The headlines following Clemson's 63-13 home opener victory against Wake Forest were...violent. Phrases like Bloodbath in Death Valley and Merciless Tigers Shred Demon Deacons Limb From Limb littered most South Carolina news outlet headlines. The team had "Victory Monday" off, but Reid was right about one thing - it was just one win, and they had to do it all over again this weekend.

Affluent programs like Clemson could afford chartered flights to far away games, piling the team and the staff on a cushy Delta plane just for us, leaving early in the morning the day before the game. That didn't make me personally feel any better, since it felt like if I opened my mouth my stomach would come spilling out onto the tacky blue carpeting of the plane aisle.

Most of the coaching staff were in first class, including Coach Riley and Coach Nix, who were already sat and mulling through a thick folder, no doubt already starting the offensive preparations for Boston College. What I wouldn't give to be as anxiety-free as them right now. Mara and I shuffled along towards the middle back of the plane, and I didn't even have it in me to look for Reid.

On normal flights, I had a system. I took my Dramamine, curled myself up in the window seat, and played After Dark by Mr. Kitty on repeat for the entire duration of the flight. I could not explain the origins of that song being my comfort flight song, but it was, and it was constantly in my Spotify top songs for that reason alone.

But this was not a normal flight. This was the first true away game of the season, and I didn't need to make my freak-outs known to people I spent all day every day with so early.

"Row 23," Mara said as she nodded towards our empty row. "Not too bad."

"It's all bad," I grumbled to myself as I slid my carry-on into the overhead bin. In the brief moment I turned my head to gaze towards the front of the plane, it was easy to spot Reid, headphones on, sliding into the first row in economy - no doubt for the extra leg room.

"Listen, don't take offense to this, but I will literally have my back to you the entire time," I told Mara as I unceremoniously dropped into the window seat and kicked my backpack underneath the seat. Luckily we had an extra seat in between us, since my leg was already shaking up and down about 147 miles per hour. "I just need to look out the window, it makes me feel better."

"Don't worry about it," she shrugged. "Just take your pills, you'll be fine. It's a short flight."

"Two and a half hours is not short," I groaned, but I did what she said and swallowed down two Dramamine before putting my Airpods in. 

Take-off was the worst for me. Every little noise, bump, and stall had me thinking the plane was just going to shut off and fall right out of the sky. I liked looking out the window at the horizon line because it not only eased my vertigo, but helped confirm that we were in fact still flying at the same altitude and not dropping 100s of feet.

The Dramamine made me drowsy, but not enough to fully shut my eyes and shut my anxiety off. Once we were at altitude, the seatbelt sign went off, and everyone seemed to wake up. After all, any halfway normal college kid would revel in traveling and being on a plane with all your closest friends, playing music and socializing like it was one big party.

Mara had gotten up at some point, and while I was sure she might have tried to communicate that with me, I was also sure I just curtly waved her off, focusing on the solemn, droning tones of my song and the sky as streaks of morning sunlight painted the clouds. I stayed in my window seat, curling into myself like an armadillo would to protect its weak underbelly. I avoided looking at my phone or my watch, because I didn't want to be reminded of how little time had passed.

As the hours pass

I will let you know

That I need to ask

Before I'm alone

How it feels to rest

On your patient lips

To eternal bliss

I'm so glad to know

At some point I may have actually shut my eyes, but a turbulent bump quickly shook me awake, and it kickstarted my heart in a way an IV of caffeine straight to my veins would have. I felt Mara tapping my shoulder, and at first I just waved her off without taking my gaze off of the window. She tapped me again, and I clenched my jaw as I paused my music.

"What?" I hissed through my teeth, eyes still out towards the blanket of passing clouds. Still airborne, still safe.

"What are you looking at?"

If I thought I was going to vomit up my stomach earlier, I was about to lose all of my internal organs when I realized that was not Mara's voice.

"The horizon, Reid," I replied curtly.

He must have figured out I wasn't going to turn away from the window, so he leaned over to put his head next to mine, his fresh and clean scent wafting over me.

"So, are you like...waiting for a UFO to go by or something?"

"Could you be any more insensitive?" I whipped my head around, only to find his face just an inch from mine, smiling in a way that was both tender and absolutely shit-eating. 

"Hi," he said softly.

"Hi," I echoed.

"You okay?"

"Do I look okay?"

He kept smiling. "Not in the slightest."

He somehow found a way to inch even closer to me, his long legs splayed out so he could fit himself comfortably in both the middle and aisle seat of our row, pressing his right knee up against my left thigh. I couldn't imagine how uncomfortable a regular flight was for him, where he actually had to share space with other regular-sized humans.

On the other hand, I could barely bring myself to move again. I would have almost preferred he just laid on top of me, like a big stupid Dove soap smelling weighted blanket.

He held his hand out. "Give me your phone."

"Why?"

He scoffed. "Just open up your Spotify and give it to me."

I did as he asked, slowly and warily and very unfortunately catching the time: 9:35 AM, which meant only one more long, agonizing hour to go.

He pulled up the search function in Spotify, almost immediately found what he was looking for and pressed play, keeping my phone in his hand. At first I didn't recognize the song,

"So, after the Georgia loss, and after this very persuasive girl I knew kicked my ass into gear..." he told me with a grin. "This song came up on my shuffle once while I was warming up, and something about it just made me feel so much better, even if it was just for the few minutes the song was playing. Almost like divine intervention if you believe in that shit."

When the song fully kicked in, I couldn't help but smile to myself as I finally recognized it. Reid noticed that I had too, sliding me another shit eating grin and taking one of my Airpods out so he could listen too.

"I mean, it's the core of the song," he continued. "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down."

All I could bring myself to do was lean my head on his shoulder, my heart still rapidly thumping against my chest, my nerves fighting against all the calm warmth spreading through me at the feeling of his touch.

"I just wanna know what the fuck Tubthumping means," I mumbled into his shoulder.

"Who knows, and who cares? It works, doesn't it?"

I felt him reach over for my hand, lacing his fingers between mine. When the song ended, he played it again, and when I tensed up at the turbulence at the start of our descent, he squeezed my hand tighter.

"Don't you have to go back to your seat?" I asked him, still squeezing his arm with my other hand.

"I made Mara switch seats with me," he whispered into the top of my head, barely audible over the humming of the plane engine and the idle laughter and conversations. This time, I was sure my heart would just explode.

━━━━━━

In short, we thumped Boston College. One win was good. Two in a row was when the momentum started to build, along with the confidence that I was sure Reid at the very least needed, and it spread to the whole team.

Was it considered somewhat disrespectful to celebrate in an opponent's locker room after a win? Yes. Did they care? Not really, no. They earned it.

Reid took control of the speaker and blasted Tubthumping, and the entire team loved it, jumping around and singing I get knocked down, but I get up again. I squeezed myself in there and filmed the whole thing for social media.

While the game itself had been a 3:00 afternoon game, we weren't leaving to go back to Clemson until tomorrow morning. I knew it would be in my best interest to keep myself awake for as long as possible so I would actually be tired on the flight home, so I busied myself with content filing and editing in our hotel room.

It was almost 10 when Mara tried to be casual about leaving the room.

"Where are you going?" I asked her.

"Me? Just...down the hall." She gestured vaguely towards our hotel room door.

"Uh huh," I nodded. "And what's down the hall?"

Mara rocked back and forth on her toes. She was still dressed, albeit in lounge clothes that were particularly flattering on her tall, fit frame.

"The vending machine, duh." She said with a scoff.

"Okay," I nodded again. "Have fun at the vending machine."

"That's not...I'm not..." she huffed out a groan. "Whatever, I'm going. Goodbye."

When she shut the door behind her with a loud click, I shook my head, like an old woman on her porch watching the neighborhood kids go galavanting around, getting dirty and having crushes. An unexpected pang of jealousy hit me, but I shook it off. Instead, I found myself going back to the Tubthumping video, smiling at the way he smiled - it was contagious. 

My phone buzzed, and maybe there really was that divine intervention happening that he talked about on the plane.

REID DONAHUE: you up?

REID DONAHUE: shit i didn't mean like that.

I chuckled as I typed a response.

ME: can't sleep?

REID DONAHUE: nope, you?

ME: nope.

I hyper-fixated on the way the three little typing dots would appear and disappear in our chat, like he was typing and deleting and typing and deleting.

REID DONAHUE: wanna go for a walk?

I sucked in a breath as I found myself doing the same thing he did, typing and deleting and typing and deleting. I didn't want to seem too eager, but I was also above playing games, especially since I know he didn't. I just settled for something simple.

ME: sure. be at my room in 5

I hopped off the bed, not waiting for his response as I quickly changed out of my tatty, five year old pajama pants from Victoria's Secret and threw on a pair of leggings and a Clemson hoodie before darting into the bathroom. I put my hair back in a claw clip and brushed my teeth, speeding through some basic skincare until there was a knock at the door.

"Hi," he said as I swung the door open.

"Hi," I replied with a faint grin.

Even in sweats and a hoodie, he was a sight to look at, but at this point I think it was just me, and how I saw him.

"So, do you know where we're going, or are we wandering aimlessly?" I asked as we made our way down the hotel hallway to the elevators.

"Both?" he furrowed his brows. "I sort of know where to go, but we might wander a little aimlessly to get there. That okay?"

"I'm fine with whatever," I told him. Truthfully, he could have walked me through a back alley full of dumpsters and I would have been fine with it.

I wasn't sure what to expect when we stepped out of the hotel lobby and onto the street since it was my first time in Boston, but I was surprised at how quiet it was. Despite being a city, there was a calm stillness to the air, and barely anybody in the immediate vicinity. There weren't even any cars on the road in front of us.

"Alright, first thing's first." Reid pointed to the CVS across the street, the red light of the signage above the doors especially bright in the night, and I shot him a puzzled look.

"If you are in need of baby Tylenol for your sore little muscles, I have it," I chuckled, knowing full well Reid had busted his ass earlier in the game. I just liked teasing him, because it made him blush.

"Not exactly," he smirked at me through the redness in his cheeks.

We were the only two people in the CVS, save for the half-asleep cashier behind the counter, making the buzzing of the fluorescent overhead light seem louder than it was. He led me to the candy aisle, and I watched him scan the selection intently.

"I thought you were kind of a health freak with your kale smoothies and whatever," I said to him.

"Sort of, but I like chocolate." He plucked a bag of mini Reese's Cups from the shelf. "You should get something too, so we have snacks for our walk."

I tapped my chin with my finger before settling on a bag of Lifesavers. "I like sour gummies."

"That checks out," he chuckled.

"Hey," I playfully smacked him on the arm. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what you think it means," he smirked.

Despite my protest, he paid for both of our snacks, and he led me out and down the street, as if there was nothing aimless about his wandering.

"There's a small park up here," he told me. "I kind of remember it from a couple of years ago, because my parents had come up for this game. My sister, who was like eight at the time, was on some kind of sugar rush, and my dad did laps around this park with her to wear her down."

"That's cute," I chuckled. "Enjoy it now, because the next thing you know she'll be terrorizing Sephora with her friends and bringing guys like you home."

Reid scoffed. "Over my dead body."

When we made it to the park at the end of the street, Reid had to nudge open the thick, wrought iron gate with his shoulder. Rows of pink flowered bushes lined the cobblestone walkway illuminated up by dim street lamps, and when we passed between clusters of trees, it sequestered us off in a way that felt like we weren't in a big city. There wasn't another soul for what could have been miles.

Reid held out his bag of Reese's for me, and I took a few tiny peanut butter cups, popping them quickly in my mouth so they didn't melt in my hands. The last thing I needed was sticky chocolate fingers like a small child. He must have had some kind of similar thought as he tilted the bag back into his mouth and finished the rest of it, letting out a loud belch that seemed to almost echo back at us in the dead silence. 

"Oh my god, that was both disgusting and impressive," I laughed. "I think they heard that all the way in Buffalo."

"Probably," he laughed too. "My stomach just rejects dairy after a certain point. There's a serious possibility I'm lactose intolerant, but I don't care. I need chocolate and ice cream to stay sane. Can't be kale smoothies all the time."

I nodded with a grin. "Perfectly balanced, as all things should be."

This time I held out my bag of gummies for him, and he glanced down into the bag before plucking a purple sour ring out of it. "For someone that likes to bake, you don't seem to have much of a sweet tooth."

"Nah, I rarely eat what I bake." I shook my head. "I'll take a burger and fries over chocolate and ice cream pretty much any day of the week."

Reid grinned at me. "Not gonna lie, that's kind of hot."

It was my turn to blush, and I nudged him in the side. "Aw you're such a charmer, you know that?"

"I am obviously not." He chuckled. "I mean did I not just rip the nastiest burp you've ever heard and not really give a shit that you're standing next to me? My mom would have smacked me upside the head for having no manners."

"And yet somehow even the grossest thing you're still better than everyone else at, which just feels like such a you thing. But, I could smack you upside the head," I offered with a smirk. "Just for the effect."

He smirked back, but faintly, letting it fade quickly into almost a puzzled look. "I think maybe I'm just super comfortable around you, that's all."

Reid walked right into the glow of a street lamp, bestowing a soft halo around his head. It was far from the response I expected from him, and I had to look away from him before my resolve crumbled entirely. Of course I wanted him to be comfortable with me, and it would be silly to think he wasn't by now, but it felt like more than just that. A forgiving breeze came through, rustling the leaves on the trees and sending a shiver down my body.

"You cold?" Reid asked.

"A little bit," I admitted.

"Aren't you from New York?"

I blew out a breath, thankful for the subject change. "Yeah, but I try really hard not to go back unless necessary, so my blood has definitely thinned out a bit. Plus, I don't really like cities. I don't think I ever belonged in the New York area."

"Yeah, I don't really like cities either." Reid nodded in agreement. "You'd like Charleston though. It technically is a city, but it doesn't feel like one. There's only one big street that runs through downtown, and the historical society has a big presence there, so all the houses and buildings have to be upkept a certain way. Even if something new is built, it has to look like everything else, and nothing can be taller than the church spires."

We veered off of the cobblestoned path slightly to throw out our empty candy bags, then looped around to make our way back to the park entrance we came in.

"Well, what are you gonna do if you get drafted by the Jets?" I asked. "Since it's pretty likely they'll have the number one overall pick."

Reid barked out a hollow laugh. "Cry, probably."

That had no business being as funny as it was, and I let out a very animalistic cackle. If there were any people at all nearby, they probably thought we were vagrants on psychedelics or something.

Reid laughed too, shaking his head as he slid his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. "That's a terrible answer, please don't repeat that to anyone."

"Off the record conversation." I nodded and drew an X over my heart with my finger. "Okay so then if you actually had a choice, what city would you most want to play in?"

He shrugged, hands still in his pocket. "I mean, Indy seems like the obvious answer."

"No, I don't mean what team do you want to play for, I mean legitimately where would you want to play? You can't tell me the city of Indianapolis is that enticing for you."

Reid paused for a moment to consider his answer, and in the silence I had a realization. It was my instinct to ask him questions because I wanted content for our articles, but now I had been asking him questions just because I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to know him better than anyone else did.

"Phoenix, I think," he finally answered. "Close to where the Cardinals play. I mean I don't wanna play for the Cardinals, but I feel like I could really thrive in the desert, ya know? Like a cactus. I like the heat, I don't need much hydrating..."

"Don't forget prickly," I added with a grin.

"Of course," he scoffed. He paused again, nudging me and looking down at me with a conniving smirk. "You know, I think you pick on me to hide the fact that you have a little crush on me."

My heart jumped so far up my throat I nearly choked on it, but I mustered out a dry laugh. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were in elementary school. Tomorrow I'll be sure to push you off the monkey bars."

Reid arched an eyebrow at me. "Oh is that what you did?"

"No, actually in first grade my friends convinced me to write TJ Griffin a love note and give it to him at recess. But he was in third grade, and so in his older boy mind, I still had cooties."

"Oof. Rough." Reid laughed. He then casually draped his arm around my shoulder, and for someone who was packed with hard muscle, the feeling of his arm on me was lighter than I expected, like a thing that couldn't possibly burden me. It wasn't until we made it up to our floor in the hotel that he let go.

"By the way, why couldn't you sleep?" I asked him as we stopped at the door of my room.

He rubbed the back of his neck, pursing his lips like he was rolling his answer around in his mouth, but all that came out was, "I don't know."

"Okay, just curious." I shrugged, and it was enough for him to turn and start making his way down the hallway towards his room.

"Reid?" I called after him.

He spun back around on his heel. "Yeah?"

"Will you sit with me again? I mean, on the plane tomorrow morning?"

He gave me a tired smile. "Sure, Jo." He started backing his way back down the hallway when he called out, "We get knocked down but we get up again, right?"

━━━━━━

fun fact: i am actually jo on planes, so all of that part is just personal experience for me lol. i take hydroxizine and dramamine, have to have the window seat, refuse to move or look away from the window (i literally do not even get up to stretch my legs or go to the bathroom, and i've done this on transcontinental flights), and listen to after dark by mr. kitty on repeat.

ANYWAY this chapter was way longer than i originally intended but they're so cute i just had to let it take on a mind of its own, and now it's unintentionally become one of my fav chapters. for those of you who made remarks last chapter about jo being down very bad for reid, this is your reminder that reid is also down bad :)

bless paris fashion week for this very edit-able picture (sorry hailee i love you but we have to make sacrifices here)