My dad is sitting at the kitchen table when I walk downstairs Saturday morning. I've always been an early riser like him, so we're the only two up so far. My mom and my little sister Kate won't be up for a maybe another hour or so. I grab a bowl from the cabinet and pour myself some cereal. I fish a spoon out of a drawer and sit at the table to eat.
"How was the game last night?" dad asks without looking up from his newspaper. Of course he wanted to talk about football.
"It was fine. We ended up winning, which was no surprise," I tell him through bites of cereal.
"Anything interesting happen?"
I pause my spoon midcourse to my mouth. My mind immediately thinks of Alfred asking me to homecoming. I'm not sure if I want to tell him just yet. "Well, not quite,"
"Oh really?" he says as he looks up from his paper for the first time. "Not even this?" He shows me the sports page from our local newspaper. There's a large photo of me hugging Alfred with the headline 'Taking Home More Than a Win'.
I stare at the paper silently for a full minute. "I was going to tell you eventually," I finally say. I sigh in frustration. Now not only the majority of the student body knows about me and Alfred, but most of the county does too. Great.
"So, you're going to homecoming with the quarterback, huh?" dad says. He continues reading his paper where he left off.
"I guess so," I mumble. Well that was a fine way to start my morning.
"Is he a good kid? I know he's an amazing player."
I sigh again. I should've seen this coming too. "Yeah dad, he's a good kid. He's got a heart of gold."
My dad just nods. "You gonna keep seeing him after homecoming?"
My face starts to heat up. I didn't think dad would want to talk about our relationship too. "I don't know. Maybe."
Luckily, Kate chooses that moment to come into the kitchen, so dad can't grill me on Alfred anymore. She runs to me and gives me a hug before jumping on dad's lap. She's such a sweetheart.
"Good morning!" she says. She's kind of like Alfred in that they're both peppy almost all the time.
"Good morning," my dad and I say at the same time. "What do you want for breakfast?" I ask.
"Poptarts!" she says. "And some yogurt!" She's in this weird phase where she likes to mix odd foods together. This is probably one of the more normal combinations.
I'm about to get up to get it when my mom walks in. "Don't worry about it (y/n). I'll get it. Just finish eating." I sit down and continue spooning cereal into my mouth until it's gone.
"Who's that?" my 8 year old sister asks. I turn around to see who she's referring to, and I see the same stupid picture in the paper again.
"Dad!" I whine. "You didn't have to show her that!"
My dad laughs. "I thought she'd enjoy hearing about your boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?" my mom asks curiously as she sets my sister's breakfast on the table.
"Don't start making stuff up dad!" I say in exasperation. "We're not officially dating. He's just taking me to homecoming."
"Oh that's wonderful!" mom says. "Has he kissed you yet?"
I don't say anything, but I know my whole face starts turning a really bright shade of red. "None of your business!" I finally mumble.
"He has hasn't he," mom says knowingly. "Well honey, I think that makes him your boyfriend."
"That's yucky," Kate says as she dips a poptart into her yogurt. The three of us look at her, and my parents start laughing.
"You guys are impossible," I mumble, and storm out of the room to take a shower.
The one thing I'm grateful for out of that whole experience is that my dad seemed to approve of Alfred. I haven't had a whole lot of other dealings with guys, so I was afraid he'd get all overprotective-dad on me. It probably helps that Alfred's a football player, and a good one at that. Dad used to coach football at West until he blew out his knee. Even though I'm pretty sure dad would love to have a son to play ball with, he does pretty well with us two girls. Having one of them date a football player is probably the next best thing.
After my shower, I get changed and go outside to see if the other newspaper we get has been delivered yet. That's not exactly what I find when I go outside. Ribbons of toilet paper hang from the tree in the front yard, and the tree on the side of the house. Broken glass bottles litter the driveway, and it looks like tomatoes were thrown at our garage door. I look around in horror. Who would do this? It's a good thing it's Saturday, otherwise dad would have backed about of the garage and shred his tires open on the glass. I notice something written in chalk on the walkway leading from the driveway to the front door.
"This is what you get for thinking you're better than us. You don't deserve Alfred," is all it says
I stare at the hastily scrawled words with a mix of emotions. Anger, surprise, shame, guilt. Who do these people think they are? I go inside the house to grab a broom, and begin to sweep up the broken glass on the driveway. I do a thorough check when I'm done to make sure I got everything because the last thing we need is someone getting hurt from a stray piece of glass.
While I'm scouring the driveway, a truck pulls up on the street next to my house. "Hey (y/n)!" Alfred greets as he gets out of the car. "Whatcha up to?"
"Hi Alfred," I say unenthusiastically. It's not that I don't want to see him, but this whole mess has bummed me out. "I'm...cleaning."
Alfred looks at the house and notices the mess for the first time. "Who did this?" he asks in a serious voice.
"I don't know," I reply quietly.
Alfred walks up the driveway, and stops at the words on the walkway. Crap, I should've cleaned that first. He turns around after reading the words. "(Y/n), I'm so sorry. This is all my fault." He looks like he's about to cry.
I get up from the driveway, satisfied it's glass free, and face him. "It's not your fault Alfred. You didn't know this would happen."
"But I didn't have to ask you in front of the whole school," he says as he becomes increasingly distressed. "I came by to show you this." He hands me the same newspaper article my dad had shown me earlier. "I thought it was cool, but I guess not."
I fold the article up and slip it in my pocket. "Don't worry about it Alfred. They would've found out eventually."
This seems to ease his guilt a little. "Want help cleaning up?"
We wash the tomatoes off the garage, and get the chalk off the walkway, without much trouble. I have to get a ladder to pull the toilet paper out of the trees. We're working on the last of it when an SUV blasting pop music pulls up next to the house. The passenger window rolls down to reveal some of the preppy girls from school.
"Hey loser!" one of them calls. "Having fun cleaning up our message?"
"Yeah!" another one shouts. "Stay away from Alfred, or you'll have to deal with a lot worse."
At the sound of his name, Alfred turns around from the ladder he's holding for me. The girl's eyes widen when they realize the living breathing Alfred is standing in my yard. They hadn't expected that.
"Drive!" a girl yells, and the car goes roaring away.
"That was weird," I tell Alfred as I come down the ladder. All of the toilet paper's been taken out of the tree now.
"Yeah," he agrees. "I always thought those girl are kinda weird. Too clingy." I laugh at his comment. If only those girls knew what he thought of them. I throw the paper away in the garbage, and the two of us inspect the front of the house for anything we might have missed.
"What's with all the yelling out here?" my dad asks as he opens the front door. "Who's this kid?" he asks when he sees Alfred.
"Uh, dad this is Alfred. Alfred, this is dad," I say.
"Nice to meet you sir," Alfred says with a grin. If he's afraid of my dad, he's doing a good job hiding it.
"So you're the quarterback," dad says, and shakes Alfred's hand. "A pretty good one from what I hear."
"HAHAHA! That's me."
"And you're taking my little girl to homecoming."
"Yes sir!" Alfred answers excitedly.
"Well let me tell you something," my dad mumbles. He pulls Alfred closer and starts whispering in he ear. First Alfred's smile fades, then he turns pale.
"Dad! What are you telling him!" I yell from where I'm standing.
"Just everything he needs to know before dating my daughter," he says back. "It was nice meeting you Alfred."
"S-same here, s-sir," the usually confident Alfred stutters. My dad chuckles as he gives Alfred a pat on the shoulder. Then he turns around and walks back inside, but not before pulling the newspaper I was originally looking for out of the bushes.
"What did he tell you?" I ask Alfred suspiciously.
"To treat you good, otherwise he's going to break my wrist so I can never play football again." Of course it's football related. "And a lot of other painful things."
"Don't worry. I don't think that'll ever happen," I tell him. "You're too nice."
"Really?" he asks, his smile reappearing.
"Yup," I say simply.
Alfred wraps me up in a big hug. "Thanks (y/n)." He places a soft kiss on the top of my head. "I gotta go now," he says into my hair. "Some of us guys are having a training session, but I'll see you tomorrow okay?"
"What's tomorrow?"
"We're having an extra practice," he tells me. "And you're gonna come watch."
"Okay." I'm pretty sure I don't have much choice in the matter. I did agree to watch his practices if he watched mine.
"Sweet!" he says with his usual goofy grin. "I'll see ya tomorrow!" Alfred lets go of me and walks toward his truck.
I wave to him as he drives away. Once he's out of sight, I walk back to the house. I didn't notice the small pair of eyes watching us through the window and giggling. Kate would tell me and my parents all about the cute boy giving me a hug later.