the way you'd love her

F O U R T E E N

GAGE

I shut my front door and walked down my cement steps that led to the driveway. I hopped into my truck, starting it up while cringing. He's a bit dirty from the front, I should've taken him in for a car wash. I got my car when I turned sixteen, and I named him Kobe Bryant. He's my favorite basketball player, so it seemed like the logical thing to do. I pulled into the driveway next door, hopping out and ringing the doorbell. I didn't bother calling Belle, considering her mom is a morning freak. She wakes up at like six, everyday. So I knew the whole house was awake, unlike my parents who were still sleeping quietly in their bed.

Belle's mom opened the door for me.
"Good morning Gager! First day of your last year of high school. Oh my God, where is my phone? I need my annual picture!" She ushered off somewhere in the house, and I chuckled.
"Good morning Auntie Julie." I shouted as she went up the stairs frantically.

Blair sat in her favorite chair at the kitchen island and ate oatmeal. I kissed her head and took a seat next to her, grabbing a banana for a quick bite. My stomach grumbled, but I didn't know if that was because I was hungry or nervous.

I had been ignoring Belle all week. I hadn't seen her once. And then when we had that movie night, I forgot everything. I had been on the phone with Dylan for two hours, and I didn't remember to pick up the bag that was filled with snacks, movies, and games. Oops. It had kind of contributed to my plan of being a colossal dickhead, though. She was clearly hurt last night, and I would've sprinted to my house if she wanted me to. That was the problem, I would do absolutely anything for her.

Dylan has been helping with that a lot. I never realized that I barely have friends. Like, actual friends. Not teammates, or people who say hi to me in the hallways. Friends. Dylan was one of them. We hung out almost every day this past week. On Tuesday, I showed her around Boston, and even took her to my favorite frozen yogurt place. On Wednesday, we met up at the dog park and walked around for like two hours, just talking and getting to know each other better. Even Bailey and Charlie, her German Shepard, were being friendly with each other. On Thursday, we hung out at her house, and I met all of her little brothers. All four of them had the same fiery orange hair color as she did. It was her father who was the ginger, apparently. Her mother cursed him everyday because their kids looked just like him and nothing like her. After I met her family, she took me to this soup kitchen. She had found it online, and she needed to fill her community service hours up. It was a good thing I needed to as well, because we spent that afternoon serving food to homeless people.

Over the weekend, I made her come to Fridays closed practice. Coach didn't mind that I snuck her in, even though it was technically against the rules, but that was probably because I was captain. Plus he adored me. If I told him to change his entire starting lineup, give everyone new positions and divorce his wife, he wouldn't even question me. Okay, maybe on the wife part. But we had a really good relationship. Anyways, Dylan had sat on the bleachers. We were only conditioning for that practice, which I probably should've asked about before I brought her in. But, at the end, I convinced coach to let us run a quick scrimmage.

My team, skins, had won by six. And let me tell you, it felt really fucking good to have a hot girl running towards my arms at the end of the game. She didn't mind that I was sweaty, and just jumped on me. I hugged her back and spun her around a little. I really wanted to have sex with her. She was so nice and hot and just awesome. Like she was actually great company.

"You did so good! I like that part when you tricked the guy into thinking you were going left, and you did, for a second! But then, as he went to get the ball from you, you turned to go right and you went to the net! That was so cool!" She shouted happily. I couldn't stop thinking about her moaning my name in that damn southern accent.
"Thanks, that's called a crossover." I told her grinning, taking a quick sip of water as my teammates huddled up. "I'll take you to a basketball game one day and teach you all the terminology" I winked down at her, swallowing more water. She smiled and nodded.