Page 104 of Waiting for Her

I watch in fascination as his eyes darken and he inhales sharply.

“Easy, brother. You’ve got an audience,” Cole says.

“Time to go home, then.” Grady winks and tells everyone he needs to get back to Lanphier. Which isn’t a lie, there’s a home game this weekend, which is why I was so naïve about the reason Grady wanted me to meet him here. Him taking the time out of his busy schedule right now to propose to me was the last thing I expected.

But that’s the thing about Grady, no matter how busy he is or what his schedule looks like, he always makes time for me. He tells me he would have waited for me forever, and I finally believe it.

Grady

“Blake leans back, left hand pointing far down the field. Grady’s in his sights! The ball sails through the air… what the…” Blake’s eleven-year-old announcer voice trails off as I see a streak of dark hair dart in front of me, snagging the ball from the air and running in the other direction.

The girl… Bri, I think her name is, does a weird touchdown dance in the other end zone on our make shift field on the school playground.

Blake jogs in my direction, and we both watch in amusement as the tiny girl spikes the ball then has to quickly jump out of the way so it doesn’t bounce back into her.

“Who the heck is that?” he asks me, his nose crinkles up like he smelled something bad in the cafeteria at lunch.

I shrug, acting like I don’t care. “I think her name starts with a B or something.”

She turns around, smiles at me, and something weird turns in my stomach. Definitely something we ate at lunch.

I watch her as she bends down and picks up our football, her dark ponytail swishing behind her as she walks back to us.

“You probably need this, huh?” she asks, handing Blake the football.

“Thanks,” he murmurs and then turns to look at me with wide eyes.

She messes with her ponytail, yanking out the rubber band that was holding it up. Her hair swishes around her before she pulls it back up again. I watch, fascinated. I can’t stop staring at this girl’s long dark hair. “I’m Bri. Sorry about taking over your game. I’ve been wanting to play with you guys for forever, and I just couldn’t help myself. I kept waiting for you to invite me. I’ve been watching from over thereforever!” She points to a spot behind us.

Now my eyes widen. “Huh? You want to play withus?You’ve beenwatchingus?”

She nods excitedly. “I love football. Like love, love it. Especially SMS. They’re the best ever.”

Bri rattles off a bunch of stats about the team that, of course, I already know becauseI’mtheir biggest fan—but I feel like I’m going to choke on my own tongue when I hear her say them. How does this girl know as much as I do?

“Can I like, play with you guys tomorrow?” Bri asks.

I look at Blake who nods slightly, looking a little taken aback by everything. I am, too. “Uh, yeah. I guess it’s okay. But… um… we aren’t going to go easy on you,” I tell her, puffing out my chest a little bit. I don’t know why I do it, it just feels like the right thing.

She scoffs and giggles. “Duh.”

“Alright then. This is Blake. I’m Grady.”

“I know.”

We smile at each other and I notice her eyes are so green, they’re like the grass. Luckily, the bell rings for us to go back inside and we all take off running to the door. As soon as Blake and I get to our lockers right outside our classroom, we shove our coats and boots inside. “That was weird, right?”

I shrug again. “A little, I guess.”

Bri walks by us, nudging me in the shoulder as she goes past into her classroom. She turns around and smiles again. She’s got two dimples in her cheeks. I kind of like dimples.

“Come on, we gotta get to class,” Blake says to me, making me jump. I hope he didn’t see I was staring at the girl who intercepted the football right in front of me.

Something inside tells me what happened today was a big deal, but I can’t figure out why.

A hand to my shoulder breaks me out of my thoughts. Blake jostles me around, causing me to lose my footing a little bit. “Ready for this?”

“Since we were in the fourth grade.”

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