The next day I'm dropped off at Nicole's house and walk up to the front door. I ring the doorbell and Nicole answers
"Hi Jay"
"Hey.."
"My dads in his man cave, I'll take you to him"
I follow her into a room full of games, arcade cabinets, sports memorabilia, pretty much everything you would find in a man cave.
"Dad jays here"
"Oh ok thank you Nicole"
Nicole leaves and her dad walks up to me and shakes my hand
"How are you doing Jay?"
"I'm doing good sir, I can't lie this room is crazy"
"Oh yeah I'm a bit of a nerd if you cant tell"
"I like it, especially the arcade cabinets, makes it feel like an old school arcade place"
"Yeah took me awhile to find those, anyways have a seat. You want a coke or something?"
"Yeah I'll have one"
He grabs the drinks, gives me one and takes a seat
"So Jay… I just want to apologize for my actions last time you were here. It was out of line"
"Is this a sincere apology or are you doing because your daughter told you?"
"It's sincere… I guess my past experience got the better of me"
"Yeah I heard about that"
"You did?!?"
"Yeah Nicole told me."
"Wow… well that's why I acted that way, ever since that time I never trusted football players"
"I understand but that's not me Sir, your daughter is a good friend and I wouldn't hurt her like that"
"I want to believe you.. but you're a football player"
"Will it help if I told you football ain't even my favorite sport?"
"Wait… it's not"
"Nope"
"Then what's your favorite sport?"
"Baseball… that was the first sport I played and the first sport I fell in love with"
"Then why do you play football instead of baseball"
"Well I'm better at football than baseball, also helps that I'm this big as a freshman"
"Yeah I could see that"
"Also you never got a chance to know me before you made that assumption about me. Like everything in this room you like right?"
"Yeah"
"I like all this stuff too, I could sit in here for hours playing that mortal kombat arcade machine or watching movies on this projector"
"Me too"
"See we have some things in common, you just didn't give me a chance"
"Yeah… I feel like a dick now"
"It's alright sir, you were just trying to look out for your daughter. I would do the same thing with my daughter"
"Your daughter?"
"Uhhh I mean my future daughter, whenever I have one when I'm older"
"Oh yeah, anyways are we cool?"
"Yeah we're cool"
He takes a drink from his glass then talks again
"So I read about your game in the paper last night, did they really cheap shot you after the first play of the game!"
I laugh
"Yeah they did, they were pretty upset. I think i pissed them off more when I scored a touchdown later in the game and put my finger up and told them to be quiet. Then at the end of the game blew them a kiss and waved bye to them as they walked off without shaking our hands"
"Damn, that's crazy"
"I bet they didn't mention what happened after the game huh?"
"What happened?"
"ASUs scout came up to me and said I'm on their radar and that soon I'll probably be getting more and more scouts coming to see me"
"Wow that's really good, congrats man"
"Thank you sir, everything has been crazy and I'm only a freshman"
"Yeah that's pretty impressive, and you're only going to get bigger, stronger, faster and better"
"Yeah just got to keep working like my grandpa says"
"I'm glad I was wrong about you Jay, you seem like a really good and respectful kid"
"I try to be"
"You know my daughter really likes you"
"Yeah I kinda got that feeling"
"Well how do you feel about her?"
"She's my friend and she's cute but I don't know if I would able to date her right now, I mean we're only freshmen and we should be focusing on other things"
"Yeah I get you"
Just then he gets a text
"The food is ready Jay, let's head out to the kitchen"
"Alright let's go"
We head to the kitchen as Nicole and her mom set up plates with food on them at the table. Nicole sits next to me and speaks up
"So how did everything go?"
Before I can say anything her dad speaks up
"Good, me and Jay have more in common than I thought"
"Yeah we had a good conversation"
Nicole smiles at both of us
"That's good, I'm glad everything is going good now"
We all eat and have conversations about different things until it gets late and it's time for me to go. Nicole walks me out the house as we wait for my mom to get there.
"So what did you and my dad talk about?"
"Just about things he had in his room, we bonded over that and I told him about the game last night"
"So everything is cool now right?"
"Yeah everything's all good"
"Good… what about us?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like what's happening between us?"
"We're still friends"
"I know that but.."
"But what?"
"You know I like you Jay, do you feel the same way?"
"I do like you but you don't think we should focus on school and other things"
"I can focus on both you and school"
"Can you?"
She steps closer to me
"Yeah.. i can"
"Hmmm how about we take things slow and not rush into things, at least until the end of football season"
"Hmmm alright deal"
"Alright…"
Before I can say anything else Nicole wraps her arms around me and gives me a quick kiss
"Oh shit"
"What's wrong"
"I wasn't expecting that"
"I know, got to keep you on your toes"
"Yeah not the first time I've heard that"
"And definitely not the last time"
After couple minutes my mom pulls up and I give Nicole a quick hug and get ready to go home. When I get home I go to my room and get undressed when Buddy pops in
"Well that went well"
"Yeah surprisingly"
"Also seen that kiss, how cute"
"She caught me off guard"
"So what are you going to do?"
"Ehhh I don't know I'll have to think about it"
"Yeah that's probably a good idea"
"Can I ask a question?"
"What's up?"
"Can I skip multiple months ahead of time?"
"You can, why though?"
"I don't know, I already know we're moving at the end of freshman year so imma try to speed up this year a little"
"Yeah true, how far do you want to jump?"
"Jump to the end of the season banquet, I know we ain't winning anything this year"
"Alright you ready?"
"Yeah let's do it"
Buddy claps and like always everything goes bright with that euphoria feel. This banquet should be fun.