readers--hang in there, a Mr. Ash chapter I think you will like is coming next week!**
Chapter Thirteen
There are girls who spend all week in the fall waiting for Friday night, pulled by the siren's call of the stadium lights. Girls who spend the weekdays planning spirit decorations and figuring out what to wear on the weekly spirit day. Girls who spend the threeish hours of the game gazing raptly at the shining white number emblazoned on the sacred jersey of her chosen warrior's uniform. At my old school, I used to roll my eyes whenever I saw one of those girls. Suddenly, I am one of them.
Five days after Mr. Ash gave me permission to date Ty, it was Friday night, the night I'd promised Ty I would see him. Of course, I'd committed the huge oversight of forgetting that Friday night was game night, so I'd have to actually spend it watching him from the stands if I was going to see him at all.
It was an away game, which doesn't quite cover the otherness of the field we arrived at. Ty's school, Hermitage, was by no means big, but this school was minuscule. Hermitage's thirty-member band took up the entire visitor's stands. Everyone else hiked over to the hill about ten yards away from the end zone and set up lawn chairs. A fence was behind us, and behind the fence were several contentedly grazing cows. The wind wafted the pungent smell of chicken houses across the field from time to time. Aubrey and I exchanged glances. We nonverbally considering picking up our stuff and just leaving. But then the team ran out and started warming up, and the chicken houses suddenly didn't seem so horrible.
During the game, Ty stepped onto the field exactly twice. He was third, possibly fourth string. I managed to entertain myself by watching the game and by finding him on the sidelines about every 2-3 minutes.
After the game (which we won, not that I cared much except I figured it would make Ty happy), I went down on the field to see Ty. The coach was giving the postgame talk, and Ty was on one knee with his hair hanging in damp strands around his face. His skin was covered with a sheen of sweat, and the blazing lights illuminated it so that he glowed like an angel. Maybe it was weird to think of a guy as an angel, but that was what he looked like. He caught me looking at him and grinned.
Kyle was kneeling next to him. My stomach clenched, expecting him to leer at me. Instead, he smiled a friendly smile at me and then elbowed Ty mischievously. Ty rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. The whole thing took about ten seconds, ten seconds in which the coach luckily did not notice their lack of attention to his stirring speech.
I felt an elbow in my ribs. It was Aubrey. "HEY!" she whispered. "Who on earth is that guy next to Ty??"
Oh for heaven's sake. Well, I guess they would actually fit together pretty well, come to think of it. "It's Kyle," I said. "He's kind of an arrogant ass, but he seems to be camouflaging a decent human heart of some sort."
The team was up now, huddled close together and jumping around in their postgame fervor. Before I realized they had broken apart, Ty was standing next to me.
"Hey, I hope you noticed, I've been perfecting my ability to stand nonchalantly on the sideline. It's taken years of practice."
I was smiling like a crazy person, but apparently Ty brought that out in me. I attempted to put on a serious face. "Yes, I noticed that you were able to stand better than anyone else on the entire field. Motionlessness suits you."
The team was beginning to trickle off the field. He said, "Yeah, but I guess this isn't the moment to practice it. Can you meet me back at the school? I feel like this was a supreme waste of a Friday night."
"Yeah, sure, although I wouldn't say it was a waste. I'm sure your vigorous standing was instrumental to Hermitage's win."
He smiled and took off at a jog, following the rest of his team.
About an hour later, he emerged at the school. Everyone else seemed to have already come and gone, and it was just the two of us. He came to stand in front of me, his hands buried in the pocket of his hoodie. We looked at each other for a moment.
He said, "It's really cool that you came to the game tonight. I know you like football about as much as I do."
I smiled. "After tonight, I'm thinking I like it more."
He laughed, and a tension I hadn't known was still inside me went away. Then he took his hands out of his hoodie and pulled me into a bear hug. I was a little surprised and overwhelmed by the warmth of him combined with the richness of his scent. Automatically, my arms went around his neck. I rested my head on his shoulder, the skin of his neck tantalizingly close.
He ruffled his fingers through my hair and mumbled, "You smell like cinnamon. I've given it some thought, and I think I like it better than the chicken houses we smelled earlier tonight."
I looked up sharply to make some sort of comeback, but I was immediately struck dumb by the expression in his eyes. He looked... happy. He looked at me like I was responsible for it. And luckily, I didn't have to make a comeback because he kissed me. I think he meant it to be a soft kiss, and it started out that way. But the gentleness he treated me with awoke something deep inside me, something that wanted to kiss him more. When he lifted his lips from mine, I breathed, "Don't stop kissing me," and he pressed his lips back against mine. He tightened his hands on my waist, pulling me closer to him. I buried my hands in his hair, which was incredibly soft and cool. Then his thumbs dipped beneath my shirt to graze the skin of my lower back. It was the most electric moment I had experienced, and I gasped into his mouth.
He lifted his head from mine and laughed shakily. I felt his reluctance as he moved his hands away from my skin and smoothed my shirt back in place. Then he took my hand in his. I looked at him curiously. "Come on," he said. "This night isn't over yet."
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but a late-late showing of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes wasn't it.
"You must be joking," I said as I examined the poster of the murderous fruit. "Are you trying to give me nightmares?"
He raised an eyebrow and smirked. "If you're really that easily frightened, some nightmares would probably do you some good."
"Okay, fine, we'll go see this, but when a tomato comes swirling up out of my drain and leaves me in a bloody pulp on my kitchen floor, don't say I didn't warn you."
"You know, not to rain on your adorable pouting parade, but if a tomato does in fact murder you in the kitchen, I really don't think it will matter whether you've seen this movie or not."
I couldn't help it. He called me adorable. Plus he was so gorgeously smug that I had to unsettle him. I pressed myself into his arms and kissed him again, not too intensely, but intensely enough that I could tell he was dazed. I murmured, "Okay, fine, you win." Then I took his hand again, rolled my eyes, and led him to the line at the ticket window.
Five minutes into the movie, he was sound asleep, and I was cuddled against him. After twenty minutes of resting against the delicious warmth of him, a terrifying feeling began to well up inside me. I'd known Ty for barely a week, and the level of comfort I felt with him was positively unnatural. I was staring into his face, and a flush of happiness came over me when the tawny glimmer of his eyes shone through his lowered lashes. He looked down at me and smiled dreamily, then stretched.
"Glad to see we haven't been devoured by tomatoes while I slept," he said.
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, no thanks to you."
