Windy: I have to stay late to talk with Coach. Do you mind waiting until half five?

Me: I don’t know, is there food in this deal?

Windy: What do you want to eat?

Me: A whole entire elephant. For me only. You fend for yourself.

Windy: Would you share some if I hug you again?

Me: Perhaps. I’d have to sample said hug to make a decision, though.

Windy: Noted. See you soon.

I stay in the locker room until the all-clear comes from Jesse, and I make my way outside of the stadium towards the parking lot. One of the lights has gone out, and it throws half of Jesse’s car under the cover of pitch blackness, which just so happens to be the passenger’s side and I feel like I’m in a horror movie, the easiest victim because I won’t sprint across the parking lot to get into the car and lock the doors to relative safety.

When I get in the car, I’m panting, squirming in my seat, and looking out into the darkness, making shapes out of shadows that don’t exist. I’m never watching another horror movie alone ever again. Ever again!

It’s been two days since Jesse brought me over to his house and we cooked together.

I’m still off hard training for the next three days, and Jesse’s been working hard to get off the bench for the next season game tomorrow night. It’s a big one too, one of the Big Six teams that originally made up the league at its inception, and the rivalry between them and us is the stuff of epics and has caused more riots than any political stance.

I’m nervous about it, more so than Jesse looks to be.

I’m surprised he wanted to hang out at all.

“Hi,” I say, panting, but finally looking at him once I’ve made sure the door is locked, window up.

“Was someone chasing you?” There’s a dangerous edge to his voice, and something else that I don’t have a name for.

“Nope, just seeing things in the dark. I decided to watch Scream last night, and that killer is hiding around every corner for me. Shit. My heart’s beating so hard. Funny thing is, I’d be the best candidate for a movie like that. I can’t even run, so I’d be the first to die.” I look over at him to find him frowning at me.

Jesse does his whole little thing where he adjusts the heat and the seat warmer. I’m shocked to realize it’s only been about a few weeks since we’ve been hanging out off the pitch, but it already feels so familiar, so normal, so like my normal routine that I don’t know how I’ll ever use the shuttle again.

“Could we not talk about your impending demise? It turns my stomach.”

“Why? You’d miss me or something?”

Jesse smirks, and even in side profile I can say without a doubt that it’s glorious. “Or something. Where to?”

I think about it for four seconds. “My place.”

“What’s wrong with my place?”

“Too big. I could get lost.”

“I wouldn’t let you get lost.”

“Yeah, well, doesn’t change the fact that it’s too big.”

He shrugs, then pulls out of the parking lot. “I have a big family back home, and when they come, they stay for weeks on end, so I need the space.”

I nod, because this is a good reason to have a giant place. “I’m an only child. I don’t know anything about that.”

Jesse glances over at me, and I watch him take the road towards my place and not his.

We get to my place without incident, but Jesse has a hard time finding parking, so we end up walking three blocks, up the stairs, and finally get to settle on my couch while I order takeaway for us both, Lebanese food to pig out on with only a very small side order of potatoes. Garlic potatoes make the world go ’round.

I flop onto the couch, pulling out some fluffy blankets from my ottoman/extra storage to drape over both of us as I cue up Netflix before the food gets here.

“How was your day?” Jesse asks, sitting close enough to me that I feel the heat radiating off of him along my entire left side. He’s like a furnace.

I turn to look at him, finding his eyes fuzzy and unfocused. “Are you okay?” I ask, and I catch him staring at my mouth for a fraction of a second too long. My lips start to tingle, and I lick them, which only makes him stare all the harder, his eyebrows pinched towards the middle, his pupils dilated, eating up the blue. “Jesse?”

“I’m starting tomorrow. Officially.” He glances up at my eyes.

“Yeah?” I whisper, suddenly afraid to breathe. We’re eye to eye now, and I’m sure he can hear the beat of my heart, beating erratically now just for him because he’s looking at me like that. He’s looking at me like I’m the reason that everything good has ever happened to him—I’m every lucky break, every lucky bounce of the ball, every mistake a goalie has ever made, I’m every goal he’s ever scored. That’s how he’s looking at me, and I find myself being pulled under.

No. Pull back before it’s too late, kid. Pull back!

Jesse smiles at me, that special smile that’s utterly devastating with me being this close. Ah, shit, I’m going to be carrying around that image for days and days and days. My brain goes fuzzy with white static and it’s hard to remember anything at all.

“I’d love for you to be at the game tomorrow.”

“What?”

“I’d like for you to be at the game tomorrow, if you can spare the time,” Jesse repeats calmly, waiting for my answer.

If I can spare the time? As if have a plans?

“The game’s tomorrow night, and you know I’m still off training.” I chew my lip, then stop when he gives me that look again. He doesn’t even look flustered that I’ve noticed him staring at my mouth. I’ve started to sweat, and I want to toss my tracksuit sweater across the room, but all I’ve got underneath is our club shirt and that’s it. I can’t be just around him with a t-shirt—I need some padded armour or something. “I can be there, I guess.”

“Do you not want to come?” Jesse asks it gently, but there’s a thread of hurt there too, if my Maddie-senses are tingling just right.

I shake my head. “That’s not it. I just don’t want to be recognized. I guess I can say that I have nothing better to do if I’m caught by the staff. You have to score a hat-trick for me, okay?”

“Three goals? Is just the one not good enough?”

I snort, wave it off. “Please, you’re Jesse Windmeier. You can score three goals in a game.”

He nods, tilting his head side to side. “I have done in the past. But I would need a very good reason to score three.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re trying to bargain with me, Windy, and it’s not going to work.” Jesse bites his lower lip and stares at me, making all my nerve endings, every single one, catch fire. My cheeks burn and I have to breathe through my mouth, trying to catch my breath.

“You scare the shit out of me,” I tell him, vaguely aware that we’re sitting so close now, our legs plastered against one another. I’m going to combust, I’m going to scream, I’m going to—

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I toss the blanket aside, screaming to every single person in the country that, “THE FOOD IS HERE!” at the top of my lungs, and bouncing off the couch to get to my front door as I try to buzz the guy in one-handed, running out of my apartment because there’s too much Jesse in there and I can’t breathe.

Oh, man, what the hell have I started, and nothing’s really happened yet.

I’m going to die if he tries to kiss me. Dead, dead, dead.

I’ve already paid and nab the food from him, walking into my apartment, head down, unable to look where Jesse is, beelining it for my kitchen table where he’s sitting, of course, plates and cutlery and glasses already set.

Figures. He’s Jesse Windmeier.

“You can’t just tell me that I scare the shit out of you and prance off.”

“I do not prance. I run like a machine, thanks,” I inform him, staring into the brown bag with our food, pulling out aluminum plates and handing his over, along with a pita, and then placing the extra pepperoncini peppers I ordered in the middle of the table. The tabbouleh comes next and is placed right next to the pita, and then I finally take my seat, all while concentrating on my food, like I really am a machine and analyzing the nutritional contents of our meal. Jesus Christ.

“Maddie?”

Maddie has left the building. Please call again.

“Yeah?” I sigh, afraid to look.

“Would you please look at me?”

“I kinda don’t want to?”

“Are you truly afraid of me?”

“Yes and no.” I answer, staring down at my phone, the smell of the chicken, garlic potatoes and spices making my mouth water. “Can’t we just eat now and talk later?”

“I know you’re going to pretend like you ate too much and you won’t want to talk later.”

I forgot I pulled that card some other time before, before he told me he liked me. Now I’ve played the card and he knows it, too, and now I have to come up with some other scheme to get him out of here after I eat.

How fast does food poisoning happen, and can I fake it in the time between I put the food in my mouth and we finish our meal?

Then I get pissed at myself. If I’m supposed to be the greatest footballer the world has ever seen, I can’t be scared of something like this, and I cannot be scared of Jesse Windmeier. No way, no how.

I lift my head and stare at him, keeping our gazes locked for what I have to say. “I told you, I’ve never had a boyfriend.” I grip my cutlery tight. “Football I know, football I get. You and me, this? Scares the shit out of me. You scare me, the way you make me want things I’ve never wanted before.”

I swear to God, someone lit a fire in his eyes, and I’m going to burn slowly.

What a way to go though, am I right?

I watch him pull in a deep breath, his chest expanding, his body becoming temporarily bigger, more imposing. A very female part of me that never noticed these things before since all the footballers I loved before were safe choices, superstars who never knew who I was (not to mention way way older than me), is noticing now.

I gulp and try to do something with my face, but I think I just blink at him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

I frown at him. “How do you know that? You’re going to say something one day that’s going to set me off, and I’ll probably piss you off, because that’s who I am as a person. There was always just football, being the best, and now there’s you and I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you want to see how this goes?”

I think about it, watch Jesse’s muscles tighten under his thermal, his forearms getting all corded, veins popping out, jaw clenched tight. I think about his empty house, I think of me and him in that house. “I do.”

“Then let’s do this together. I can’t know what’s going on in your head all the time, so if I do something you don’t like, tell me, let me know, and I’ll do the same.” Jesse says it like it’s a stipulation in our contract.

“What don’t you like?” I ask before I can think better of it. And I know I’ve probably steered the conversation into sexual territory, but again, Jesse Windmeier continues to surprise me.

“For starters, I don’t like sharing my food. Paws off.”

“Sorry, bad habit. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine. I won’t do that from now on.” I nod at him and return my fork to my own plate where, sadly, there are no more garlic potatoes left because I vacuumed them right up into my gob while trying to forestall this conversation.

“You don’t like it when I mutter during a movie. I can’t help it.”

I tilt my head at him. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were glaring at me the other night.”

“That? That wasn’t glaring, I was staring. I was looking at you, thinking about how adorable you were acting.” I shrug off the embarrassment I feel admitting it to him. Why am I embarrassed? What for? This is so freaking stupid.

“You think I’m handsome?”

I roll my eyes hard enough that my brain waves hello from the command center inside my skull. “Fishing for compliments?”

“No, but it’s nice to hear that the girl you want thinks you’re something special.”

“You are special. You are a phenomenal player, uh, footballer.”

“I want you to think I’m special.”

“You’re going to have to show me that side of you. I only know the famous super-talented footballer side.”

“But that’s all you’ve wanted to see,” he says, drinking from his glass of water. Jesus, what is Jesse like when he’s off his face, I wonder?

I lick my dry lips, because he’s right, that’s all I’ve wanted from him. “I still want to learn your moves.”

“I’ll teach them to you, as soon as you get the green light.”

“Any day now,” I mutter, stabbing into my chicken, wishing I had a garlic potato to go with it. “Hey, I thought you don’t share,” I say, watching Jesse give me two of his remaining potatoes.

“I don’t like it when someone takes the food off my plate, but you can have these. Eat some more.”

He’s perfect. He told you to eat more food. An angel among men.

I do eat some more and make happy noises until I’m all done.

I don’t want Jesse to leave, so we watch a movie, this time The Mummy Returns, and Jesse makes those noises and we sit close this time around and it feels normal when he puts his arm on the back of my couch, and I feel almost surrounded by his heat, like he’s going to cover me if danger happens to be close by. I feel safe, protected, and I’ve never felt that way with anyone before. That’s scary, too, I can admit it. But it also feels pretty nice.

Jesse doesn’t kiss me good night, and I don’t initiate anything.