After the autograph incident, I turned from a guy that the other guys respected to the guy they idolized. Everywhere I walked they whistled and clapped, I was at my limit, but I nodded and smiled politely, desperately needing to blow off some steam. It was great that the coach had offered to meet up and do a routine assessment the school conducted before admitting a new player to the football team, I gladly headed to Mrs. White's office where he said he'd wait for me if I was up to it.
When the principal's office came into my line of vision, the coach was nowhere to be seen.
This was where I saw her for the first time.
She was around five feet three inches, her black hair was waves that ended in the middle of her back, I'd never seen hair that shined so much before, it was very tempting to touch.
What was I thinking?
Her legs seemed endless under a white denim overall skirt — In this weather? I thought to myself. An uncanny feeling urged me to take off my jacket and put it over her.
Who am I? Prince charming? She would probably punch me in the face if she knew what I was thinking.
She still had her back to me, hiding her face away. Her hand hesitated as it hovered over the door, about to knock, then retreated, then about to knock again.
"Pfftt…"
I tried to hold it in, but I ended up laughing strangely instead. I had no idea why I laughed at her. Maybe I found her behavior cute? I actually wanted to make a good impression on a girl for once. She turned and looked at me, I was pleasantly surprised to see eyes that looked a lot like mine, she was a real beauty — Maybe the most gorgeous girl I had ever seen.
"Do you find me amusing?"
"Oh, I… I didn't mean to, you misunderstood." I waved my hand twice in a desperate attempt to deny her true statement.
"So, you were not laughing at me?" She arched a perfect eyebrow.
"Can we start over? My name is…"
"I know who you are, Theo." Her plump lips held the 'o' letter at the end, and the sight did things to my stomach.
The hell was this reaction?!
It was not that I didn't like girls, and she wasn't the first girl I had found attractive. It was just that it never happened this fast before.
"Right, the entire school knows about the newly transferred student." I was downplaying the fact that she already knew my name.
"It's not that, I simply recognize royalty when I see one." She winked at me, switching from annoyed to playful in a nanosecond. She gave me her back again as she faced the door and knocked without hesitation this time, she opened the door afterward without bothering to get permission first. My time with her was over too fast — too bad. She looked back at me, while she held the door open. "Are you coming in, your majesty?"
"Elizabeth." The principal called the girl's name, scolding. I walked over fast to get Mrs. White's attention, I wanted to get physically between them, and cover the girl from the woman's sight. But the look the girl gave me stopped me in my tracks after I took a couple of steps inside. I defended her with words instead.
"I was keeping her out, please don't blame her."
The entire office smelled like Jasmine.
"I see… I believe you haven't met my daughter yet."
I looked from the principal to the girl who was plain glaring at me, now that the uncalled for desire to protect her subsided, the resemblance between the two was remarkable, there was no way they were not related somehow, they only looked less like mother and daughter and more like sisters with how young Mrs. White seemed to be. I closed my slightly opened jaw and remembered my manners.
"Theodor Turner." I extended a hand, only too eager to touch her.
She looked from my hand to my face, then she turned away from me and walked over to the leather chairs, she sat on the one that did not face me, giving me a view of her back again.
'Rude much?'
"If you'll excuse my daughter's behavior, Theodor. Can I help you with something?" The look in her eyes was so intense, I got a little dizzy.
Why was I here again?
"Um, yeah. Sorry, it was nothing."
As I turned away from Mrs. White and started leaving, the coach came in through the door.
"There you are! You didn't have to go in, I told you to wait outside for me."
That was it. Football.
.
.
.
The coach and I went through every single exercise that ever had been placed in the book of football. What started as an empty court had a fully-fledged audience now. But I was used to that, it was the least I cared about people staring at me the entire day. I welcomed the burn in my muscles and took everything he was telling me into consideration. This coach, a lot like my old one, had to let me know several times that I was overdoing it, that I didn't need to take this specific move that far, and that it was a useless waste of my energy. But I had plenty of energy to go around.
I took a quick shower after the end of my assessment, he was not changing my position, I would still be the quarterback here as well. Once I was out of the locker room, I saw Elijah and Liam Johnson waiting by the door for me. Elijah ran over to me.
"Hey man, you were a monster out there!" He hit my arm with his fist and I hit his shoulder with my fist instead of commenting. Liam threw a set of keys in the air and caught it. "You ride with us today." He didn't bother to ask and just told me instead. "No man, I'm okay with the bus." I declined politely. "That's just because you don't know what's waiting for you." By the time I reached the exit, people started elbowing each other or looking and pointing at me. I was already at my limit.
"Which one is your car man?" I decided to take him up on his offer, "The black Subaru Outback over there, right by that red 2022 Ram 3500 heavy duty pickup truck." I forgot about the herd of paparazzi and a small whistle escaped me. "What a babe," I was talking to myself, but Elijah pitched in, "You should meet the owner, you know what they say about cars and people, right?" His question was in the background as I was still admiring the huge thing, perfect for all the snow around here. "That's what they say about dogs and people, Elijah, and don't say such things, you never know who's around. You'll get us in trouble." Okay, so the owner of the car was probably hot too. I sincerely hoped they were talking about a girl because otherwise, I'd have to let them know soon that I don't swing that way. They didn't give that vibe though, it was just that the car didn't look like it belonged to a girl, that was all.
I wasn't even done with my line of thoughts when two big guys and someone small passed us by, I was still too busy admiring the truck of my dreams to pay enough attention to their features, the wind that moved because of the motion beside me finally reached my nose.
Jasmine.
They were walking out heading for the red ride, the crowd naturally subsided from their way as if to give them enough room without them having to demand it, that was until the three of them paused, they all looked in the same direction; another girl that walked like a runway model joined them from the building next to us.
Now there were four of them.
They didn't even greet the new girl, they continued to walk to their parked truck. They stood out from the crowd like a sore thumb. And the rest of the students did not spare them one glance. Those were still busy gawking at me.
That was when it bothered me.
One of the men climbed over to the driver's seat leaping gracefully like a cat, while the runway model naturally took the passenger seat next to him. The girl I met earlier reached the back door, but instead of getting in, she turned and looked at me, my stomach did a full turn while my heart stumbled then ran wild, the other guy opened the door for her, from behind, he placed a gloved hand on her back, but she did not move inside, and I couldn't remove my eyes away from his hand. She finally turned away from me and climbed inside, the guy that had his claw on her back stared my way for a minute, then he followed her inside. Their truck was out of the parking lot in the next three seconds.
"You see what I mean, Theo?" Elijah demanded my attention.
"Do you know the owners of that Ram?" I probed.
"They got your attention, didn't they? Prepare yourself to hear something interesting, my friend." Liam rubbed his hands together as if to repel the cold and give a juicy gossip at the same time.
"Let's do this in the car, shall we? Fewer ears over there." Elijah demanded.
We walked to their black Subaru, I wasn't returning the waving and smiling for once, the people around me looked disappointed, but my head was somewhere else. I was still replaying the image of a hand over the girl's back and asking myself why it bothered me that much.
'Mine.'
What was that?
As soon as the doors to the Subaru were shut, Liam turned his head to look at me from where he sat in the passenger's seat, he started gossiping.
"So, you should have met our principal by now. Mrs. White?"
"Yes, what about her?" I acted as if I didn't know a thing, wanting to hear the full story.
"The owner of that Ram is her daughter, Elizabeth King."
Something did not fit there.
"King?"
"She is her daughter from another marriage, that's if there WAS one, to begin with. Haha," His laugh sounded disgusting as it reached my ears. I cracked my knuckles instead of breaking his teeth. I needed more information.
"Who were the others that rode with the girl then?"
"The guy that drove is Elizabeth's best friend. He spends more time around her than he does with his girlfriend, she was that senior, the gorgeous girl that rode in the passenger's seat next to him? You must've noticed her."
"And the guy that sat next to her? Is he her boyfriend?"
"Haha, yeah right, in his head." Elijah cracked a joke while driving.
"Elizabeth doesn't do the 'boyfriend' thing." Liam's finger made a quotation mark while he said the word boyfriend. "What she does is drive a new guy crazy running after her each month, but it never reaches anywhere with her. The guy you saw next to her worships her, like duh... but it's totally one sided."
"I'm not so sure about that anymore, Liam. He has been acting braver nowadays, touching her more often, staking a claim at her whenever he spots a guy staring, you know what I mean?"
"Ridiculous... King belongs to no one." His tone took a dark turn, disgusting me again, this time I couldn't shut up about it.
"Did you ever try something with her?"
"Me!? Never! Not in a million-year man, who needs the emotional damage, You know what I'm saying?"
I left him without comment, not buying what he said. Half sure she blew him off already, if not more than once.
"As I said, king belongs to no one. So don't mind her man."
"Yeah, Theo. A guy like you is our only hope, we want to live our craziest fantasies through you. You need to break many hearts and not have your heart break for any chick. Otherwise, all will be lost. I mean look at you."
"Exactly, what would happen to the rest of us if Theo got rejected?"
The twins looked at each other, they all but forgot that I was right there with them in the back seat.