22

Kassie

Headbanded (Kassie's Version)

Adam switched the focus of the conversation to me and presented the girl on his arm. "Elsa, meet Ryan's girlfriend. Kassie's our illustrator-in-chief. Kassie meet Elsa, the next great geologist—"

The girl's warm smile disappeared. "It's astrophysics."

"Damn." Adam winced. "That's what I meant. What did I say?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "And you told the cheerleaders I'm a biochemist."

"Can we chalk it up to I'm not smart?" Adam suggested.

"Yeah, we can," Ryan told him, and before I realized what was happening, his hand was on my back, steering me toward the circle of chairs. There was a round of thoughts I could've had about that. How pushy. How demanding. And how could he haul me away from Adam's fascinating attempt at a cleanup, without asking?

But all I could think about was Ryan's hand on my back. The same hand that I'd seen shove over football players. The same hand that definitely would've engulfed mine.

And you know what they say about big hands ….

Damn traitorous voice.

I could ignore it with the actual barbecue setup. It wasn't just a round of chairs together. There were white tables with gold, silver, and bronze trophies. Two Headbanded boxes were stacked on each other at the end. We weren't embarking on a family-friendly game night. We were looking at the second big event of the day.

I raised an eyebrow. "And we're seriously playing?"

"Unfortunately."

The trophies were the size of dinner plates, gleaming in the evening sun. And, right behind the trophies, there was the one football girlfriend I hadn't gotten a chance to chit-chat with at practice.

The other football girlfriends were a full-time welcoming committee, eager with introductions and handshakes, huge smiles, and offers to pick me up a coffee before the first whistle started. They lived and breathed the six-in-the-morning practices.

But June was different. With everything on her schedule, I hadn't gotten a chance to say more than two words to her.

When Ryan stepped aside to help King with the grill, I found my chance.

"Hey." I gave a little wave and tried my best customer service voice. It was strongly implied by Cleo that I had to make friends with all the football girlfriends. "Good to see you."

June didn't bother glancing up from her phone. "You too!"

"It's such a great setup."

"And such a great game," she completed for me, still buried in her phone. "Sorry, Casey, I've got to take this."

"Kassie, it's…Kassie…actually." My voice trailed off like June did, back over to King by the grill. Most of the girlfriends had been so inviting. "Huh."

"Don't worry about it. June's busy." Ryan's voice brought me back to reality.

He saw that?

My cheeks burned. "No, it's fine—um—we're not trying to win this game, right?"

"Nope."

"Good." I sighed, pleased. "We're definitely losing."

"A guaranteed loss," Ryan confirmed.

It wasn't hard finding a place to sit and everyone sat in obvious couple arrangements. That was where my expertise ended. They played Headbanded like I'd never seen it played before.

The headbands were tossed away. We were separated into small groups and competed against each other. Everybody was handed a stack of cards and worked on getting their partner to guess what the word was. The more cards you collected, the more points you racked up.

Ryan and I weren't exactly pros.

"Cold Christmas movie?" I munched on some chips when he passed me the bag. "Ryan, what isn't a cold Christmas movie?"

The football player shrugged. "He's alive?"

"He's alive? Oh, yeah, because Christmas movies are full of dead people. Come on, ball dribbler. You can do better than that."

"It's animated. You should know this."

"An animated zombie Christmas movie?"

When I finally got to see the cards, I burst into laughter.

Frosty the Goddamn Snowman.

The two of us weren't playing to win, and thank god for that. It was so damn hard not to laugh at Ryan. The quarterback was the most straightforward, literal person I'd ever met. I was cracking up. And when I laughed, Ryan chuckled too, which surely helped our score.

In the end, most of the couples bickered and drifted away when they lost, but Ryan and I managed to score ninth and a half place, barely squeaking on the scoreboard.

"There we go. Kicked ass." I offered him a fist bump, and he gave me an amused look.

"Uh-huh."

"Couldn't have done better!"

"Sure." He nodded towards the closed screen door and the low conversation flowing from it. "Time to go."

I did a double take, convinced I'd heard him wrong. "We just got here?"

"It's been thirty minutes."

There was no way, it couldn't have been thirty minutes. I didn't believe him until I slipped my own phone out and checked the time. The barbecue flew by so fast. Not a single other person looked ready to leave. Everyone else was winding down after the football game.

As weird as it was, I was actually enjoying myself. The football girlfriends had taken turns showing me their new profile pictures - all my sketches, and even if Ryan was mad at Adam, he was probably the funniest guy I'd ever met. The defensive end, King, made a real effort to rope me into the conversations when it got too football-y. They were trying to make me feel welcomed. And it was…working.

"Kassie?" Ryan repeated, waiting on me.

I sighed. "Okay. I'll meet you out in the car. I'm getting some more snacks."

It was just my luck to get into a fake relationship with the one guy who took football too seriously. It was a cosmic punishment for missing almost all of the games my freshman and sophomore years.

For how much the football players devoured, June had planned the food perfectly. There was still plenty left. Stacking food on my plate, I took another look at the scoreboard. June and King were in the lead, and it made sense. I'd seen them in action. June flew through the cards while King tossed corn chips in his mouth and aced the questions, one after another.

June stepped from the left and we were the only people at the snack table. I toasted my soda to her. "You did great back there. You guys figured it out."

A secret smile tugged up on her lips, but she kept her eyes glued to her phone. "We always do."

It's bad manners to leave a party early with a plate under your arms, but at least it wasn't my fault we were leaving. I grabbed a water bottle, ready to go.

"Hey, wait. Casey?"

How does she still not know my name?

"Yeah?"

She flashed a smile and cracked a pretzel in half. "I wanted to give you some advice. It would've helped me out in the beginning."

That wasn't a great start to a conversation. "Advice?"

"Yes, advice. Here's the thing, there are different ways to play your cards."

"In… Headbanded ?"

"I've been around the block here." She chuckled, but I had no clue why she was chuckling. "Above everything, they want you to be upfront about the relationship. You can't be coy, you have to be the most candid about it. Get it?"

"Candid?"

"I figured we could talk because, I mean, honestly, I went after Ryan first." She shook her head and something cold wrapped its fingers around my throat. "He's only been team captain this semester, but I knew his potential freshman year. It was completely obvious. His passing stats, touchdown records, arm length, hand span, he bounced a little on his weight, but that's good to see. Malleable, you know?"

I didn't say anything.

"When it came back with a no, I just figured he was gay."

Nothing so far had prepared me for our conversation. I was frozen to the ground.

"Let me know when you're finished with him." June smiled. "There's plenty of people ready to jump at the chance."

My thoughts booted up like a modem and none of them were good.

June talked about Ryan like he was a cow for sale, a piece of meat on a slab. I'd heard it from the assistant coaches too, they talked about all of the football players in terms of their stats. I should've been used to it. Nobody ran the football team through drills for something fun to do.

Why does it matter when June says it?

His weight, height, and muscle mass were all publicly indexed. If anything, I could've laughed about the conversation with him. But it didn't make me laugh. It made me sick to my stomach.

I opened my mouth, I shut it, and I opened it again. "This has been…fun. A blast."

"Let me know, okay?"

I didn't reply but I wanted to. Oh, I absolutely wanted to. But any of the fifty remarks I had locked and loaded would've gotten bad looks at the barbecue, especially with shots fired at the hostess. The hostess that I needed to be good friends with.

With a small smile, June sauntered to the Headbanded finales.

I could've crushed my water bottle between my fingers. There was an undeniable truth to my anger. I didn't want someone like June to have him. And I didn't want her to think there was a possibility that she could have him.