Is that how it worked? I understood only a few of them would be on the field at any given time. Wouldn’t it mean that fewer people would get to play? It just seemed odd. I tried to remember my old high school football team. I didn’t keep track but it didn’t seem like they had a hundred players, even if a lot more students wanted to be on the team.
And didn’t Ashley Waters have a JV team? This was varsity. So two football teams with so many players seemed like a lot.
“Sang,” Nathan said, dragging me out of my thoughts. He drug his phone out of his pocket. “Come here.”
Nathan wrapped an arm around me and towed me into cuddling close. He held the phone out in front of our faces. “Smile.”
I did my best, tucking my head next to his. The flash went off and he grinned, flipping the phone around to look at the result.
“I said smile, not look like I’m about to kill you,” he said, smirking.
I giggled. I lifted my hand, intending to point to the picture and show him where I was smiling, but he grabbed my hand, redirecting it to his mouth to chew on my finger.
“Yeah,” he said, around my finger. “Let’s take this picture.”
I leaned in again, and he used his free hand to push a finger into my mouth. I chewed on it, and he snapped another picture.
He pulled my fingers from his mouth. “Better.”
“Let’s take one, Kota,” I said.
Kota had been focused on the field, but he turned, a smile lighting up his face. “If you’d like.”
I pulled my phone out, trying to figure out the camera option. I hadn’t played with it at all. “I don’t know how this works.”
Kota leaned in, pointing a forefinger. “Push this,” he said.
With patience, he described the photo features of the phone. My heart fluttered a little as he told me a little more than I was able to absorb, but I couldn’t find it in me to stop him.
“Okay,” I said once he paused, I leaned back, pointing the camera at his face. “Test this out.” I snapped a photo.
He grinned for the flash, and I flipped the phone around to look at the picture.
Kota’s cheeks tinted. “Missing part of the top of my head.”
“I like it,” I said, feeling some sense of false pride for my first picture with the phone and the fact that he looked incredible no matter what. “Let’s get one of us.”
“Let me hold it,” he said. He took my phone from me, holding it out like Nathan had done. I moved in. He tilted his head until we were nearly cheek to cheek. He flashed the picture. He flipped the phone around. “You blinked.”
I laughed. “I’m terrible at pictures. Take it again. Move over a little bit.”
This time I got up on my knees so my head was even with his. Leaning in, I wobbled. I clutched his shoulder to balance myself.
Kota opened his arm up, pulling me close. I caught the scent of his sweet spice. I kept my arm around him, too, as he clicked for a picture.
This one I really liked. I wasn’t blinking, and Kota looked happy. His face was usually so serious and in that shot, he shared that warm smile I really liked.
“Perfect,” I said.
Kota beamed.
I twisted back, aiming the camera at Nathan and snapping a picture of him while he was dazed and looking at the field. He blinked at the flash, turning his head at me and grinning. I snapped another picture.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Nathan said to Kota. “You taught her how to use it. She’ll fill her phone up.”
“We’ll show her how to save them to the computer.”
“I don’t have a computer,” I said. “Well there’s my dad’s in the living room ...”
The corner of Kota’s mouth lifted. “Remind me to talk to Victor about a new computer for you.”
My mouth popped open. “No, don’t ...”
Nathan laughed, nudging me in the arm with an elbow. “Your fault. You opened your mouth.”
After the singing of the national anthem and the other fanfare, the players ran off of the field so they could begin the game.
“Now?” I asked Kota.
He nodded, smiling. “Let’s see if we can get their attention.”
“I’ll hold our seats,” Nathan said.
I wasn’t sure we needed our seats held, because there still weren’t many people in our section of the stands.
I followed close behind Kota down the stadium steps. This time when my pinkie found his, he nudged my finger away to take my whole hand. I realized how often I’d held the hands of the others, but Kota’s not as much. For the moment, I fell into a sense of what a real date must feel like. Excited by the event, my heart pounding at him being so close, an unbelievable sense of wanting to be there with him, half wishing not so many people were around.
We made our way to the base level of the bleachers. While we were still a distance from the players on our side, I could see North and Silas better.
I held out my phone over the top of the safety banister, trying to take a picture of Silas and North sitting together on the bench. I wasn’t sure how well the picture would come out. I thought it would look good to have Taylor and Korba sitting together looking out toward the field. I snapped a second photo just in case.
Kota cupped his hands together in front of his mouth. “North!”
North and Silas turned their heads simultaneously toward us. I was in time to snap a picture as recognition hit their faces and they started to smile. I moved the phone out of the way, smiling and waving.
They stood together, jumped over the bench and dashed toward us, dodging around people walking by between the stadium stand. They broke into a run and went straight for the barrier. It spooked me enough that I took a step back away from the rail, wondering if there was something wrong.
Kota stood by, and pressed a hand at my back. “Hang on,” he said, but rolled his eyes, as if he completely disapproved but wasn’t able to stop them.
Silas and North started hefting themselves up the side of the high platform, grabbing the rail. When they were at the top, they leaned over it, reaching out for my arm. North grabbed my phone, and Silas grabbed me, pulling me up to stand with them on the rail of the stands.
“Careful, guys,” Kota warned.
“Hi, aggele mou,” Silas said, his broad smile radiating. He was already sweating under the lights and the padding on his already huge shoulders seemed to make him a giant.
“Hi, Silas.”
“Smile, Sang Baby.” North twisted the camera toward our faces.
Silas and North leaned in. I hung over the rail to get between them. Silas pushed his cheek to my forehead and North buried his nose into my hair, snapping a picture. They shifted, Silas’s cheek found mine and North’s forehead touched mine. North snapped another picture.
“Hey!” someone from the field called. “Take pictures on your own time.”
“One more,” North said.
I was leaning in again, staring at the camera in North’s hand, trying to be ready with a smile, despite being nervous someone was shouting at them. When North and Silas moved their heads close, I thought they were going to tilt in a different way.
Instead, they pushed their noses to each of my cheeks, their lips smacking and making kissy faces. They didn’t touch, just hovered. When I realized what they were doing, I started laughing.
North snapped the photo.
“Taylor! Korba! I’m about to kick you both off my team.”
“Gotta go to work, Baby,” North said, pushing the phone back into my hands.
They dropped down together onto the grass, waved at us and rushed back to the bench. The coach waved a fist and shouted at them but they ignored it, sitting on the benches again.
Hands found my waist. Kota had stepped up. He held me as I backed off down from the rail.
“Got what you wanted?” he asked.
I nodded, unable to stop smiling. “I can’t believe they did that.”
“They’d do it ag
ain if you asked.”
The words he said made me pause. “They’d get into trouble.”
Kota’s smile softened. His hand found mine and he clutched it. “Let’s go before you’re tempted to try.”
JEALOUSY
About half way into the third quarter, North and Silas were still on the bench. Kota and Nathan conspired that the coach might be mad at them for pulling the photo stunt earlier. Ashley Waters was on the brink of gaining ground every quarter, but never took the lead.
I was freezing. The metal seat below my butt seemed to bite into my skin. Despite Kota and Nathan sitting close next to me, a breeze occasionally picked up around them, and it seeped right into my bones.