Page 1 of The Love Playbook
CHAPTER ONE
Jackson
More people spill through the door to our apartment, provoking a cry of welcome from the crowd already gathered in the living room. It’s the first week of classes and Eli and I have revived our weekly game night tradition. We thought about starting it with just the football team a couple weeks ago when practices started, but with two-a-days, everyone was too exhausted to even think about anything other than food and sleep.
We’re in the same apartment as last year. A sweet place we scored when some seniors moved out. The rent is great, and it’s only a five minute drive to campus.
I look up from my spot in the kitchen to see who’s arrived, releasing my breath in a mix of relief and disappointment when I see that it’s Gardner and Johnson.
Johnson, my backup wide receiver, catches my eye, lifts his chin in greeting, and holds up a case of soda. “Hey, man. We brought some drinks.”
I return the chin lift and take the drinks from him. “Cool. Thanks.”
He sticks around to talk about the new plays Coach Reese had us running today, but I’m only half paying attention. The rest of my attention is focused on the door, and I brace each time it opens until I find out who’s arrived.
I’m hiding. I won’t admit that out loud, but I won’t lie to myself.
Not from my teammates, though. From Dani and her friends. Well, not Dani, really. She’s over here all the time. She and Eli are super tight, and she’s a cool chick. It’s really her friend Autumn, whose arrival I’m both waiting for and dreading in equal parts.
That chick is something else. She seems all airy and unassuming, but beneath that she has a spine of steel and the ability to reduce me to a stammering wreck faster than anyone.
Everyone thinks she’s nice enough. A little quirky with her hair dyed outlandish colors and her tendency to talk about moon phases and energies. She likes to sleep around, but somehow manages to stay friends—or at least friendly—with all of her exes. Not that she considers them exes. That would imply more of a relationship than she’s had with anyone that I’ve seen anyway.
When we first started hanging out last semester, I had the same impression of her—nice, quirky, pretty, easy to be around. She recognized my shyness and did her best to put me at ease as much as possible.
Until she ruined it all by offering to be my love tutor. That’s what she called it.
If she shows up tonight, it’ll be the first time I’ve seen her since she made the offer at the last team party of spring semester.
Johnson doesn’t seem to notice that he only has half my attention, my grunts and monosyllabic answers good enough to keep him talking. Which is fine, really. If I’m talking to him, it’ll be easier to avoid Autumn when she shows up. And I think that’s what I want. At least to start with.
The grunts and single word answers are pretty standard for me, though. I’m the quiet one on the team. Some guys run their mouths constantly, can’t get enough of their own stories and ridiculousness. I’m not that guy. Never have been. Don’t see the point, really. Sure, I’ll say something if it matters. But it’s easier to sit back and let everyone else fill the silence if they want to.
I don’t mind the silence. And it doesn’t bother me if other people feel like filling it. I’m just as happy on my own as in a group. Which apparently is weird to some people. But I’m fine with my teammates. We get along, and I only blush when they try to include me in the locker room talk about sex.
It’s mostly that I’m not used to being noticed, I guess. Other than for football. Though even with that, if it’s more than a general acknowledgment like, “Good game,” or, “Nice catch,” my cheeks start to heat up. When anyone starts gushing, you could fry an egg on my face.
It’s even worse when the person doing the gushing is a pretty girl. Though I’ve been told that’s flirting, not just friendliness or genuine interest in my playing ability. At least that’s what Autumn told me at the end of the spring semester. And when I was home over the summer my older sister confirmed it.
I almost hadn’t asked, because I knew Naomi would laugh at me. But when Autumn talked to me at that last party of the semester before finals, she’d planted the idea in my head and as much as I’d tried to dismiss it, I couldn’t. So even though it had been beyond embarrassing to ask, eventually I had to. I trust Naomi’s opinion.
She laughed, of course, just like I knew she would. Then she speared me with dark eyes that mirrored my own and opened a package of fruit snacks for my niece. “Seriously, Jackson?” She shook her head, her voice still vibrating with laughter. “You really can’t tell when a girl is flirting with you?”
I described how the girls at the party would act … the compliments about my game performance, the little touches that were easy to excuse because of close proximity but maybe were deliberate, the way they’d sip their drinks and appear super interested until I’d just … not really talk much, and then their eyes would glaze over and they’d leave. All except Autumn, who’d talk long enough for me to get comfortable and actually respond. Of course she’d talk about more than just how amazing I played. She’d ask questions about the game, about training, about school and seemed genuinely interested in my answers.
I didn’t tell Naomi about Autumn, though. Especially with Autumn’s love tutor offer constantly prodding the back of my consciousness no matter how I tried to forget it. Listening to Naomi laugh about my cluelessness was bad enough. I had no desire to hear her reaction tothat.
Because the longer I went on about the other girls, the harder Naomi laughed. “Oh, man.” She made an exaggerated show of wiping tears from her eyes. “Yes, those girls were all flirting with you. How often does that happen?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable, my skin feeling itchy and too tight, my cheeks and ears hot. “I dunno,” I mumbled.
“So basically all the time,” she accurately surmised.
And now I’m here at the beginning of another fall semester, another football season, with Eli and I continuing our tradition of hosting all our friends to play video games in our living room. The whole team’s technically invited, but not everyone is interested. Which is fine, because there’s no way they’d all fit anyway. It’s really only the guys we’re friends with who come, plus whoever they’re seeing and the usual crew of chicks who hang around in hopes of bagging an athlete. Though most of them don’t have to hope too hard.
I guess it’s extra ridiculous that I don’t recognize the flirting. Except they never seem to be flirting withme. Or interested inme. When I talk, they don’t seem very interested in what I’m saying, interrupting me to ask how much I can bench while staring at my chest or finding an excuse to squeeze my bicep, usually when I’m trying to do something. That part is extra strange because I was the skinny, fast kid in high school. Girls weren’t really interested in me. Football team or not, I was still the nerdy kid who did great in math class, too tall and scrawny and quiet to attract much attention.
But I’ve bulked up since coming to Marycliff, putting on a significant amount of muscle. Not so much that I’m not still fast, of course. As a wide receiver, speed is important. But I have to have enough bulk to hold my own against the defensive line, too. It’s a balance. Last year I was the backup, but got enough playing time to get attention. And this year I’m the starter, so I can only imagine the uninvited touching and awkward flirting will get worse.
