Page 262 of One More Kiss

Front and Center

Elena Gray

Chapter1

I’min love with my best friend and it all started the day he put his hands between my thighs. And before you get the wrong idea, this wasn’t sexual. Not even close. It all began when I walked onto my high school football field, and the coach announced I would be playing football as the new center on their team.

I was prepared for the guys’ snickering, along with the rude comments saying that I would look better in a cheerleading skirt than a football helmet. Too late. Been there, done that, and hated every minute of it. On the field was where I wanted to be. Not cheering from the sidelines.

What I wasn’t prepared for was Colton Hayes. At the sight of me, he stormed across the turf, his heated glare silencing each of my offenders. As he handed me the football, his lips curled into a smile that sent flutters through my stomach. Colton’s opinion of me was the only one that mattered. He was the quarterback to my center. If he didn’t have absolute trust in me, our team would fall apart.

It didn’t take long for me to prove myself on the field. The guys finally stopped treating me like I would break and accepted me as a worthy member of their team.

And as that first season progressed, Colton and I became inseparable both on and off the field. Movie nights, dinners with our families, and even prom.

Watching him tonight on ESPN, ten years later, is still so surreal. I’ll never forget the night of the NFL draft when his name was called by the Rams. His dream since he was a boy had finally come true, and my heart was shattered. Not that I wasn’t happy for him. I was. But the NFL was on a different level than college football. Especially when he would be on the other side of the country, far away from me.

I was a fool to think that distance would destroy our friendship. If anything, it strengthened it. Colton never missed a day to check in with me. Whether it was a video chat or a quick text, he never forgot. Much to the annoyance of some of his girlfriends.

A clip from one of Colton’s playoff games fills the screen and my attention is solely focused on him. The muscles in his bicep flex when he releases the ball to his receiver at the ten-yard line, who runs it in and scores the winning touchdown. I remember that game. He called me right after, excited for the fact that they might actually have a shot at the Super Bowl.

“Ow,” I shout as a pillow hits me square in the face. I turn to find my friend Allie smirking at me. “What the hell, Allie. What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me?” Allie asks, raising her brows. ”I’ve been talking to you for the past five minutes and you’ve completely ignored me.”

I fling my arm toward the television, where I have paused the show, 30 for 30, right as the camera zoomed in on Colton’s face. “You know when Colton is on, I am oblivious to everything around me.”

Colton may not know how I feel, but the three other women in this room do. They’ve been there to wipe my tears when Colton left for California and demolished half gallons of ice cream with me whenever he found a new girlfriend. Fortunately for me, his girlfriends were few and far between.

“Maybe you’ll finally tell him how you feel the next time he comes home,” my friend Joselyn says as she refills my glass of wine and takes the seat next to me on the couch.

The thought of confessing my true feelings to Colton makes my stomach clench. The one time I tried to tell Colton how I felt ended in rejection. I should never have kissed him that night. Even after eight years, that memory still stings, especially when we never discussed it again.

Swallowing half my wine, I reply, “Not gonna happen. I will stay in the friend zone as long as he lets me be a part of his life. I can’t force him to feel something for me that he doesn’t. I don’t want to ruin our friendship over this.”

“Does he know you broke up with Travis?” Hailey asks from where she is lounged on the floor.

“Yes. He found out before I could tell him.” That’s what life in a small town is like. Everyone knows everyone else’s business and they love to share it with whoever will listen. “He was actually happy about it. He said that he didn’t like the way Travis treated me.”

Allie shook her head in disgust. “Travis was a tool. I don’t know why you dated him for as long as you did.”

That made two of us. I nervously twist the string on Colton’s college football hoodie that I snagged from his room right before he left for California. To this day, I still don’t know what I saw in Travis. The only thing I had in common with him was our love of football.

I ended it with Travis when I realized his unnatural obsession with Colton. Looking back, I can see all of the signs I missed. At first, Travis would ask questions about Colton that seemed innocent. Like saying he wanted to make plans for us to go away, but wanted to make sure it wasn’t a weekend that Colton was coming to town so I wouldn’t miss my time visiting with him. He had no intention of going away. He just wanted to know when Colton would be here.

Or when he asked if Colton would autograph a jersey for his cousin who was sick with cancer. I found out later that his cousin was perfectly healthy, and he only wanted the jersey for himself.

It wasn’t until Travis tried to call Colton from my phone while I was in the shower that I finally realized he was more interested in meeting Colton than dating me. I wouldn’t have known Travis had tried to call him until Colton apologized for missing my call. That was six months of my life wasted on Travis, ‘the tool’ as Allie likes to refer to him.

Joselyn turns toward me and tucks her foot under her leg. “You’re both single and a lot older than you were when you made your moves on him before. Maybe things would be different now.”

I shake my head and drain my glass of wine. I would rather not revisit the most embarrassing night of my life. One time was enough for me. Setting my glass on the table, I stand and sway on my feet. Extending my arms, I wait until I find my balance. How many glasses of wine did I drink tonight? Probably one glass more than I should have based on the way the room is tilting. When I finally get my bearings, I carefully place one foot in front of the other and almost trip over Hailey.

“Drunk girl coming through,” I announce as I step over her. When I reach the television, I press my hand against the screen. Right over Colton’s cheek. The same cheek I kissed goodbye the last time I saw him.

“This is as close as I will ever get to confessing my love for him.” I lean in and kiss Colton’s frozen image, wishing I had the courage to tell him in person that I was in love with him. But my heart wouldn’t survive another rejection. That night I kissed him, and he walked away from me without a word. It was like a punch to the stomach. I cried myself to sleep and avoided him for days, too embarrassed to face him. When he finally came to my house, he acted like the kiss had never happened. And that hurt more than the rejection. Because that meant it didn’t even matter to him.

“I find it hard to believe that Colton has zero feelings for you,” Allie says as she pops a piece of popcorn in her mouth. “The way he looks at you? Friends don’t look at friends that way.”

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