Page 3 of Just Playin'
“No, I’m good,” I assure Skylar when she tips a can of contraband my way. “I’ll stick with water.”
After ensuring memories of my dad didn’t wet my cheeks, I wave my hand in the air like the students in my class do when busting to go to the bathroom. I’m vying for the attention of the vendor who is serving a group of college cheerleaders a dozen rows down from us.
When he fails to see my wildly flapping arm, I plonk into my seat with a grumble. I get extra angry when I’m hungry.
Skylar bumps me with her shoulder. “It will be quicker—and a shit-ton more hygienic—to go to the canteen.” She winks, happy she worked some Aussie bogan into her sentence. “If the angle of his cooler is anything to go by, you don’t want to touch anything he’s selling. He cools his balls in there after every shift.”
“Eww!”
“What?” She laughs. “It’s true. Look at his face. Guaranteed he has a raging boner right now.”
A little bit of vomit creeps up my esophagus when I take in the vendor’s parted lips and hooded gaze. He has the same dirty geezer expression Todd Richards had when he asked if he could touch my boobs in the sixth grade. He told his mom he fell off his bike when he ran to her crying after I punched him in the face.
Six years passed before he grew the courage to ask me again. My response that time around was less violent. Todd was the handsome surfer who befriended everyone, and I was the awkwardly shy dancer who spent more time counting calories than amassing friends.
A lack of social life shouldn’t have factored in my decision, but unfortunately, it did. Between ballet lessons and the many gym sessions needed to keep my weight at “industry standards,” I didn’t have time for boys. Todd offered me a no-strings-attached deal. It worked well for us until I chose to attend a university eight thousand miles from our hometown.
While recalling Todd’s lazy smile and glistening baby blues, I stand to my feet before swinging my eyes to Skylar. “Do you want anything at the tuckshop?”
After storing away another Aussie slang golden nugget for a rainy day, she gives me a look that speaks volumes.
“Two root beer floats, four hot dogs, and whatever the hell that disaster the cutie in row 3875 is letting go cold because he’s too busy ogling all of this.” I circle my finger around her beautiful face before pointing to the man who’s spent the last ten minutes watching Skylar instead of the two dozen scantily clad cheerleaders on the field.
With a giddy clap, Skylar nods. I’m not sure what she’s more excited about: the food or the fact she’s addedanotheradmirer on her long list of many. If her fumbling as she searches her purse for notes is any indication, I’d say it is the latter. She can’t take her eyes off the dark-haired hottie for two seconds to rummage up some coin.
“It’s okay. I’ve got it,” I assure her when she attempts to thrust two crumpled bills and a handful of quarters my way.
IWISHI weren’t so generous. Even with the Australian dollar having a recent resurge, the price of a hot dog is highway robbery. Who in their right mind pays eight dollars for a hotdog?
An idiot trying to fool people into believing she doesn’t live paycheck to paycheck.
Just as my hard-earned money is about to be torn from my grasp with a bucket-load of tears and perhaps even a tantrum, I spot a food van outside the stadium walls. There’s no line-up like the one I’m about to join, and the cracked neon lighting assures me they’d never charge eight bucks for a sausage in a bun.
WITH A SMUG GRINand my pocket only twenty dollars lighter, I make my way back to my seat. My intuition on the food van was spot on. The dogs are a little floppy, and the buns a little stale, but at a savings of four dollars a pop, my taste buds will suck it up.
I’m halfway back to my seat when reality dawns. I forgot Skylar’s fried sandwich. I could tell her they sold out, but I can’t lie even if my life depends on it. Furthermore, she may be a little crazy, but she’s been there for me way more than I can count the past three years, so the least I can do is get her her heart attack sandwich, retake my seat, and feign interest in a game I have no clue about.
My stomps back down the four thousand stairs I just climbed are brutal enough to turn the root beer floats into milkshakes.
THIRTY MINUTES LATER—I kid you not—I’m finallyheading back to my seat. Skylar’s kiddie sandwich is a massive hit amongst the locals, meaning I had to wait for a new batch to be fried. If I hadn’t forked out twelve dollars before they advised me of the wait, I would have said, “thanks, but no thanks.” Regrettably, they saw me coming from a mile away. It’s not hard to spot a sucker in a crowd of many.
With the players now on the field, the crowd is super buzzed. Their roars set my hearing back a decade as they race to the barriers to get a picture of their favorite player warming up. I have to push and shove just to reach the stairwell where my seats are located, and even when I break through the human jungle, their animalistic tendencies don’t stop. They look like men the morning after a bachelor party—drunk, randy, and boisterous—there’s just thousands of them.
“Whoa! What the hell?”
My squinted eyes stray from a can of beer resting at my feet to the direction the flying can came from. Just as my eyes land on a blond man with a tank top so tight, I can’t testify it isn’t body paint, from the corner of my eye, I witness a person not nimble enough to dodge his second flung beverage. A crushed can of beer smacks her right in the nose, instantly dribbling droplets of blood onto her extensively pregnant stomach.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” I rush to her side to steady her movements the best I can since my hands are overloaded with food and a slush that once resembled root beer floats.
The pretty brunette peers at me with wide, shocked eyes. “Umm. . I think so?”
She doesn’t look okay. She’s handling her injury well, but the shock of being struck is draining the color from her cheeks as quickly as it fills mine with anger.
Peeved as fuck, I return my narrowed gaze to the man responsible for her injury. “Look what you did, you dipshit!”
The A-grade moron suspends high-fiving his friends to shuffle to his feet and face me. The wide width of his pupils indicates he’s highly intoxicated, but the sneer on his face reveals he was an asshole long before alcohol laced his veins.
“What was that, sweetheart? I couldn’t hear you over all that blubber you’ve stuffed between us.”
