Chapter 2: Friday Night Fever

"And TOUCHDOWN! I can't believe it, folks! That was an amazing play by the Pineview Parrots! The score is now 17 – 10, Parrots in the lead. Wow, that was an awesome play by the Pineview team. Now, we're going to clear the field and begin the halftime show…"

But the announcer could hardly be heard over Pineview High School's side of the stadium. The crowd was going wild.

"WOO-HOO!" Carlos shouted. "YEAH PARROTS! BEAT THE…" He turned to Louis. "What's the other team called again?" Louis shrugged, and Carlos turned back to the field. "BEAT THE OTHER TEAM!" he yelled.

Carlos exhaled sharply, looking quite pleased with himself. He straightened his winter jacket and sat back down on the bleachers beside Louis and their air-headed friend, James Diamond.

"Wow, that was awesome," Carlos sighed.

"Yeah. Awesome." In short, Louis was not amused. He hated football, but James had dragged him there that evening. Carlos didn't help him out of it either. He seemed to be convinced that since Louis was trying out for the play, he suddenly wanted to get involved in school activities. If it were really up to Louis, he would be at a Friday night party, not a dumb school football game listening to Carlos rant about how awesome sports and girls were.

"Sam Sheffield is so hot," Carlos went on. "She's beautiful and the only girl on the football team too!"

"Double the coolness!" James smiled, flipping his Justin Bieber hair then flashing a movie star smile.

"Shut up, James," Louis grumbled.

"Yeah, James, back away from my girl," Carlos seconded defensively.

Louis bit his lip. Sam Sheffield was actually a close friend of his. Their parents had been good friends after college, so they'd known each other since they were kids. Sam thought Louis was (accurately) a jerk, but they both knew they could rely on each other to have each other's back. Because of this, Louis knew for a fact that Sam had the (major) hots for Niall Horan, the only boy on the varsity cheerleading squad.

"I don't know, Carlos," he told his friend. "I don't know if she's, uh… I don't think she's looking for a boyfriend right now," he lied.

"I overheard her talking to her friend that she was looking for a date to the Winter Formal," Carlos replied. "Quite loudly too."

"Now would be the perfect time for you to swoop in!" James exclaimed.

Louis frowned. "Shut up, James."

"Come on, Louis, what's the problem?" Carlos said. "You guys have been friends forever, and you always tell me what a nice girl she is."

"And you're a nice guy, Carlos," James put in.

"So naturally we're perfect for each other," Carlos noted.

"I definitely tell you how mean she is to me," corrected Louis. "And how she thinks that I'm a big jerk."

"Well…" Carlos began.

"Don't respond to that," Louis snapped before he could finish. Carlos looked almost beside himself. The lovesick stars in his big brown eyes made Louis want to puke, but James was eating it up. Not that his opinion mattered anyway.

"Will you please be my wingman and put in a good word for me?" Carlos asked.

Louis glanced at his best friend who was searching the crowd for Sam. She was standing down with the rest of the team; she had just taken off her helmet and let her long, wavy dirty blonde hair fall loosely at her back. You could almost see her blazing blue eyes from the bleachers. Yeah, she was pretty, Louis had to admit… even if she did think he was a jerk.

Louis weighed his options, but he didn't see any harm in trying to convince Sam that Niall wasn't the right guy for her. Every time they talked nowadays seemed to be Niall Horan this, Niall Horan that, only Sam had a bit of difficulty pronouncing his name. It might do her some good to broaden her horizons. He also had a feeling that Sam wasn't Niall's partner preference either.

"Fine," he finally said. "As long as you don't drag me to one of these dumb things again," he added quickly. Carlos grinned and took Louis' hand to shake it.

"It's a deal."

The game ended with an embarrassing defeat… for the opposite team.

Sam Sheffield high-fived her teammates and cheered with the rest of the crowd. Football was riveting, and she adored the rush of heading out onto the field. Seeing the lights on the grass. Feeling the adrenaline of running to tackle the other players. Most of all, though, she loved how the football slipped between her hands in a flawless catch.

Which was how the Pineview Parrots had scored their last point.

Her coach had been thrilled with her. At the beginning of the year, he'd been hesitant to let her on the varsity football team, but she certainly never let him down. She was one of the best players and an excellent catcher, but Sam didn't care for the glory at the moment. She had her wide blue eyes set on one person only… Niall Horan.

Sam put her helmet onto the bench and slipped past a few of her teammates who were congratulating each other. She headed toward the cheerleading squad where Niall was chatting with some of other girls. Sam conveniently pushed past the female cheerleaders to get to Niall.

"Ni-yall!" she exclaimed. "You are so good at cheerleading. You really keep me pumped out there." Niall smiled at her as she stared at his thick, bottle blonde hair. He was wearing a tight-fitting blue and red cheerleading shirt and navy pants with light-weight white sneakers.

"Oh, Sam!" he exclaimed ecstatically. "You're too funny. How many times must I tell you that my name is Niall?" Sam chuckled lightly.

"Oh, Ni-yall," she laughed, completely oblivious to his comment. She batted her long eyelashes. "You're funny! Your pompoms are beautiful, by the way, and they perfectly match the pigment of your eyes."

Niall stared at her, then at his deep blue pompoms. "Uh… Thanks? You're really nice, Sam, and you played pretty amazingly today. Hudson sure gave that ball a good throw at the end, huh?" His eyes drifted over to burly football players gathered at the gate. "He's really cute."

Sam was about to say that Hudson was an ugly jerk but thought better of it.

"Hudson's whatever," she said dismissively instead. She gave him a long adoring look before continuing, "So, Ni-yall, how about we hang out tomorrow afternoon? Just the two of us. Alone. Together. By ourselves. With no one but each other for company. In solitude. You and me. If you catch my drift."

"I'm actually busy tomorrow," Niall told her gently, but Sam didn't seem to get the hint.

"That's okay!" she told him optimistically. "We can do it some other time. I have all the time in the world for you, Ni-yall. All the time in the world."

"Niall," Niall corrected her, but she was too busy staring at his face.

Varsity football star Sam Sheffield was an extremely kind girl despite what Louis would say, but when she got hooked on a guy, she was really hooked on that guy. She could probably get any boy she wanted (except Niall), and Niall was perfectly aware of that. He thought he had given her plenty of strong hints, but she never seemed to get the message. Niall was too kind-hearted to want to break that kind of news to a sweet girl like Sam. Even so, this had been going on for weeks, and he was running out of excuses.

"What did you say, you gorgeous being?" Sam asked.

"Nothing," Niall replied, beginning to back away. "I'll see you later, Sam."

Sam watched Niall go, still lost in a fantasy. What would make her realize Niall was gay? The world may never know.

Instead of joining his peers at the football game that Friday, Zayn was working at his parents' – er, his dad's – bookstore. Like Louis, Zayn wasn't exactly a big fan of football. Unlike Louis, though, he wouldn't be caught dead wasting his time at a Friday night party.

The last time Zayn had been to a party was his junior year's homecoming dance where his date turned out to be a huge attention hog. Needless to say, he dumped her after a few obnoxious stunts she pulled. Since then he had been looking for a girl with a little more class, but until that day came, he had his job to distract him.

Zayn didn't mind working at the store, but it was a little too close to his father for comfort. His father would only treat him like an employee, which made for several awkward situations. This was why he liked to hide out in the back of the store by the teenage fiction section, organizing books. The job was strangely calming and kept his mind off of his problems.

That evening, he was carrying a box of sappy vampire novels to the back when a small child ran right in front of him, causing him to lose his balance. Zayn managed to catch himself on a nearby shelf, but the box fell. Vampire books spilled all over the floor. He grumbled as he got onto his knees to pick up the mess.

"Need a hand?" a familiar voice asked.

Zayn looked up to see Maya Payne, standing by the mystery novels. Her dark curls were pulled back into a ponytail, and her smiling face was unmistakable. He felt his cheeks getting hot, and he made sure his evergreen polo was completely tucked into his khaki pants. If he had to be wearing the store's uniform when he ran into his cute math tutor, he was going to make sure he was wearing it properly.

Maya made her way over to Zayn and began helping him. He saw her pick up one of the books, glance at the cover, and begin to giggle.

"What?" he asked. She smiled and showed him the front picture. The image was a pretty morbid-looking, pale, shirtless teenager who Zayn assumed was supposed to be a vampire.

"Is this what you like to read in your free time?" she joked. Her face broke into another grin that Zayn was beginning to love.

"You caught me," he said, cracking a smile. "Now you know why I'm having trouble with calculus."

He placed a few more of the books into the cardboard box as she laughed.

"I didn't realize that you worked here," she told him. "I come to this store all the time looking for something interesting to read."

"Then it's a wonder I haven't seen you around before. I'm here all the time," he replied.

Maya plopped the remainder of the vampire books into the box then stood up. She rolled onto her tiptoes, peering toward the front of the bookstore where there was a small coffee shop area. Zayn stood as well and picked up the box.

"Hey, how about I tutor you over there?" she said, pointing at the coffee shop. "If you're not busy, I could drop by next Friday." Zayn set the box on top of an empty shelf and leaned against the top.

"I'm down for that," he said. "The end of the semester is in a few weeks, so I could use some help before the final."

Maya smiled at him warmly. "I know that Mr. Styles can exaggerate things sometimes, so I bet you don't need as much help as you think. You seem like a pretty intelligent guy."

"How can you be so sure?" he asked.

"Sometimes I just have a good feeling about people, Zayn," Maya assured him.

He gazed at her sparkling brown eyes which seemed to be assuring him that he could trust her. Zayn felt a nagging in the back of his mind, warning him not to trip, because the next thing he knew, he'd fall in love with his math tutor. He shook his head. That was treading in dangerous waters.

"Next Friday is fine," he said.

"Zayn! I need you for register duty!"

The sound of his father's unusually loud voice made Zayn wince. Maya jumped too, almost knocking into him. Zayn put the box down and shoved it out of the aisle against the wall.

"I'll see you around, Maya," he said quickly. He hurriedly rushed toward the register.

For the rest of the night, he replayed their short conversation over and over again in his mind. He wished he had been a little more responsive. It was one of the many times Zayn wished he had mastered the skill of saying the right thing at the right time. Every time the conversation entered his thoughts, he tried to shove it from his mind, but to no avail.

He had tripped, and he was falling in love.

Would you be at the football game with Louis or reading a book with Zayn? Let me know in a review!

Sneak Peak: Make sure you subscribe because next week, we meet Liam Payne, and we get a flavor for just how sassy Sam and Louis's friendship is!