Home > Fair Play (End Zone, #1)

Fair Play (End Zone, #1)
Author: Cathryn Fox

 

1

 

 

Ella

 

 

“What does this button do?”

I smack my best friend’s hand away from the football’s team brand new camcorder, and give her the evil eye. She knows better than to play with it, which makes the shocked looked on her face all the more amusing. But the fact is, I’ve been entrusted with the very expensive device to record the Falcons’ first home game. Since I can’t afford to replace it, I can’t let my friend go around poking at every shiny knob and possibly breaking something.

“What?” Peyton says, blinking dark lashes over big innocent eyes. “I’m just asking a question.”

“No. You’re pushing buttons you shouldn’t be pushing. Now sit there before I send you to the bleachers with everyone else.” I point to the bench to the left of us and raise a warning brow.

She gives a light laugh, brushing off my threat. “You’d never do that. You love me too much.” She’s right. I wouldn’t. Peyton and I have been best friends since kindergarten, and for the last three years we’ve been college roommates choosing apartment-style living over a sorority house. She’s here for a degree in social work, and I’m here because I want to be a filmmaker. Yeah, working in Hollywood, behind the scenes, has been my dream since childhood.

Beside me, Peyton gives a very big, very happy sigh and takes in the football field from our perch—only the best, first class seating for the camera woman. “I do love the perks of being your best friend,” she says as she admires the football players warming up. A few are so close we could practically reach out and touch them if we wanted to. I don’t.

“I really can’t understand the fascination,” I murmur. “A bunch of guys in tight pants chasing a ball.”

She crosses her arms, and waggles her brows at me. “What’s it called again when a player passes the goal line with the ball in his hand?”

“Winning,” I say, giving her a look that suggests she might be dense, but when she breaks out laughing, I crack a smile. Yeah, I get it. I’m the one who’s dense. It’s true, I know nothing about football, but I need this fourth-year credit to complete my cinematic arts degree and really, do I need to understand the game to record it for the team to analyze later? That would be a big fat no. I hope.

“Well, at least you know how this thing works,” Peyton says, once again scoping out the buttons on my camcorder. “How about this knob? What does it do?”

“Peyton, cut it out.” I slap her hand again and laugh at her childish antics. How we remained friends all these years when we’re so different is a mystery. But we love each other like sisters. Sisters? Wait, that’s not right at all. I’m an identical twin and my sister Ivy and I go together like hotdogs and Ferris wheels. Peyton and I, however, no matter how different, we just work.

I stare at her. “Don’t you have football players to drool over?” Unlike me, she knows every player, and doesn’t hold the same kind of grudge against them as I do.

I adjust my ballcap to shade the sun from my eyes as I glance out at the football field. I catch sight of my sister Ivy as she kicks one leg out and flirts with one of the players, trailing her finger over his chest. Blonde and bubbly. That’s Ivy. We were raised by the same two parents, yet we’re so different, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a cheerleading outfit that barely covered my ass. That’s her business though, and I don’t judge or interfere in her life, just like she doesn’t interfere in mine.

I’d like to think when push comes to shove, she’d be there for me, just like I’d be there for her. At least, I think she’d be there for me. We might not hang out, but we love one another and have each other’s best interests at heart. Of that I’m certain. It’s funny really. Ever since we were young, we fell into certain roles. The extrovert and the introvert, the outgoing one and the quiet one. I always stood in the shadows and let her have the limelight. Pretty Ivy, the theater student who lights up a room with her smile and flamboyance when she enters. Which of course, makes me the introverted smart, quiet one. We both easily fell into those roles and have yet to stray.

Peyton gives a low, slow whistle. “I don’t know what you have against tight pants. Look at all those cute butts and luscious muscles. Talk about slurpalicious.” She rakes her teeth over her bottom lip. “Don’t you want one little nibble, one taste?”

I give her a playful shove to move her away from the camcorder. “No. No nibbles. No tastes.” I’m a virgin with no plans to change that anytime soon, and as my best friend, she damn well knows it. I take up position behind the camera, and look at the world through my beloved lens. I exhale a contented breath. This is where I belong. This is where I feel most at home.

Okay, yeah, so it’s true. I’m the world’s biggest nerd. Do I care? Nope. Not one little bit. I’m happy to stand in the shadow and view the world through my camcorder lens. As I do, I catch sight of Ivy again as she shakes her ass for the boys on the field. Truth be told, I actually hate football players. Back in high school, they bullied my friend Jacob until he ended up taking his own life. Terrible hazing went on at our school. The bullying was torturous and cruel, and no matter how hard Peyton and I tried to help Jacob, get him help, the bullying continued, and actually increased the more we tried to stop it. A stab of pain sears my heart at the painful memory, and I suck in air to breathe through it. I know I shouldn’t lump all jocks into one category, shouldn’t label them all as egotistical bullies, but a single player has yet to prove me wrong. Arrogant assholes. What more can I say?

I check my watch, as my stomach growls. “Hungry much?” Peyton says. “Maybe you’d like a nibble after all?”

“Really, Peyton. Did you just meet me?” I tease and reach into my backpack and grab a granola bar, all the while trying to cleanse my brain of football players and their tight asses—one player in particular. Peyton holds her hand out, and I place a bar in her palm. Granola bars and juice boxes on the go. The life of a busy fourth year student—or that of a toddler.

She tears into her wrapper and looks me in the eye. Her brow is furrowed as she examines me like I’m a bug under a microscope—a new kind of species no one can figure out. “You really don’t find any of those guys attractive?”

“Nope, not a single one of them.” A little white lie never hurt anything, right? “I prefer brains over brawn.”

“That’s a pretty blanket statement don’t you think? I bet a lot of them are smart.” Peyton doesn’t hold the same grudge as I do. She figured it was a few bad apples on our high school football team who persecuted Jacob until his suicide, not every jock in the world. I don’t forgive as easily. Maybe it’s the social worker in her. She sees the world through a different lens, and that’s her right.

“Yeah, probably.” I shrug. She’s right, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to hold it against her if she wants to date a player.

She grins. “What about Landon Brooks?”

A chunk of granola lodges in my throat and I try not to react, try not to let my eyes bulge out of my brain as I choke. Reacting will only fuel her ridiculous fantasy that Landon and I would be good together. She’s wrong, a million times over. A trillion, even.

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