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Kinsey grunts as she cradles the football that is thrown directly at her chest. Her fingers tensely grip around the inflated rubber ball, enough for her knuckles to turn white while her mind is elsewhere.

"Kins, what's up!" James hollers from the white mark indicating fifty feet down the field. He notices how off Kinsey is by the way she has been fumbling to catch the last couple of passes.

Kinsey doesn't answer James, distracted by her own thoughts. She instinctively wraps her hand tightly around the football to bring it up and send it spiraling effortlessly back into the boy's direction.

Her mind can't seem to discard the simple thought of Jade and all that had come along with the sudden appearance of the new girl. How does this brunette just show up and completely flip Kinsey's world upside down, making her feel things that she's never felt for anyone, especially a girl?

"Kins!" James shouts as the football abruptly passes Kinsey's ear.

The normally alert teen doesn't notice the ball passing until a draft of wind tickles her earlobe. The ball bouncing awkwardly on its narrow points, onto the open field space behind her. She looks up at her friend in brief confusion before sighing and turning around to jog for the ball behind her.

The two are the only ones at the Kingsman Bounty field on Saturday morning since the school allows the team access to use it for practice on the weekends. It usually would be a team practice session, but despite the practice being canceled Kinsey insisted on her partner-in-crime, James, coming along to get in a good training session. Her exact words being, "I can't afford to slack when I have a body like this to maintain" before yanking the larger male by his upper arm, right out of his bed.

Once she jogs back to her spot, James is already heading towards her direction, skin red as sweat drips from his drenched hair. The two have been working out and trying out new football routes and plays for the past two hours.

"Kins, what the fuck is up with you today?" He stifles in between breaths, concerned for his best friend after she has missed nearly seventy percent of the passes he's thrown in her direction.

Kinsey scratches the back of her head, causing her messy top bun to loosen up, strands continuing to fall out. She looks up at James' face, knowing that she doesn't have the will to keep secrets from her best friend. He furrows his brows at Kinsey, able to tell that something is itching at the blonde's mind.

She spins the ball in the palm of her hand as she looks down, thinking of how to properly articulate her feelings. Something she doesn't do often.

"I was fucking around with this guy last night and we kind of hit it off, you could say," Kinsey candidly starts, feeling a little reluctant as thoughts of Jade plague her mind, knowing damn well that there is definitely no guy involved in this story at all.

Kinsey is oblivious to how James' face scrunches up at the mention of her hookup, but he rapidly conceals the bitterness with sincerity once the blonde looks back up at her best friend in vulnerability.

"Anyways, we were kissing and shit and he, out of fucking nowhere, freaks the fuck out. And then he decides to leave me hanging dry like a fucking sack of potatoes," Kinsey expels in a sigh, tensing as she starts feeling the same annoyance she begins to feel whenever reliving the moment in her head. Within less than 24 hours, Kinsey is ashamed at how many times she has replayed the scene, trying to see what went wrong. Trying to figure out if she was the problem.

"What do you think that means?" Kinsey appeases, her tone desperate but firm. The blonde's tone displaying a fragility that's opposite of her confident stance.

"Kins, cut it off. Simple as that. It's bad news," James asserts with no second thought, giving the blonde his genuine advice. He assumes that if the dude is stupid enough to resist Kinsey, he has deeper issues going on.

Kinsey scoffs and looks out onto the wide field as she slightly nods, taking the advice to heart. Maybe she should just let this whole thing go? It isn't worth it to be stressing over.

"If it was that easy, then I would have done that already. Do you take me for a weak fuck?" Kinsey snaps in her regular Kinsey fashion.

"Ay, I'm just doing my job as your best friend," James defends by putting his hands up.

"You're fired," Kinsey blatantly states, sighing at the lack of help.

Kinsey decides against asking any more questions; Not wanting to make a bigger deal out of this.

James chuckles lightly as he whips his head back to get the wet, longer strands of hair out of his face. After he comes back up, his eyebrows scrunch together and his lips slightly pout.

"Wait, you said this was last night? Weren't you doing that project with that one girl?" He inquires, squinting his eyes at the blonde that realizes her mistake but quickly recovers the rigidity in her motions.

"We finished early, so I decided to head out to some lame party Tony invited me too," Kinsey answers matter-of-factly, shrugging her shoulders.

Too bad the male isn't as gullible as he seems.

"First off, why would you go to a party? And second, why would you go without telling me? You know you hate going unless I drag you along," James smirks in Kinsey's direction, recalling several times where he had to beg her to come in the name of friendship, but mostly to drive his intoxicated body home at the end of the night.

"That's not the point, fuckface. I'm telling you my issues so shut up and give me advice, thanks," Kinsey juts, immediately shutting up the brunette male.

"There's Kinsey. I thought I lost her for a sec when she started talking about having feelings for some guy she met last night. What's that all about?"

Kinsey realizes this once he says it out loud. She's crazy for getting so caught up in some girl that she met barely a week ago.

"It's nothing," she concludes, deciding against bringing more attention to what went down between her and Jade. "And don't refer to me in the third person again. That shit is weird, made me feel like I wasn't here when I was." The blonde shakes her head as she dramatically cringes. Only she can refer to herself in such a way.

Kinsey knows that she is the Kinsey Scott. The girl that gives no fucks about people's feelings, including her own. She's not the one to be hurt, she does the hurting.

"By the way, how did that go last night? I mean, with the girl," James starts, focusing in on Kinsey to observe her response as his large arms cross, sitting in front of his chest.

"What do you mean?" Kinsey pursues, interested in why he would ask. Did she show any signs of having done more with the girl?

"I just mean, she was kind of awkward when I first met her. She just seems a little off to me with the whole goth, emo thing she's got going on," James continues, shrugging his shoulders.

Kinsey narrows her eyes in his direction as she allows him to finish his thought.

"Continue?" Kinsey pushes, unknowingly tightening her grip around the football as she intensifies her gaze into James' cocoa brown eyes and her jaw clenches vaguely.

James notices the change in tone, slightly apprehensive in continuing his ridicule of the brunette.

"Hey, Kins relax," he appeases, "Why you getting so worked up? I just want to know if my best friend is getting a new best friend, that's all," James quickly explains with his hands up, defensively.

Kinsey's face softens a bit as she's suddenly become aware of the tension coursing throughout her body. She tries to consciously loosen up and relax. Why is she getting so worked up? In some way it feels unfair, after hearing Jade's confessions last night, to hear someone saying the exact things that made the brunette feel insecure. It just doesn't sit well with her.

Kinsey realizes that thinking of this Jade girl is taking too much energy out of her. Why did she get defensive at her best friend's words when she's barely known the girl?

She wouldn't want James getting a new best friend on her watch, even though she knows he couldn't do better than her. She understands his concern, even though she senses bullshit but that's beyond her care at this point.

"You're a bitch," she states before giving James a sly smirk. "No one can replace your dumb ass. Who else would I have to take care of when they do some stupid shit?"

James chuckles, feeling warm at the sight of Kinsey's smile. He is content with her response, not knowing what he would do without his best friend of almost eleven years.

"I'm glad to know that you think of me so highly," James adds, smiling down at his best friend that is a couple of inches shorter than him.

"Okay, quit all the mushy mumbo jumbo and let's keep working on what we came here to do. I didn't physically drag Kingsman Bounty's bitchass star quarterback from his bed at six in the morning, on a Saturday, to play catch and mope around," Kinsey remarks, rolling up the short sleeves of her t-shirt to expose her sculpted biceps and triceps as her hands clutch around the football comfortably.

James shoots a devious smirk at the blonde before reaching out in an attempt to snatch the ball from her hands. Kinsey is not known as the best running back in the county for nothing. Her grip is strong enough, defeating the male in strength as his fingers slip away from the textured surface of the ball.

Kinsey laughs at the attempt before James motions to try again, but fails ultimately, as Kinsey pulls the ball in closer to her chest. She starts to sprint past him into the open field, determined. Her competitive nature charging up in the bat of an eye.

"Kins!" James whines, sprinting after the shorter girl in a haste. "Why do you make my life so difficult?"

"Because you're a bitch," Kinsey remarks notoriously. Bitch being the noun she has chosen to refer to James as, throughout the entirety of their friendship, even at an age when they should have never uttered such a thing.

James' laughing makes it difficult to continue running as the air he uses to laugh is unable to be used by his lungs to breathe correctly.

The blonde starts jogging as she gets closer to the white pole that makes up the eighteen-foot crossbar, signaling her arrival to the end zone. Her laughter erupts, glancing back and seeing James out of breath and struggling.

Her laughter subsides for a second once the brunette gets close enough to wrap his arms around Kinsey's waist and take her to the ground. As someone who has played the sport her entire life, Kinsey knows how to take a tackle.

As his larger body eclipses the blonde's smaller frame, they fall towards the grass of the end zone, neither party stopping their laughter. Kinsey's arms confined against her chest as James' large arms wrap around her. Her head bobs back in laughter as she usually enjoys this type of roughhousing with her best friend. Eventually, she lifts her head up, catching his eyes. The two stare at one another with residual smiles, as a result of their previous laughter. After a brief second, Kinsey starts feels uncomfortable under his steady, but endearing gaze.

Her instinct is to strike his throat with the side of her hand. The brunette loosens his grip as he coughs from the shock of his windpipe being attacked.

"W-What," he wheezes, "was that for?" He struggles to get out as he rolls off of the blonde onto the grass.

"A girl's gotta do what she's gotta do. I could never let you win," Kinsey confidently remarks as she lifts herself from the grass, wiping the sticky pieces of nature off her shorts. She playfully rolls her eyes at the larger male still recovering, laid out on the ground.

Maybe it is better to just let this thing go. Kinsey is content with all that she has going on in her life with football, her family, and her best friend. There is no fucking way she will disrupt the harmony between the three just to get some girl to give her the time of day. The girl should be chasing after her, for crying out loud. She's Kinsey Scott.

Despite her mind telling her otherwise, her brain logically acknowledges that it is best to let the girl go, like a euphoric dream that is too good to be true.

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Soooo... James and Kinsey? What are your thoughts on their relationship? 🧐

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Kinsey is s-struggling. What do you think of her inner turmoil?

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Can't wait to spill the tea on this story. Don't forget to follow, vote, and comment ❤️