Melody's Crush

Chapter 29

Max eyed the stands before turning to watch the cheerleaders as they encouraged the crowd to join them in cheering with spirit.

"Okay. So public school does have its perks," he said like a player as he nodded his head and smiled at one of the girls winking at him from the track turf.

Popping him in the shoulder, he whirled around and looked down at me, his eyes batting with innocence.

"Behave or I'm going home," I threatened.

"Are you always this feisty?"

My breath hiccupped as my mind shot to the time when Kyle asked me the same thing. Blinking a few times, I turned and pushed through the crowd in order to guide us to some seats.

Lifting an arm over the crowd, Max pointed out an opening up higher in the stands.  Shuffling across a few knees and laps, we finally got to sit down just as the crowd jumped to their feet screaming. Looking up, I noticed one of our guys passing over the touchdown zone, ball in hand.

Thrilled, I jumped up yelling with the crowd my excitement in our team scoring, my hands cupped around my mouth as I joined in the "hoah hoah hoah" chant.

Smiling, I finally sat back down next to Max who was staring at me mystified.

I popped him on the thigh. "Why didn't you cheer your brother on? They just scored," I said as if he didn't understand the meaning of how the game was played.

"Wow," he said shaking his head.

"What?" I shook my head. "Oh, just turn your head and watch the game." My palm pushed gently against his cheek to push his head to look the other direction.

Chuckling, I turned back to watch the game.

Max stood up and cupped his hands around his mouth yelling, "Way to go, Kyle! Whoooooah!"

Heat flushed my cheeks as everyone in earshot turned to look at us, or at least him. But it felt like they were all blaming me for his outburst.

I slapped Max in the butt as he looked down at me in surprise while rubbing the offended area.

"Oh, this is gonna be a long night, isn't it?" I retorted.

He sat down and smiled over at me. Then taking me by surprise again, he reached to grab my hand to hold it. "Can you hold my hand?" he asked with a slight pout. "My hand is cold."

"What?" I pulled my palm from his warm grasp and shook my head as if he had rabies. "Are you nuts? I'm not holding your hand. Your brother would kill me!"

"That's the plan." He leaned in toward me so our faces were close together making it look like from a distance we were being intimate.

My eyes cut toward the field sideline benches. Kyle's hand was on his hip as he slammed his helmet down on the seat causing the player next to him to look up at him in protest.

I jerked my head back from Max as he swung around in his seat continuing to watch the game like nothing happened.

I was right the first time. Max was as psycho as his mother.

For the next three quarters and a half, I tried to keep my mind on the game and only looked at Kyle occasionally. It was nearing the final minutes of the game and we were up by three points, the other team had the ball.

My knee bounced at a super unnatural rate until I felt a warm hand cup over it causing me to freeze. Sitting to my right, Jake had somehow appeared causing me to blink in surprise. Leaving his hand on my knee, he turned to look down at me, a soft expression in his eyes as he smiled.