Chapter 20: Our Secret Moments: Chapter 20

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN one to do things before thinking. I can’t help it sometimes. Ideas, thoughts, words, all come to me spontaneously and without warning, so often and so strongly that I forget what I’m trying to say or do.

It was worse when I was a kid.

I put my poor parents through hell as they nervously watched me from the sidelines whilst I was fully convinced that I would become the best footballer in the world. I’d put myself through rigorous training sessions, encourage my family to go on a juice cleanse just to forget about it a few days after.

My mom and dad were good sports about it. They’d wake me up every day at four and we’d go for a run. I’d try to help cook breakfast and we’d go through more drills throughout the day.

Those phases would only last a few days – weeks if I was lucky – before I’d get back into doing the normal amount of exercise for a fourteen-year-old when the initial adrenaline wore off. There would be days where I’d doubt myself, feeling worthless for not doing the absolute most at all times and I’d go back and forth from giving my all to just doing my best.

I once spent all day in a library researching the different kinds of muscles I could pull whilst playing, making myself sick over recovery dates and survival rates. I’d get lost between websites and books that I wouldn’t even know what time it was. All that I knew was that I had to be careful in every way possible.

I wish I had a reason why I used to do stuff like that, where I’d get my heart set on something for a few days before abandoning it. There’s always going to be that fear that still lingers, that worry of not being good enough or being strong enough, but I know that no matter what, football will always stay as a constant in my life even if I don’t make it to a pro team.

Another constant? The way I feel about Catherine Fables.

You’d think she’s an angel, fucking harps playing in the background and a halo on her head whenever she walks with the way I practically drop to my knees whenever she’s around.

Even as I walk with her now, getting ready for another group interview of the team, she’s trying to ignore the way she was all over me the other morning.

It’s one of those things where I feel like my body knew before my brain did when it comes to her. Having her house across from mine growing up, our little friendship group formed from so young, I always tried extra hard for her to notice me.

At first, I didn’t know why I was doing it. I just knew that I wanted to see her smile. She had no siblings, just two parents who loved and cared about her more than anyone in the world.

I remember how shy she was at first, so used to staying in a bubble with her mom and dad, and she was petrified when Wes tried to show her his pet worm he kept in his back pocket, famously named Kangaroo the Worm.

The sound of her hysterical screams was burned into my memory for weeks after that.

After Nora and Eleanor scolded Wes for scaring their new friend, I tried to talk to her for the first time. We sat on the sidewalk after she took a minute to calm down and I brought her a candy bar.

“Why does he have a pet worm called Kangaroo? That’s so weird,” she mumbled, rubbing her nose with her sleeve as she pulled her knees to her chest. I watched the trees in the distance, almost too scared to look at her for too long so I didn’t scare her off. I broke apart the Kit-Kat, holding out a piece of the wafer. She looked at it for a second before taking the piece.

“Wes is weird like that,” I said, laughing at the thought of my friend as I took a bite out of the chocolate. She sighed in response, and I turned to her then, realising that this is probably not how she saw one of her first days interacting with her new neighbours going.

She looked at me, those huge brown eyes still glistening with the tears she had finished shedding as she chewed thoughtfully. I had wanted to touch her for the first time then. I just wanted to hold her the way I would want to be held if I were in her situation.

“Are you weird?” she asked. She looked like she really needed the answer. I shook my head and her eyes squinted. “I don’t buy it. I think you’re weird. Fun-weird, like me. Not worm-weird like Wes. You’re quiet, too.”

I shrugged. “I thought you were quiet like me. You didn’t talk to me all day yesterday when we played in the sprinklers.”

She shrugged. “My mom says I talk too much, sometimes. She calls me a chatterbox. I didn’t want you all to call me that too, so I didn’t say anything,” she mumbled. I remember thinking to myself that she sounded way smarter than any of the other seven-year-olds I knew.

“I’m not going to call you that,” I said, and her eyes lit up.

“You’re not?” she asked, swiping the melted chocolate from the side of her mouth. I shook my head, grinning, knowing exactly what I was going to say.

“Nope. I’ve got my own nickname for you,” I said, standing up from the sidewalk. I held out my hand, not knowing if I was doing the right thing or not, but she slipped her hand in mine and stood up. Our fingers were messy and sticky with chocolate, but neither of us seemed to care. “I’m going to call you Kit-Cat.”

Her jaw dropped open, completely mortified. “You’re not,” she challenged.

“I am,” I replied, my mouth hurting from the smile it was plastered in. I stood there for a minute, waiting for her to freak out again, but she didn’t. She got used to the idea quickly as a smile formed on her lips and she soundlessly slipped her hand out of mine and started walking in front of me.

As we walked back up the lawn, she turned back and said, “Fine, Connie. Call me whatever you want.”

I thought she was the most fascinating person I have ever met.

I still do.

Especially now, as she walks beside me, clearly aware of the fact that I’ve not been able to stop looking at her since we walked from her dorm to the sports classrooms.

Sometime between our kiss and now, she got her hair braided and I’m losing my ever-loving mind. Not only does her hair frame her face perfectly with those small braids, but she also has streaks of bronze in her black hair that are so tempting to pull and wrap around my fist.

“Connor,” she presses angrily, pulling me away from my thoughts as if I spoke them out loud. I flicker my gaze from her face to the corridor, stylishly playing it off.

“Catherine,” I muse, my tone light. “How are you this fine morning?”

“We’ve been walking in silence for five minutes and you’ve stared at me the whole time,” she says, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. Has it really been that long? She shakes her head lightly, turning to me. “Why are you being weird?”

I scoff. “You look like that, and you expect me to be normal? And, not to mention, you had your tongue down my throat a mere three days ago. So, excuse me if I want to do more than just walk with you to this stupid interview.”

“Okay, I didn’t ask you to walk with me. You just turned up at my door and silently followed me here.” Now she makes me sound like a stalker. Great. This was my only chance I’d get with her before the team pounces on her again. She sighs heavily, biting the inside of her cheek. “And, I look like this every day.”

“That’s exactly the problem.”

“You’ve never said this before,” she challenges, stopping in front of me. Somehow we’ve managed to get to our sports classroom where the rest of the team are rowdy behind the door.

“Yeah, and it’s been fucking torture,” I murmur, rubbing my hand down my face.

“Well, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to deal,” she says easily, pushing her braids behind her shoulder. She holds her chin up high, but I don’t miss the way her eyes dip to my lips before they meet my eyes. “I’m meant to be a professional today.”

“It’s a shame,” I whisper, lowering my face so my mouth is hot against her cheek. I hear her take in a sharp inhale, and I press a soft kiss to the space behind her ear. “I want to be very, very unprofessional with you, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, pushing me off her, “You can give me a step by step run down of that later. But now, I’ve got a job to do.”

Unfortunately for me, Catherine has a lot more self-control than I’ll ever have. Since she got the team to quieten down and she assumed her position at the front of the small classroom, she’s not looked at me since.

I honestly shouldn’t be complaining. If she even glanced at me, I’d end up tipping over the table, shredding the distance between us and taking that pretty face between my hands and pressing my lips to hers.

She’s been asking the team boring questions all morning and I am this close to dozing off. I should be paying more attention, seen as this is what it’s going to be like in the real world if I get drafted, but I can admit that I’m just a huge baby when I’m not getting the attention that I want.

Wes elbows me in the ribs. Hard. “What’s the matter with you, Connie boy? I thought you’d be eating up these questions.”

I shrug. “I’m fine. Sam’s taking the lead.”

We both glance over at Sam who talks excitedly as Cat asks him about his performance this season and how he was last year.

He cares about football as much as I do, he just shows it in other ways. Whilst I try to keep focused on the pitch and play the ‘dad’ of the group, keeping everyone in line, Sam likes to keep everyone motivated in other ways by partying and creating stupid chants that he texts to the cheerleaders. It’s a mystery to me how he has such a good performance when he’s out nearly every night with a new girl under his arm and a beer in the other hand.

“He’s going to make us sound like we’re a shit team,” Wes mumbles angrily. “If Cat doesn’t dial down his attitude in writing, my dad’s gonna freak.”

I turn to him, and I swear he’s sweating at the thought of it. Wes can act as tough as he wants, bantering with his dad, but I know deep down he just wants to make him proud. I don’t know what the protocol is for Cat’s report and the newspaper, but I’m sure she’s not going to narc on us.

“We’re gonna be fine,” I assure him. When I see Sam take a breath, sitting further back in his seat, Cat’s gaze snags on me and I smile, using it as my chance to get involved. “Can you repeat your question, Miss Fables?”

She rolls her eyes at the formality in my voice and the guy’s snicker. “I was saying,” she bites out, trying her hardest not to laugh. “Did you always want to play football, or did you ever have other career ideas? Sam over here is saying that this was his one strike of rebellion as a teenager instead of following in his parents’ footsteps.”

Wes snorts. “Yeah, imagine Sam as a doctor? I’d rather try my luck healing my own injuries before ever going to him.”

“Yeah, yeah. Very funny,” Sam says, throwing a scrunched up sheet of paper at Wes, which ultimately ends up hitting me in the face. “You’re lucky your parents don’t care about what you do. You should have seen the look on my dad’s face when I told him I wasn’t going to med school.”

Wes laughs quietly at that. We’re both lucky in the parent department, so we’re extremely grateful to not having any pressure to play football or do anything else. My parent’s only priority is making sure that Nora and I are happy and healthy.

“So, that’s my question for you, Bailey,” Catherine begins, and my entire world focuses completely on her. On the way her mouth moves. The way her lips say my name. The way she grows slightly nervous when it’s only our eyes that are connecting. “Did you ever feel like you had any other options other than football? Did your parents ever make you feel like you had to do anything else – be like them, for example?”

I swallow, knowing exactly what my answer is going to be. It’s not a formal interview. I don’t have any real reason to be nervous, but the guys on the team look up to me for advice. I carry the weight of the team on my back as the quarterback, so I can’t fuck anything up. I’m perfect Connor Bailey on and off the pitch.

“It’s always been football for me,” I say. My body relaxes when Cat smiles at me, a dimple popping out on her cheek. “Growing up, I never really had anything that I wanted to be. I don’t think I ever thought about it, like ever. I kinda thought that I’d be a kid forever, that I’d live with my parents, and I’d watch my sister and my parents grow older. But at some point in middle school, I started to have aspirations. I never had a job in my head, it was always this thing that was separate to me. I knew that I would want to take care of my parents financially, you know, give back to them and all that. Then when I met Russell Wilson and I stayed up every night watching the games, I knew that I wanted to be a part of the Broncos. It was that or nothing for me.”

The words rush out of me and I’m not sure I’m even making sense. I don’t know what reaction I was expecting from the team. That’s probably the most I’ve ever spoken to them in one sitting. It freaks me out as much as it relaxes me.

I lock eyes with Catherine when I’ve finished my rant, her brown eyes soothing me. “That was a good answer, Connor. Thank you,” she whispers before dropping her eyes to her laptop.

“You’re a fucking poet, Bailey,” Wes exclaims, clasping his hands on my shoulders, shaking me. “You, like, completely spoke to my soul just then. I’m in awe.”

“Shut up,” I mutter, pushing him off me.

He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m serious, bro. You’d probably have Cat drooling over you by now if you talked like that all the time. Or try sexting or something, you’d probably get more action that way.”

“You’re so fucking stupid. You know that?” I murmur. He grins at me, triumphant.

He shrugs. “I’m just saying. She’s a journalism major. She probably gets wet over words alone.”

“Don’t use the word ‘wet’ when you’re talking about my girl,” I say, scrubbing my hands against my face. I swear I’m getting a headache just by being in his presence.

“Sorry,” he laughs, clutching his chest. “Did you just say, ‘my girl’?” He continues laughing and I just blink at him. “You’re down bad way more than I thought, Connie. You’re in some deep shit.”

I shake my head at him, turning away. As good as a friend he is, his morals are loose, and he has this I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude that is bound to cause him a lot of problems later on in life. His advice is always a little blurry, so he’s never the first person I go to for advice.

Ever.