- Saturday, November 4th -

I watch as Finnley nearly skips his way from the car towards my teammates, stopping in front of Oliver and hugging him, catching him a bit of guard.

"What did I do to deserve a hug?" His smile towards Finnley is warm and amused.

"You helped Cris and you sucked up my whining even though you knew it was unnecessary since he was going to surprise me."

Oliver's eyes twinkle in amusement. "So, it was a nice surprise?"

"Yuha' Finnley nods happily, looking at me when I join them, putting my bag on the ground. "It was really nice and sweet. And so not like Cris to be romantic like that."

Oliver chuckles, sending me a happy smile, no sarcasm or suspicion in it at all. "Good, I was happy to be able to help."

"And thank you both for treating each other nicely." Finnley grins, before he decides on hugging me, burying his face in the croak of my neck. "I like my friends to be friends."

"I like you to be happy and since he made you skip in happiness Cris is now on my good side." Oliver again smiles and all of the sudden I feel sympathy for the guy; since he's obviously just trying to protect Finnley - my dearest love - from any pain or heartbreak. We're on the same side here, with the same interest: Finnley's happiness.

"Yeah, and I stopped disliking the fact he's sometimes a little too protective. I think it's a good thing now."

"Good to hear you two decided to be friendly." Felix pads us both on the shoulder from behind. "That means we can now focus on soccer as a team."

"Because it's always about soccer for you." Oliver laughs out a little.

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"

"There's more to life than soccer, Felix." I chuckle a bit, hugging Finnley close to me. "Like this little angle right here." I whispered the last part so only Finnley would hear me.

"He! I'm not little."

"Uhu, nothing about you is little." I smirk, Finnley grins and Oliver rolls his eyes.

"TMI." Sam pads my back. "Again."

"You know. I would almost say you're a virgin with how little you want to hear about anything that involves sex or certain body parts." Finnley laughs, Sam shrugs.

"You would say, huh? But I just like women, and with all those gayness around me I feel a bit... like I'm a minority here."

"In this team, you're not." Felix chimes in. "Oliver and Cris are the only ones we know of, who swing for the other team."

"You know off." I repeat, winking, since I'm nearly 100% sure Jaimie recently started doubting his sexuality, mostly because he confined in me and we shared a short kiss.

"Did I miss something?" Felix frowns, I shake my head, noticing Jaimie's eyes widened once he heard me suggest there might be guys hiding in the closet.

"Boys, let's get dressed and focus on the game. If we win this game, we'll be second in the competition." Coach sends us towards the locker rooms.

I kiss Finnley quickly, handing over my panic button before I follow the rest into the locker room.

* * * * *

"Cris!" Felix's voice is alerting me he wants me to pass the ball and without having to look I already know where he wants me to pass the ball to. It's the advantage you get from playing soccer together for years in a row. I pass the ball deep, in between two defenders from the opposite team, holding back in speed to have a clear shot whenever there's a rebound.

It's Jaimie's task to stand in front of the goal; which he does.

Eli is on my right somewhere in case Jaimie fails to hit the ball. But he uses his head to change the direction of the ball after Felix shot it in his direction. He aims for the goal; the goalkeeper blocks his shot and both Eli and I close in to try and recover the ball. One of their defenders panics when he notices Jaimie is behind him and both Eli and I are in his way to get rid of the ball. He shoots it in Eli's direction, trying to reach a teammate behind him.

He fails, the ball bounces off Eli's foot, back towards the same defender, who then decides it is a great idea to use all his leftover power to shoot the ball away as hard as possible; hitting me on the side of the face.

The last thing I remember is the referee blowing his whistle while I'm going down; a darkness taking over.

I'm vaguely aware of voices around me, or the fact I'm carried off the field on a stretcher.

Why is it always my head they hit? This isn't the first time this happened and for some reason I feel like it won't be the last time either.

"Cris?" Finnley's voice simply sounds like heaven to me and I open my eyes, closing them again as soon as the blinding light causes a throbbing headache.

"Oh, thank god you're awake." Finnley's hand grabs mine.

"Uhu." I mutter, not feeling that alert right now.

"They called an ambulance, could be here any moment." The second voice I recognize as Nathan's, calming me down even more. It's scary to wake up, not knowing what happened for an unknown period of time. Most certainly if you think about the fact I'm supposed to pay attention to my surroundings as much as possible.

"Cris?" Finnley's voice is worried.
"Still awake." I answer to let him know I'm still conscious. "What happened?"
"The ball hit your head and you blacked out instantly." Finnley kisses my forehead carefully. "My pour baby."

For this once I'll let him call me baby. But only because I feel too weak to protest the nickname.

"That's not a good sign," Stan's voice says after a short silence, although he sounds amused. "He never let me call him baby."

"Maybe Finn is allowed..." Nathan starts.

"Nope..." I murmur weakly, wishing I would black out again because that would at least mean I wouldn't have to feel the headache that's killing me right now.

"But baby is cute!" Finnley protests. "Finny... Baby... don't hear much difference."

"Except you're called Finnley and you hate that name and I'm called Cris, not baby, and I don't hate my name."

"Why do you hate your name anyway?" Stan sounds a bit bored by now. Probably because there's not much he can do right now, while I can already hear the ambulance in the faint distance.

"Not the right time, Stanny-boy." Finnley sounds cold while he says it and I can only imagine the deadly look he's sending Stan.

That's when I hear the door open and close again with a soft thud.

"The ambulance is almost here, how's he doing?" That voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't come up with a name to go with the voice.

"Awake, but most definitely in pain." Finnley answers calmly. "Don't know what he remembers." That comes out with a tone of fear lingering in his voice.

"You." I answer with a chuckle. "And the soccer match, partly."

"Oh, good." Finnley sounds happy with my answer and I feel his hand in mine again. "I'll stay with you, okay? In case we need to call your parents." He whispers close to my ear, before he pecks a kiss on my cheek. "I know you don't like hospitals."

"You know me too well."

He chuckles, sighing contently. "You scared me there, you know." He mutters. "Because you've been out for a while and I freaked out. Good thing Nathan and Stan where there to calm me down."

"I told you he was fine." Stan sounds unimpressed. "He's a tough one, told you."

"Well, I'd wait to hear what the doctor has to say before we conclude he is fine." Nathan protests. "You never know, not since it's a weak spot for him anyway."

"To think the few brain cells he has, are now all shaken..."

"Hey!" I protest with a too loud voice, cringing because the headache instantly got worse. "Don't insult me."

"Sorry, baby," Stan teasingly answers with a laugh.

"Shh." Finnley shushes him. "My baby, not yours."

"You can have him." Stan chuckles. "Got my own now."

That causes me to open my eyes and turn my head, regretting it as soon as a jolt of pain goes through my neck, but at least I saw the way Stan and Nathan shared a look.

"You're official now?" Finnley is standing next to me, looking back at them.

"Yeah, since yesterday."

"Finally." I chuckle, ignoring the pain as much as possible. "You're the weirdest, yet the best couple I could think off."

"Thanks, Evans." Nathan smiles. "I like to surprise people."

"Well, this is definitely a surprise." Finnley nods, before he looks back at me, in the same time the door opens. "But not something to focus on right now."

* * * * *

I'm supposed to stay flat on my back for at least 24 hours and the only reason I was allowed to go home, was because Finnley agreed to keep an eye on me, waking me up every hour to make sure there's no serious damage.

What I like less about this, is the fact he called Oliver to keep him company during the night, because he simply refuses to go to sleep, afraid to not hear the alarm to wake me up. They're in the living room along with Jason, who decided to stay up as long as he could to keep him company too.

And I'm in bed – It's early in the morning – while Finnley just woke me up to check up on me. He stayed with me for a couple of minutes, just pecking small kisses on my head every so often. I tried to fall asleep again, but after numerous times of being woken up by him I simply can't fall back asleep anymore.

And then there's the fact Finnley was supposed to answer all of my questions, but decided now was not the time because I might forget things and he didn't want to have to repeat certain things. I get it, but now I'm still here with lingering questions that I want answered. Like the fact Finnley and Emma bickered about Alex. Finnley said something that indicated that Emma knew about Alex' case. I can't remember the exact words, but I do remember that I thought she knew more, long before she admitted knowing stuff about it.

I pounder over all my questions – which isn't the best idea with a huge headache – for another hour or so, until Finnley shows up in the bedroom again. He looks a tad bit sleepy.

"You're awake." He yawns and stretches, before he walks over to the bed, climbing in it next to me. "How are you feeling?"

"Drowsy, I have a headache and I'm confused."

"Confused about what happened?" He mumbles sleepily, laying his head on my chest and his arm around my waist. As if I'm on autopilot I put an arm around him, pecking a kiss on top of his head.

"No." I sigh, sliding down a bit, forcing Finnley to tilt his head up and place it next to mine, watching in my eyes, waiting for me to explain. "You, or more... Emma."

He slightly tenses in my hold, but he keeps staring right at me. "What about her?"

"She knew about Alex."

Finnley remains silent.

"She knew before you got in trouble."

"No." He shakes his head, deciding on sitting back up. "We should have this conversation some other..."

"I can't stop thinking about it, Finn." I roll over to my side, grabbing his hand in mine just because I want to touch him in some way. "What did she know?"

"She found out Alex went missing after getting in trouble with Jeff." He mutters, staring down towards our connected hands. "Arianna told her and I think that's when she really knew I wasn't coming home any time soon without help."

"But she didn't do anything to help you."

"For as far as I know, and I don't know much because I haven't really spoken to Arianna myself..."

"What's Arianna got to do with this?"

"Arianna Moreno." Finnley smiles awkwardly.

"Wait." I want to sit up too, regretting it within a second, laying back down. "Arianna is Alex' sister? They went to our school?"

"Alex didn't." Finnley shakes his head. "He lives with his dad, Arianna with their mom. Every so often Alex would visit them, or Arianna went to visit Alex and their dad. That's why he got in contact with Jeff, even though he lived an hour away."

"And Arianna knew it was Jeff?"

Finnley again shakes his head. "But Emma connected dots, after Arianna told her that she didn't like Jeff because he gave Alex drugs before he went missing. They thought for a long time Alex ran off on his own."

"Who told you this?"

"Emma did." Finnley's face flushes. "She has send me numerous of letters while she was in prison."

"And you read them?"

"Off course I did, Cris." He rolls his eyes like it's stupid to think he wouldn't read her letters. "I needed answers too." He got up from the bed, walked towards the book closet, rummaging through a pile of papers. Which I assumed were notes, taken in school. Eventually he comes back to the bed with about a dozen letters, all in their envelopes, with Emma's handwriting up front to address Finnley. "You can read them, it explains some of her actions. She does claim she tried to... undo her actions to help me. But I don't know if those claims are true." He shrugs.

"But, you do still hate her, right?"

"I do." He nods, sitting down beside me again. "She had no right to what she did and when she realized in how much trouble she got me, she shouldn't have gone and try to help me on her own. She should have gone to the police and spill it all out. But she explains why she didn't in the letters too."

"You want me to read all of these?"

"No, I just need to find out what letter is about her reasons. The first couple are just a pleading to forgive her for her sins and actions. Or to tell me she loved me o-so-much."

"She still loves you."

"She's obsessed over me because she can't accept the fact it was all pretending and fake words." He shrugs again. "I don't think she actually loves me, you know. I don't think there's anyone out there who loves me, besides you, who does love me, for some unknown reason."

I squint my eyes in annoyance, hitting him against his legs softly. "You are very, very loveable, okay?"

"If you say so..." This time his shrug is a one-shoulder shrug and he doesn't seem to believe me, which I'm starting to get used to. I want to change the way he thinks about himself. How he sees himself. But, first things first; get the whole story straight.

And if Emma explained all her reasons and actions in these letters, then I will read them.

"This letter." Finnley mumbles, staring at the fifth letter he is scanning. "Her she explains most of what she did and did not do and why." He puts the letter back in its envelope, putting it on the bedside table. "Read it once your headache gets less." He gets up again, pecks a kiss on my forehead and my lips, before he puts the rest of the letters back in the place he got them from. "And sleep some more. You need to rest."