At some point after my conversation with Reid in the film room, a mutual understanding between us had arrived on campus.

Over the next few weeks, we'd made decidedly non-hostile eye contact across the nutrition center as he sipped his gross green smoothie. But he hadn't given me an answer yet, and before I knew it, it was July.

Derek and I had convened in the air conditioned sanction of the nutrition center in the football complex, my large cold brew already sweating in the thick, artificial air being pumped in.

Official move-in day for fall athletes was last week, which meant it finally felt like a team belonged here instead of just us ghosts haunting an abandoned space that used to be loved. I was reminded that it was in fact still loved, the tables mostly filled as boisterous conversations mingled in the air, drowning out the sound of a baseball game that played on the massive TV screen set into the far wall. Some players came over and said hi to us and made the generic how was your summer small talk, but I still found my gaze wandering.

It wasn't like I proactively looked for him, but like me, Reid had no life outside of the football complex, and it didn't take long before he walked through the facility in stride with Coach Nix, the team's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. While the team wouldn't be allowed to formally meet with coaches until summer access started July 12th, as Reid had pointed out to me previously, those rules don't really apply to him. Nobody was going to nitpick the injured quarterback for wanting to get reacquainted with his offensive coaches.

They talked as they made their way around the facility, Reid's hands animated as they spoke.

"Are you even listening to me?"

Derek threw an ice cube at me, effectively placing me back at our table with a cold shock. A puddle of condensation had now collected under my cold brew, and I took a long, much needed sip.

"I am, I am," I insisted. "I think bringing transfusions tonight is a terrible idea. Somehow it would definitely result in someone getting arrested."

Transfusions were dangerous drinks because they didn't taste like alcohol and were packed with electrolytes, meaning you could get effectively blacked out drunk without tasting it and while being hydrated.

"I moved on from transfusions five minutes ago," Derek scoffed. "You know Jo, I'm starting to think you're just using me for my access into this building so you can catch sneaky glimpses at Donahue. You act like you're not interested in him, but you're just like the rest of us."

I scoffed. "First of all, if I did have this so-called interest in him, it's from a professional perspective. Second of all, I can get in here with or without you. Of the two of us, I believe I'm the one with an office in this building. You have a locker."

Derek kept his gaze on his straw, twirling it pinched between his fingers. "I know all of that. I was just seeing how defensive you would get."

"That's unfair, I'm always defensive."

"Point taken."

Reid flashed in my peripherals again as he completed his lap around the room by himself, passing a big sign on the wall by the door out to the lobby that said in blocky, silver letters BEST IS THE STANDARD.

Keeping my eyes fixed on the sign, I propped my elbow up on the table and balanced my chin in my hand. "You think he'd come tonight?"

Despite most fall athletes being all moved in, there was still such a small majority of Clemson's student body on campus. So instead of all of us trying to throw a bunch of little parties, it was just understood that there would be one big get together for 4th of July at the lake at the edge of campus, for anyone who was around to hang out, drink, and light sparklers. The town set off fireworks which could be seen from the banks of the lake, and a big bonfire was lit when the sun went down.

Derek pinched his lips together and shook his head. "I doubt it. Why? More of your professional interest?"

"No, I just..." I surrendered a sigh. "It would suck if he was alone, that's all."

Even though I was almost certain Reid's solitude would be self-imposed, I didn't like the thought of him just sitting around alone tonight, and I wasn't sure why. It's not like we were suddenly best friends or something.

"Reid is a proud card carrying member of the Anti-Social Social Club. I'm sure he thinks he's not missing anything," Derek said with a lazy flick of his wrist.

"I know." I shook my head, unwilling to let the Reid Thoughts™ spread through my brain like a fungus. "You're right."

Derek shrugged. "I'm always right."

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Derek had unsurprisingly not listened to me and brought the transfusions anyway. He dropped his Yeti backpack cooler onto the sand beside a bunch of plastic folding beach chairs we'd arranged in a semi-circle. About a dozen more set-ups like ours dotted the narrow banks of the lake, and while a few of them intermingled, people came and went most of the afternoon.

A mixture of music floated through the air, but I kept the bluetooth speaker by our setup synced into my Laguna Beach mastermix. Even though the main point of my playlist selection was to drown out the nauseating sound of the generic country music everyone played, I was in a nostalgic mood. While we weren't in Southern California, sitting on a little strip of sand at Lake Hartwell in Clemson, South Carolina with my closest friends wasn't half bad. The lake was big enough to give off a gentle breeze, and the air held something promising as the sun began to set.

"I still can't believe you picked hanging out with us over spending the weekend at Edisto Island." I let out a breathy laugh as Kayla took the empty chair beside me.

"You could at least act happy to see me," she chided me with a grin.

"No, I am, I am," I held up my hands in defense. "I'm kind of relieved, actually."

As if on cue, Reid stepped into my peripheral, even though there were about 15 people between us. I wasn't sure when he'd actually shown up, but it wasn't hard to spot him among people far shorter than he was, sporting a backwards Clemson baseball hat and Ray Bans. He might have actually smiled once or twice, and every time I had the misfortune of catching him when he did, my heart kicked up into a sprint. His teeth were so perfect, he could have been in a toothpaste commercial.

"You and Donahue playing nice?" she asked, following my pathetically obvious line of sight.

"Is that what we're calling it now?" Derek asked as he handed us each a cup of transfusion. I scowled down into the fruit punch looking liquid, the sugary fruity smell already churning my stomach.

"Oh shut up, Derek." I whacked him with one of my flip-flops I'd discarded in the sand next to my chair. "You're the one who said you doubted he would even come."

"Doubt is not certainty," Derek pointedly said as he took the last open chair in our circle. "I'm convinced JJ must have blackmailed him."

Kayla smiled behind her cup before taking a sip. "Well who cares why he's here? It's nice to see him crawl out of his fallout shelter, isn't it Jo?"

I groaned. "God, what is with you two? If either of you have something to say, please by all means share it."

"It's nothing Jo," Kayla giggled and shook her head, but I wasn't blind to the glances her and Derek were trading.

I scoffed. "Has the definition of nothing changed recently?"

Kayla leaned over in her chair and pressed her cup to her cheek, lowering her voice to just enough of a whisper so that only I could hear her. "He looks over here at you every two minutes. Like he wants your attention but won't come over here and actually grab it."

I allowed myself the slightest glance out into the crowd, still keeping my head turned towards Kayla. As usual, it wasn't hard to find Reid at what seemed to be the gravitational center of our little universe, people orbiting him like planets orbiting the sun, desperate to catch just a bit of his light. That was the Reid I remembered.

But while he entertained some conversation, his gaze was directed outwards to the distance, almost detached from where he was. Also decidedly not in my direction.

"You're grossly over exaggerating," I scoffed at Kayla.

She leaned back in her chair, nodding slowly in a way that I knew by now meant that she wasn't buying my shit. "I know you know this, but if Reid does agree to do the ESPN piece, you're going to be spending a lot more time with him. You know it's okay to take a legitimate interest in him."

I tilted my head upwards with a sigh, and as the last bits of light painted the sky a dusty lavender color, stars began to faintly appear. "I just feel like I had such a clear idea in my head of who he was and what he was about, and...I'm pretty sure I was wrong. I hate being wrong, especially when it comes to people. It makes me feel...incompetent, I guess."

"You're not incompetent, and you're not wrong," Kayla said. "He's just changed, but so have you. It's kind of the way the world works, girlfriend."

I leaned over to her and put my head on her shoulder. "Why do you have to go and be an adult?" I pouted. "Why can't you just stay here with me another year?"

Kayla patted my head like a puppy. "Even though I have to be an adult in the real world soon, we can kick some ass in beer pong for old time's sake."

So we got up and grabbed our drinks in search of competition. As we walked over to where JJ and a few other receivers on the team had been setting up two beer pong tables, Kayla gave my red cropped tank top an aggressive tug downwards, exposing at least an extra inch of cleavage. "You have boobs that some girls pay a lot of money for. They should be out."

"Great, thanks for having my best interests at heart," I chuckled with an eye roll.

"Always," Kayla winked at me with a grin.

JJ eagerly waved us over to join him and one of the team's starting tight ends, Clayton Davis. Reid was nowhere to be found.

As the sun went down, a few fires were lit, and all the little social circles began opening up. People started to shut their own music off in lieu of the large speaker by JJ's table playing old school R&B, and we all had seemed to resign ourselves to a good night.

After several highly competitive beer pong games, I walked back to our cooler to get another drink, and by the time I made my way back, Kayla had peeled away with JJ. They sat by one of the fires and looked to be engrossed in an intense conversation, but then Kayla laughed at something he said, and I backed away with a faint smile.

No matter how many times my body wanted to betray me, I kept telling myself to stop looking for Reid. After all, I'd been having a perfectly dandy time with or without his attention, and it wasn't my responsibility to regulate his social boiling point. If he wanted to come talk to me, he could.

Even so, I found him without truly looking, like a compass seeking the Earth's poles, even after the sun had set and night blanketed us. At this point he'd completely separated himself from everyone else, no longer the gravitational center but a wayward asteroid that had found its escape gravity. There was an empty chair beside him as he sat by one of the fires that had been lit, enticing me over.

Whichever little part of me that didn't like seeing him sitting there alone took complete control, and it moved my body on its own. I walked around the bonfire and ungraciously dropped into the chair.

He looked over at me as if he thought maybe I was just a trick of the light. In the flickering orange glow of the fire, there was a stoicness to his features as shadows and light danced across his cheeks. I might have been a little drunk, but it didn't make him any less handsome. In fact, it almost made it worse, because it made me less immune.

Thankfully, he tore his gaze away from mine and looked down into his cup, and I wondered if he was contemplating leaving. I didn't want him to, but god forbid I actually said that, so I blurted out the first thing I could think of.

"So, maybe you can shed some light on this whole Kayla and JJ thing," I said with a half-hearted chuckle. "Because I personally had no idea."

"Oh, I did," Reid half-heartedly chuckled back. "One of the first things I learned about JJ was his complete inability to keep his damn mouth shut. Never trust him with a secret."

"Duly noted."

He winced as he shifted in the plastic folding beach chair, and the moment he realized I'd seen it, he snapped upright, twisting his features back into his casual indifference. But we both knew what I saw.

If Reid agreed to do the piece, I would be more or less asking him to rip out his insides and show them to me. I had to be willing to hold them in my hands, and I had to get him to trust me to do so.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"You mean ascending through the Earth's crust up from Hell?" A ghost of a grin tugged at Reid's lips. "No, not at all."

"Ha-ha." I offered him a deadpan laugh. "I meant your knee."

Reid took a slow sip of whatever was in his cup. "My knee is fine."

I turned to face my whole body towards him, and every time I was this close to him, I was reminded of how small he made me feel. Not just in the literal sense, but in the metaphysical sense. He just took up space.

"You look like you're in pain," I told him. "Maybe I just have heightened awareness of it because of what I do and how much time I spend around you guys, but I can't be the only person who sees it."

Reid rolled his words around in his mouth before he finally spoke, his gaze turned towards the fire. "I'm in pain because I don't take any painkillers. I won't take them."

He made it sound so simple, but it wasn't.

"Okay," I nodded contemplatively. "Care to elaborate?"

The chair creaked under his weight as he sat back into it, folding his arms over his chest. He kept his gaze into the fire, his leg bobbing up and down enough for his sandal to make a slapping sound against his foot.

"So...during my freshman year, Clemson was recruiting this quarterback. Some hot shot private school kid from Connecticut I think, but he was really good. I guess he was kind of meant to be my successor. Supposedly he was wicked smart too, like had offers from Ivy League schools and stuff. Anyway, I guess he'd gotten hurt during a game in the middle of the season, and for some reason he'd gotten prescribed Vicodin from his doctors."

"Really?" I arched an eyebrow in disbelief. "That seems excessive, especially for a minor."

"Well, he was 18," Reid said in a low voice. "And you'd be surprised how often it happens. But I don't think anyone expected him to just...spiral. He was driving drunk and high, crashed his car, got a DUI, and really fucked his leg up. Clemson revoked his offer, and I think he went to rehab. I'm not sure what happened to him after that."

"That's...that's really sad, actually," I frowned.

"You know what's sadder? I don't even remember his name." Reid scowled and shook his head. "But I remember the story. So I don't mess with that shit. I refuse to be reduced to a cautionary tale."

This time I was the one that turned my gaze to the fire. It was warm, but not in a gross way like the summer heat was. It was comfortable and inviting.

"Sounds kinda like what happened to Ryan Leaf." I shrugged. "He's like three different kinds of cautionary tales."

Reid laughed, and the unexpected sound of it had me recoiling slightly. I wasn't sure I'd ever heard him laugh so unhindered before. It was a nice sound.

"What's so funny?" I gently shoved him in the arm.

"You just casually name-dropping Ryan Leaf," he shook his head, still grinning a sideways grin. "I don't think I know any girl who knows who Ryan Leaf is."

I wondered if Reid was aware that I could have potentially taken that comment the wrong way - in the well you're a girl way. So I pressed him on it the way I knew I could.

"I think there are some guys who don't know who Ryan Leaf is either," I played coy, sliding a sideways glance in his direction just to see his smirk falter.

"Yeah, that's true." He managed to let out a hollow chuckle. "You're right. Sorry, I just mean...it's kind of nice to be a little nerdy about football with someone. Anyone."

Because underneath the bravado and the talent, he really was a football nerd, and that was part of what made him that good. He understood the game on almost a molecular level.

"Well, I just like knowing things." I shrugged. "I don't really have the luxury of half-assing stuff when it comes to my career, but I realized I sort of do it with everything, even with my interests and hobbies. When I like something, I have this urge to just know and learn everything I can about it."

"You willingly being a know-it-all makes so much sense," Reid chuckled.

"As if you know me so well." I rolled my eyes.

"You're not that hard to figure out." Reid gently elbowed me. "It's not a bad thing, you know. People tend to act a certain way around me because of who I am, and it gets annoying. That's why even when I knew you didn't like me, I didn't really mind because I knew where I stood with you. I feel like I don't get that with a lot of people."

I continued digging a hole into the cool sand with my foot. "Just so you know, I do like you."

The transfusions had caught up with me, muddling whatever tact I had left, so it took me almost a full second for me to realize what I'd just said. But it was enough time for Reid's ears to turn red.

"I mean...you're okay," I quickly course-corrected. "I don't...I don't dislike you."

"Uh, thanks?" Reid looked down into his cup again, but a faint, almost coy grin tugged at his lips. "I don't dislike you either."

Our eyes finally met, and my heart lurched at the realization of how close we were. He took a breath and went to say something else, but fireworks began bursting in the night sky, raining down lights and colors on us.

Reid blew out a breath as he leaned back into his chair, tilting his head upwards towards the sky. Flashes of light dotted his face in reds and blues, and I finally forced myself to look upwards. I felt every burst of fireworks boom in my chest, making my heart shudder.

It wasn't long before he pulled my gaze back with magnetic energy, except this time when I looked at him again, he was already looking at me.

"What?" I asked him with a faint smile.

His mouth moved, but his words were swallowed by the booming of the fireworks.

"Wait, what?"

"I said I'll do it."

"Oh my god, really?"

A mixture of elation, adrenaline, and maybe even a bit of relief surged through me, and it was enough to make me lean over and throw my arms around Reid's broad shoulders. He smelled like fire kindling and that familiar woodsy cologne, and he let me linger there longer than I should have.

"This is going to be great," I blurted out as I pulled away from him. "I promise."

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my girl is down bad and i don't even think she knows it yet. but reid said YES, so now the real fun begins <3

also...did y'all catch that easter egg 👀