Chapter 2

A few days later Julie was seated on her double bed, legs stretched out while Lois painted her toe nails. They were fire engine red, she wiggled her toes, they looked saucy and troublesome, and everything she thought she wasn't. Lois flicked her pinkie toe with her thumb and forefinger annoyed that Julie was making her beautifying job more difficult.

Lois paused and looked at Julie. "Have you noticed anything weird in the halls this week?" Julie stopped wriggling and looked at Lois. A perplexed look on her face.

"Now that you mention it, the players have been like, looking at me and stuff. Not perving exactly but watching and sniggering. I am beginning to get a little paranoid," Julie thought over what she said and knew she wasn't being paranoid, it was definitely happening and she didn't like it. She didn't like footballers and she didn't like footballers taking an interest in her.

Lois looked at Julie, examining her friend's face. "I heard at school that Smash has being saying you were all over him at the supermarket. I heard something about a pole dance but I didn't know what they were meaning." Julie's head snapped up and her eyes immediately glowed with the thoughts of killing Smash.

"He said what?" she was going to kill him. How the hell did yelling and throwing a box of tampons become pole dancing?

"He came up to me, tried some lame ass line on me and got shut down. Now he's trying to reclaim some pride or something I guess. I am going to kick his ass though," Julie sounded definite and Lois was actually a little scared for Smash and the rest of the football season.

Lois tried to bring some levity to the conversation, "You know he's actually a really good looking guy, you could definitely go out with him. He'd be heaps of fun to hang out with." Julie looked at Lois sceptically, her toes well and truly dried.

"I would have to see a whole other side to Smash to even consider going anywhere with him. I mean he's being spreading crappy rumours about me worshipping at his temple throughout the school. What could I really get out of Smash?"

Lois grinned evilly "Some touch time with some awesome abs and a granite ass," Julie snorted. Lois looked at her with shock and they both dissolved into a puddle of giggles.

"Granite ass, where did you pull that crap from Lois?" Julie spluttered.

"Hey I am alive, I notice these things." Lois defended herself. "Have you seen Riggins' lately?" Her hand waved in front of her face like she was on heat.

Julie face turned to one of mock innocence. She assumed a Southern accent and fluttered her hands at her chest like a true belle "Why me? Poor ole innocent me? Why would I, perchance to see a gentleman's buttocks. I am a lady,"

They fell into another pile of giggling, Julie's anger at Smash temporarily forgotten.

"Besides," Julie added in her normal voice, "looking is better. Would you really want to have an actual conversation with Smash or Riggins? They have an IQ of a pet rock and the personality of a toe clipping. I have no interest in footballers, with an exception to their gluteus maximus'." With that the girls turned their attention to their fingernails and the fine attributes of Channing Tatum.

/ - / - /

If Julie Taylor had known what was riding on her virginity she would have been shocked. And then, later with Tyra or Lois, she might've laughed about Tim Riggins or Smash Williams showing up naked to class. There was no way she'd ever sleep with either of them, no matter what rumours were being trafficked around Dillon High School about the now infamous run in at the grocery store. Besides, she strongly suspected they would have HIV or the Clap.

But Julie Taylor didn't know, so when Julie dropped a book she wasn't surprised to see it had been picked up by a baller. When this happened she couldn't help but groan. Why was Tim Riggins helping her? She glared at him and said in an icy tone, "Thank you." She turned to see three football players gawking at her. She hadn't given Smash some sort of strip tease, and she sure as hell wasn't going to give one to Riggins.

"So... Hemingway... huh..." Tim said, looking at the cover of The Sun Also Rises.

"Listen, I don't care if you play football. You shower with other guys." Julie said, smirking. This comment wouldn't have been so bad, Tim would have maybe even found it humorous if Smash hadn't come up behind him, laughed, and then walked away. "Okay, what's with you guys walking around and staring at me, all the time?" Julie sighed, "Did my dad show you guys some embarrassing photos?" there was no other explanation, but Julie Taylor didn't want to hear it anyway. She just started to walk away, rolling her eyes at the boys.

She wasn't aware Tim was fallowing her. And she'd never know, because he stopped when she walked into the dreaded library. He hadn't been in since one of his literary romps with Tyra. Literary romps, well that was one way to phrase making out in the library.

When Smash walked by Julie Taylor she had been doing what he'd expected she'd do. Diss the drunken, dead weight of a player. Though, the diss Julie gave Tim applied to him too, that didn't matter much to him. All that mattered was that he was winning. That was all that ever mattered. As he walked into the lunchroom, he decided to get a candy bar. Carmilk, to be specific. As he put the dollar twenty five into the vending machine, he saw Lyla Garrity walk by. She looked good.

"Hey Miss Garrity..."