Francisco groans as the treadmill begins to slow to a stop. His heart is racing in his chest, 'Am I really that out of shape?' He looks over at Lynn, who looks as if she is going to put him through another round of 'training'. She claims that she is helping him and that it is all for his own good, but the stabbing pain radiating all over his body from all of the exercise is saying otherwise.
"Can you just let me die already?" he complains.
Lynn rolls her eyes, "You wanted to compete again, right? You wanted to swim against one of the greatest athletes in Royal Woods? Well if you plan on doing that you're going to need to get back into shape."
In between breaths he retorts, "We're swimming, not running marathons, not weightlifting, and not boxing. Why are we doing this?"
"I told you, you need to train. Your posture is terrible, and you've gotten soft since you were eighteen," she teases as she pokes his arm.
"No kidding," he complains as he swats her hand away, "it's been almost twelve years since we've hung out like this, of course I'm not going to stay the same physically. And do you know how difficult it is to move properly with my back?" he defends himself.
Lynn crosses her arms, "Well I'm here to help you get that athlete back. C'mon! You need a massage after this workout," she pulls him towards the massage tables. "Step aside, rookie, I got this," she tells the masseuse, as she begins to work her magic on his aching back.
Francisco shakes his head as he tries to get up, "Nope, I'm not–"
Lynn doesn't listen and continues giving him the massage. He isn't used to getting a massage, or even getting unexpectedly touched liked he is at the moment from anyone, let alone one from his friends.
"Stop your belly-aching, it's not that bad."
"Says you. Have you even been on the receiving end of one of your massages?"
Lynn stops to think about that for less than a second, "No, but only because Mom, Dad, and an ethics committee told Lisa that she couldn't clone us."
Francisco doesn't know how to respond to that, and just bites down on his lower lip as Lynn works her magic. Her hands work his muscles in an attempt to get him to release years' worth of tension. The pain eventually gives way as his back no longer feels the same pain done by the brutal exercise regimen.
Without even realizing it, he is no longer paying attention to anything around him; no more gym music, no lights from the ceilings, or even the musk from the other patrons; all he concentrate on are Lynn's hands on his back.
"You still like cherry?" asks Lynn.
Lynn repeats the question at the man who is struggling to focus, he absentmindedly answers, "What?"
"A cherry protein shake, do you want one?" she asks more sternly.
Francisco just nods and stays put on the table.
She walks away, and turns to see him in place, "Fine. I'll go get you one, but you owe me."
'Seriously, what's with him?' she turns around and sees that he is still on the table, "It wasn't that bad."
At the counter, the employee calls her, "One Mystery Protein Deluxe and a cherry shake for your boyfriend, Loud."
'Boyfriend? Not again," Lynn shakes her head and exclaims, "He is not my boyfriend. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?!"
The employee backs off, but Lynn can tell what is on her mind; it's been the same look that she's seen for months. First, her boss, then when they went to the deli, now this anonymous gym employee, what is up with everybody being in her business?
'Lynn, there's no rule against dating one of the parents, but be careful, some of them are starting to talk.'
Seriously, did her boss need to tell her that? What did they even do that would make anyone think that they were anything more than friends during practice? All they do is talk, and if any of the other parents actually bothered to look interested in the game, maybe she would have talked to them too.
Then, there was dinner at Romano's Deli a few days ago.
'Lynn, is there a reason that the people behind the counter keep staring at us?'
Sure, the Italian family can definitely be nosy with the people they care about, but she didn't like lying to Francisco about why they were staring at them when they visited the establishment.
Besides, why would people feel the need to point that kind of thing out to her; they are friends. It's obvious.
She takes a deep breath, and keeps staring at the opposing dugout through the fence. It's been happening a lot recently – looking at him when he's up to bat or when he pitches, but she can't help it; he's cool, athletic, and cute. She feels a little smile form on her lips, but she isn't aware how obvious her actions are to her teammates or to him.
Margo comes up and hands Lynn her bat, "You're up, Lynnsanity."
Lynn snaps out of her thoughts, "My turn already? Thanks, Margo." She takes the bat and make her way to the plate.
Margo looks over at Lynn, and sees what is grabbing her attention recently. She's noticed the way her best friend has been behaving; she was hanging around him more often, they playfully joked around a little, and Margo is pretty sure that she is friendlier around him when they talk at school.
With Lynn at the plate, the two are facing each other, and Margo sees how her friend is looking at the boy on the mound.
It's just unfortunate that he may not be aware of her feelings.
On Saturday morning, Lynn walks through the doors of father's restaurant; she looks around the dining area for her younger sisters, and notices that they haven't arrived yet. With a smug smile on her face, she tells herself, "Now they can finally stop complaining."
She takes her seat and soon her three younger sisters come in; all of them surprised to see Lynn waiting for them at a booth.
"Well this is an unexpected turn of events," remarks Lisa as she takes a seat across from Lynn. "Did you finally figure out that a.m. stands for morning on your alarm clock?"
Lynn scowls at the unfazed scientist, "No, I was just up early this morning, went for a jog and had plenty of time to get here on time. So now, I don't have to hear you whining about my tardiness."
"And yet you didn't have time to shower, Lynn?" asks the youngest sister, who unfortunately took a seat next to her.
"Do you want me on time or do you want me showered?"
All three respond, "Both."
The sisters make light conversation, and enjoy their breakfast. Over the last couple of weeks, the three younger sisters have noticed the changes in the eldest sister's eating habits; she wasn't eating her usual chocolate chip waffles with powdered sugar covered a layer of sweet hazelnut spread and maple syrup, and had gone back to the protein rich breakfast of her childhood.
Lily speaks up, "Is there something new going on, Lynn? Usually, I'm wondering if my older sister ordered breakfast and not my–"
"Seriously!?" Lynn interrupts, "No matter what I do today, I can't seem to avoid hearing someone make a dumb comment about something different that I'm doing."
Lily snickers at Lynn's outburst, until the elder sister decides to playfully jab the youngest to get her to be quiet.
Lucy looks at Lynn, and notices something in her eye; a little shine to them, a tiny detail that is probably being ignored by the two youngest. She's been noticing the subtle changes in Lynn's appearance and attitude; she looks happier, she smiles a little more, and as much as she'll miss it, Lynn doesn't look like a sullen zombie anymore.
When Lincoln called the Emergency Sibling Meeting, Lynn wasn't sure what to think, except that she is annoyed that he interrupted her just when she was getting in the zone with her boxing workout.
Then, he pulls out a letter, sorry, no, a love letter from a secret admirer.
"Dear L. Loud, Day after day, I hope and I pine, I'm too shy to come forward, but I wish you were mine. Signed, your secret admirer?"
"W-W-Wait! Who's it for? L. Loud could be any one of us."
Of course Lori would say that the letter was for her, but Luan points out that all of them have the potential to be the lucky recipient of that love letter. The athlete's mind begins to wander towards her friend Francisco, whom she had been thinking about more frequently.
Her mind wanders back to their most recent game and how, even though they play on different teams, they are still friends first, maybe now they have an opportunity to be more.
She sighs in adoration along with her sisters, who are also in a dreamy state, Lori brought up the all too important question – who is the letter for, and how are they going to find out?
Lucy, powered by her in-depth knowledge of vampire romance novels, suggests a sending a signal. Is it good advice? Yes, not what you'd expect from your average eight-year-old, but it is still good advice nonetheless, and Lynn plans to making sure that he gets her signal.
Lucy walks through the front door of her apartment with a bag in hand. After breakfast, she asked Lynn for a ride to the bookstore, and what she expected to be a short trip to pick up her order, ended up becoming a two hour errand.
Lynn follows behind her younger sister, "Sorry we took so long to get home, but at least we're finally here."
"Are you sure that you don't want to consider getting a new car, Lynn? If you want, I can lend you the money," Lucy offers to her sister, who is currently looking for a place to sit.
Lynn walks past the bookshelves. It is filled with a variety of romance, supernatural, medieval, and poetry books that Lucy had collected over the years, "Jeez Lucy, don't you think that you have enough books?"
"It's not that bad," says the goth as she took out her latest purchase.
"Not that bad?" asked Lynn as she stepped over a pile of books on the floor, "There's hardly any room for you two to walk through, and you say it's not that bad?"
The apartment that sisters are currently standing in is cramped with furniture, boxes, and all the books that Lucy can't seem to ever part with. She always claims that they are for her work, but Lynn is convinced that Lucy is just too lazy to find a way to organize her apartment; not that the older sister is any better.
"Sigh. If it makes you feel better, we're looking into getting a house."
Lynn takes a seat on the couch, which has a few boxes placed on it, "Now I'm afraid that you'll fill it with more books."
"I like to read. It's not a crime."
"No, but I don't like tiptoeing around your apartment just because you hoard books like a madwoman. Besides, why do you even need so many books? Don't you write them for a reason?"
"I like to use them for inspiration. A new era, an interesting background, whatever mood strikes me for a new tale."
"Anything catch that shadowy eye of yours?"
Lucy shakes her head. She is currently in a slump. She didn't struggle as much to write a new poem, but writing a new romance novel isn't coming as easily; general audience or adult. Lucy needs inspiration from somewhere, but she doesn't know where to search.
"Well, Night of a Thousand Stars, I wish you luck, despite how often I tell your author that I don't want to read you," Lynn tells the book.
"Really, Lynn?"
Lynn shrugs her shoulders. She knows that Lucy isn't too thrilled about her occasional comments concerning her works, but she knows that she was kidding…at least she hopes that Lucy knows.
The older sister opens a book and reads, "To Abraham and Cristiana. Hey, you used my suggestion!" she says happily.
Lucy has made a habit of gathering inspiration from her siblings' love lives, past or present, for her books. The smallest of little details from a slight giggle to nervousness around certain locations tend to give Lucy enough inspiration for a chapter, luckily, she is kind enough to use pseudonyms for the family, so the general population doesn't figure anything out, though it doesn't help when she and Lisa read it and can easily figure out who gave her inspiration.
"How could I not? You wouldn't stop bugging me," Lucy stares at her sister.
"What? I like to help."
"Well you should be more careful…you never know where and when I'll get my inspiration from you or anyone else…"
Lynn senses something strange with her sister, but shrugs it off, "Yeah, right."
During lunch, Lynn looks around the cafeteria hoping to find Francisco. After those two love letters and sending him a signal at their last game, she is going to take the plunge, listen to Lucy, and give him a gift to get the date. She sees him in the lunch line, and she gets ready with her jock.
"Because I think you really rock, I give to you my lucky jock," she flings her jockstrap and hits him straight in the face. "She shoots, she scores!"
Blind, he lands straight into the trash can.
"Oops. Flag on the play," she chuckles nervously.
The cafeteria erupts in laughter and she is pretty sure that some students have pulled out their phones to capture what happened to him. He manages to get himself out of the trash can and take the jockstrap off of his face; she quickly turns her back to him, but she can't forget what she just saw.
He is bearing an angry scowl as he stomps out of the cafeteria.
Lynn is convinced that he knows that the jock is from her, and she has an unshakable feeling that he angrily glared at her as he leaves the cafeteria, humiliated. She quickly bites down on her sandwich and tries calm her racing heart, but she is too nervous about how he would react in private.
Margo sits down next to her, "Hey Lynn," she notices her friend anxiously eating her sandwich, "Are you okay? I haven't seen you this nervous since the NFL draft."
Lynn takes a large bite of her sandwich and nods her head.
"Should I ask?"
Lynn swallows her food, "Ask about what? I'm just here eating my lunch. Nothing weird about that!" she nervously chuckles.
The jock quickly gets up, and makes her way out of the cafeteria.
Margo shakes her head, "She did it again. Honestly, she's got to stop and think a little before she acts."
Elena stares at her dad from the dining room. For the last couple of weeks, she has noticed that he has a little more energy, he doesn't complain about his back as much, and his clothes are a little baggier than normal.
She speaks up to him, "There's something different about you, dad."
Francisco turns towards his daughter, wondering what she means by that, "Well I've been exercising a little more; I want to be around to see you grow up."
She shakes her head, "No, I mean your eyes don't look tired or sad."
"I didn't look tired or sad," he retorts.
She knows he is lying, and the look she is giving him makes sure to tell him that. Normally, the young girl would see him look exhausted and his reactions seemed to lag a bit, but he's been acting a little different lately; he seems happier and less troubled.
"I didn't," he reassures her.
She still doesn't believe him, but she knows that he isn't going to let up anytime soon; her father always was a stubborn man.
"So there's no other reason that you're exercising?" she asks putting up her best smile, in hopes of getting a more detailed answer.
He shakes his head, refusing to let up.
"Are you sure? No other reason? More free time? A hobby? A girlfriend?" she asks the last option with a little smile on her face. She isn't a stranger to the idea of her parents dating, her mom has introduced her before to some of the men that she's dated, but her dad is a different story and the only reason that she knows that he has gone out on dates was because someone else would bring it up.
He immediately looks at her, and quickly responds, "I promise. Seeing you grow up is the only reason." He puts a plate in front of her, "Now, let's eat."
Elena looks at the plate and sighs, just once, she wishes that her dinner isn't just tostadas with beans and cheese.
It's been a few days since the cafeteria incident, and Lynn has a secret admirer letter in her pocket that she had worked on for days, and today she was going to make sure he got it.
She looks over at him and spots him talking to his teammates.
"You may want to hold off on getting close to him," Margo states.
Lynn gets startled at hearing her friend. "What are you talking about? I'm just scoping out the competition."
Margo pretends that she didn't spot a letter with the little red hearts sticking out of her pocket, "He's still pretty mad about the cafeteria incident. I don't think that you should talk to him."
"I'm not gonna go talk to him. I was just gonna go and wish him luck," she says nervously.
Margo knows that Lynn wasn't going to let this go. Rather than stop her, she just turns around and says, "Wait until he has some bubblegum, he seems pretty relaxed when he chews on some gum."
Lynn opens her mouth. She wants to pretend that she didn't understand what Margo was talking about, but decides to take her advice and wait.
Francisco pulls into the deli's parking lot; his eldest brother looks and read the sign, "Romano's Deli?"
Chuy is surprised; usually, Francisco's choice for lunch was a rotation between a few cheap fast food joints near their job, so seeing the new deli is a welcomed change from the usual hamburgers, tacos, and chicken places that they normally visit.
"Yeah, their sandwiches are great," the younger brother says as he steps out of the truck.
"When have you been here?" Chuy asks as he stares at the deli.
"Chuy, we only get one hour for lunch, do you want something to eat or do you want to talk?"
The older brother stays quiet and follows his younger brother inside. The smells of the deli meats and bread waft in the air, the pictures of platters, sandwiches and other eats are stuck to the walls, even some of photos of what Chuy assumes are the deli's patrons.
Chuy gets closer to the wall and his eyes are drawn to a photo, "Dang! This woman ate five sandwiches in one sitting back in…" Chuy glances at the date, "March? That's insane."
Without thinking, Francisco responds, "And she paid for it that night."
The younger brother quickly regrets his words, and hopes that his older brother didn't notice, "How do you know?"
"Wh-Who can eat that many sandwiches in one sitting and not regret it?"
Chuy nods his head in agreement, and walks up to the counter. A young woman looks up, and immediately smiled upon seeing Francisco.
"Benvenunti nel – Francesco! Come stai? Non ti vedo da tanto tempo," she turns to Chuy, "Chi è quest'uomo?"
She begins speaking rapidly in Italian, but neither brother can understand what she was saying. The remaining family members begin to chime in as the pass by looking at Francisco.
Chuy whispers to Francisco, "I think the Italian girl is a little sweet on you."
The younger brother blushes, "What makes you say that?"
Chuy chuckles and shakes his head. Even after all these years, Francisco still seems to be blind to the idea that he is capable of grabbing a woman's attention, then again, considering his brother's history, it is better that the elder brother not push the matter.
"Sorry, when I begin speaking Italian when I get excited. How are you?"
Francisco quickly makes his way to his room as he tries to avoid his family. His hand is stuffed into his pocket, as he keeps its contents from being spilled out or seen. He closes the door, drops his gear. He takes out the envelope that has had his attention since the game and his heart begins to beat as he wonders what was written inside.
He didn't care that his team lost, all he is worried about is who bothered to write his name on an envelope with little hearts and hide it under his helmet without his knowledge.
The boy never pictured himself as the object of someone's desire, but the letter proved that at least someone liked him enough to tell him.
He carefully opens the envelope and reads the letter inside. His lips formed a smile as he reads the letter. It mentions his admirer thinking that he is cute, that he is cool, and that he is an amazing athlete.
His mind wonders who could have sent him the letter; there aren't a lot of girls that come to mind, but everyone around school knows that he is an athlete, so maybe it's someone that would go to his games. He begins to mentally list the girls that could have sent him the letter during the game, but none of them seem to fit the bill.
"Maybe she knew someone who could get close?" he assumes.
Francisco takes a deep breath, his mind wanders to Lynn, but he quickly shakes his head; she doesn't seem like the type of girl who would send a secret admirer letter, she's the type of girl who would tell you to your face if she likes you. He doesn't want to think about her, he is still mad at her, especially since she still hasn't apologized to him.
He keeps trying to think of anyone in his class that it could be, but he can't imagine that any of the girls would want him to be their boyfriend.
He leans down and searches for a shoe box hidden under his bed, and places the letter in the box along with his other keepsakes, "Hopefully, I get another letter."
"C'mon! One more! I know you can do it! Don't you quit on me now!" says Lynn, as she attempts to motivate him to finish his last rep.
His arms struggle to lift the barbell, but he musters a short surge of strength to lift it and complete his set. Lynn lifts the bar, and sees him catching his breath.
"You're getting there," Lynn tells him. "But you still have a long way to go."
He looks up at her, "Do you ever plan on us hitting the pool at some point before the year ends, or did you just decide to abandon what we had planned without telling me?"
"We'll go eventually, but it's not gonna be much fun if it's completely one-sided," she boasts.
There is the Lynn he knew; she'd rather her opponent get closer to her in skill than slaughter them in competition.
"I think I can manage."
He's been trying to maintain his training schedule as much as she would have wanted, but it isn't always doable. He works and would crash on his couch at home after a long day, meanwhile he is pretty sure that if she would spend her free time either here or outside playing if she could. He has to stop that; they aren't kids anymore, nearly twelve years have passed and she's had time to change into someone different.
Without realizing it, Francisco is staring up at her from the bench. Lynn waves her hand in front of him, trying to get his attention.
"Did you hear what I says?"
"Sorry, what did you say?"
She looks down at him, "Are you okay? You've been getting distracted a lot lately."
Francisco just shakes his head, "I'm fine. Probably tired from work and exercise." He gets up, and tried to relieve his aching muscles, "So what did you ask me?"
"What? Nothing. Don't worry about it. I'm just gonna hit the showers," she walks away and left him with his thoughts.
It has been weeks since she sent her token of affection and it has been weeks since Francisco last talked to her for more than a few seconds. Lynn knows that he is still mad about the cafeteria incident. She occasionally hears some kids still taunt him, and while the teasing is dying down, he still refuses to talk to her.
As soon as the final school bell rang, she quickly runs to his locker to place the next letter in his locker. She digs out the letter from her pocket as the students begin to crowd the hallway. As she glances in the direction of his class, she sees him coming and hides the letter from him in her pocket.
She waves as she sees him coming, "Hey Francisco."
Rather than stop, he barely looks at her and continues to walk.
Lynn calls him again, but he keeps walking away from her, "Fine! Be that way! But you'll have to come back to your locker eventually!"
She sits down and waits by his locker, after what felt like an eternity to her, she walks off in search of Francisco.
"Seriously? This is has gone on long enough," she says to herself as she walks around, occasionally going back to his locker.
The hallway is emptying as students leave, but Francisco still hasn't shown up. She circles the halls one more time, and finally sees him putting his books away.
Lynn sneaks up behind and startles him, "Finally. I found you."
Francisco jumps, but refuses to turn around.
"Seriously? Are you still not talking to me?"
He closes his locker, and just nods before walking away.
She isn't content with that. He's been moping around long enough. She catches up to him.
"Don't bother, Lynn. I'm not going to just say that everything is fine and pretend that nothing happened."
"Why not?!"
"Why should I? You haven't done anything to show me that you feel any remorse, so why should I bother with you?" he quickly responds before walking away from her.
Lynn watches him go. She puts her hands in her pockets, and feels the envelope that she was going to secretly put in his locker. She takes it out, and contemplates whether to put it in his locker anymore.
The tomboy stares in the direction that he went, and sighs; stuffing the letter back in her pocket.
Francisco pulls into the parking lot by the lake. He notices Lynn leaning on the passenger door, tapping her fingers on the car and staring intently at the water as if nothing around her mattered.
He gets out of the car and closes the door to get her attention. She turns towards him, "About time you got here, I thought I was about to race myself."
"There was traffic on the way and I forgot my change of clothes at home – sue me."
"All I hear are excuses," his watch starts beeping, "Seriously?"
Francisco shrugs his shoulders before he pulls out an amber pill container and water bottle from his duffel bag.
Lynn looks in silence, "…it's still that bad?"
She hoped that the exercising would have helped relieve his back pain, but the way he stiffly walks over to her mean that it still hasn't done him any good.
He nods, "It doesn't go away overnight, Lynn," he swallows his medicine. He stretches a little and turns to her, "You ready?"
"Are you sure you want to do this? We've only being training for a few weeks, not exactly a lot of time for you to make up years of not exercising."
He says to her, "Just because I'm not training with you, doesn't mean that I'm not making some attempt at exercising. What's wrong, Lynnsanity, are you afraid?" he playfully taunts.
As if she was slapped in the face, she runs towards the water with vigor; waiting for him to slowly catch up to her. On land, he isn't exactly a force to be reckoned with, but maybe in the water he'll be different.
She turns to him, "About time. Would you like a head start, you know, just to give you a fighting chance?"
With a coy smile, he returns her trash talking, "I was just about to offer you the same thing."
She points to the other side of the lake, "First one to get to the other side of the lake and back wins. But be real, Francisco, do you–Hey!"
He walks as quickly as he could into the water; leaving her behind.
"You said that you didn't want a head start!" she yells at him.
"Then call it cheating!"
"Cheating? Dang it! Why am I respecting you for that?" she says to herself as she runs into the water to start the race.
For days, Lynn has had the envelope with her second secret admirer letter in her backpack, but all she can think about is what Francisco said to her. He hasn't hung around with her as much, he doesn't go to the park to practice baseball with her, heck, he won't even talk to her whenever they see each other.
The bell rings, and students leave the classroom. Margo notices her friend's slow steps and catches up to her.
"Are you okay, Lynn?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, Margo!" she snaps.
The blonde knows the truth – something has been bothering Lynn for days, and she knows it has to do something with the boy in blue.
"Do you want to go to the Burpin' Burger?"
Lynn shakes her head, "Nah, I have homework to do."
Margo is surprised, Lynn rarely turns down food, and she is rarely this solemn. She follows her friend, "Are you sure? My treat."
She hopes that the promise of free food would entice her friend to go get a bite to eat.
"Margo, I'm fine. Don't worry about me," Lynn says trying to hide whatever was bothering her.
Margo watches her go. She sighs and decides to roam the hallways.
Lynn laughs as she gets out of the water and lays down on the sand, "I can still beat you in a swim race."
Francisco catches up, and struggles to catch his breath after the long swim. "You know, it is possible that I let you win."
"Pfft yeah right, you've been wanting to shut me down for years. No way you'd just let me win for fun," she offers him a hand to help him get to shore, "You need to train more, that's all."
He crashes onto the sand as he tried to catch his breath. Lynn sits down next to him, "I know that there's an athlete is buried in there under all that gruff."
"Maybe…he died…a long…time…ago," he says in-between breaths.
"Like hell he did! C'mon! I know that you have one more lap in you!" she leaps up from the ground.
He raises his head, and looks at her, "No, I'm tired and just want to rest for a bit."
"Fine!" she sits down next to him, "But you owe me. Maybe a sandwich or more time training or something," she says with a playful smile as she punches his arm.
"Would you stop doing that?!"
"Doing what? This?" she punches him again in the same spot.
"Will you stop that?! We're almost thirty years old and you still punch me like we're kids," he complains.
"It's not that bad, you're just being whiny."
"Whiny? Those are some pretty big words considering that I've been nice enough to never return the favor."
Lynn raises an eyebrow, "Oh? Is today the day?" She moves her arm closer to him, as a way to tease him. She sees his skin yellowing a bit; she definitely left him a bruise after striking him in the same spot twice.
"Yes." She is taken aback by the response, "You've offered before, right?" he inches closer to her.
"Wait, what?" she looks at him; surprised by the serious look on his face.
She wasn't expecting him to be serious. Yes, she's offered to let him get a punch in, but he's never actually taken it. Why now? Why all of a sudden?
"W-W-Wait a minute! Are you serious? You can't be serious!"
He is surprised by her reaction; she has offered to let him get a hit, and now all of a sudden, she is freaking out. Her eyes look a bit scared; she has done this plenty of times, and the one time he wants to give her a taste of her own medicine, she panics.
She takes a deep breath and puts on a brave face, "Fine. But don't hold back. Even though a bruise is going to be much more noticeable on me than on–"
As she talks, he moves closer to her, and she braces herself for the impact. She just didn't expect it to be a kiss, and he didn't expect her to push him into the sand.
After school the next day, Lynn walks to her locker and notices Francisco standing nearby and looking at her.
It had been weeks since the incident, and she missed his companionship. Yes, she had her other friends, but it isn't the same. When the two are alone, she turns around, opens her locker and stares inside, "I'm sorry."
He doesn't say anything.
She says again a little louder, assuming that he didn't hear her the first time.
He remains quiet.
"Seriously?!" she turns around and looks at him, "I apologize and you're still mad!?"
"Why? Why did you do it in the first place?"
Plenty of thoughts are running through Lynn's head, she can't just tell him why; that's what the secret admirer letters are supposed to do. Lynn's heart begins to pound. She isn't ready to reveal the reason for why she threw her jock at him, especially not to his face.
When she remained quiet, he asks her again, "Well? Was it a dare? Did I piss you off? Did you just want to stop being friends?"
Her spine shivers after hearing that last question. No! She does not want to stop being friends with him, hell she wanted more than that; she wanted to be his girlfriend.
This is her chance – tell the truth, come clean, say 'I want to be your girlfriend'.
"Um…because I…because I…" she struggles to speak. "Because I thought that it would be funny…"
She couldn't tell him the truth and settles on a lie instead. If these few weeks has taught her anything, it's that not having him around, even for a short conversation is difficult. All sorts of thoughts run through her head, ranging from possible break ups to eventually never hanging out again, and she doesn't want to risk losing him.
"Seriously? That's why you did it? Because you thought that it'd be funny?"
She isn't sure if he knew the truth, but she continued, "Yeah…I thought that I'd have a little fun…guess you didn't like it…"
"No kidding…"
The two stay quiet.
Lynn looks down at the floor, "But I mean it, I am sorry about everything – the garbage, the jock in your face, the teasing; even for the video that somebody probably took." she looks him in the eye, "I'm sorry."
He looks back at her, and smiles, "Apology accepted." She smiles and put her arm around his shoulder. "You know, you're lucky that you have great friends, Lynn."
"Yeah, I know!"
"I get that I took you by surprise, but you know you didn't have to knock me over, a simple no would have been enough," he says as he rubs the back of his head.
She isn't paying attention; she is too busy looking up at the sky and taking in what just happened; he kissed her. She remembers dreaming of this moment as a kid, but now that it happened, she freaked out.
"Lynn, are you okay?" Francisco asks as he looks at the woman who has still not gotten up, "Look, I know you probably weren't expecting it, but–"
"How long…How long have you wanted to, uh, do that?"
He isn't sure how to respond; there were two different dates – the first time and the most recent one. The first time, he was a scared teenager who thought that she would either laugh at him or reject him, and now, even as an adult, he's still scared, but their time together brought back those old feelings, and he isn't going to let it slip through his fingers again.
"For a while now."
Lynn gets up, and tries to speak, but she wasn't sure about what to say. Was this something that they should try? What if it doesn't work out? It's hard enough keeping up as friends, how would it work as a couple? Is she really ready to start, especially now?
She shakes her head. She isn't going to let it happen again; it won't happen again. Lynn feels her heart beating rapidly as she looks at him, her hands are trembling, 'Why am I so damn nervous?'
She takes a deep breath and decides to return the favor.
