ERIC POV

Today was our season opener versus Navy Pier Prep. After classes the only time I saw Alex was during the pep rally and even then I didn't really have a chance to talk to her. The guys could tell I was starting to like her.

"So, ah," started Zeke trying to dance around the issue when we got on the bus to head out to Navy Pier. "How should I say this," he turned to Peter who had a smirk on his face as well.

"What's going on with you and Alex," Peter finally spilled. Aidan, who was sitting next to me, turned. He wanted to know too. I know I promised that I would tell him, but I still didn't know.

"I don't know," I answered looking away. I was trying not to think about her, especially before our first game. But no one was going to let it pass.

"You know exactly what we're talking about Eric," called Roman a few seats back. He, Justin, Brian, and Trick started to high five one another.

"I know what you folks are talking about," I snapped back. "But, I'm answering the question that I don't know what's going on with us." A few of them looked at me questioningly. Four, Uriah, and Will eyed me suspiciously.

"Guys, I already asked him if he likes my sister," said Aidan.

"And his response," Zeke questioned.

"He doesn't know if he likes her yet," Aidan said.

Four nodded. I knew he knew the feeling. It took him a while to admit to himself how he felt about Tris last year. He explained everything at camp, wondering if he could ever share with anyone all the secrets of his life, and Tris provided him that comfort, that stability, that trust, and most importantly that strength. I never knew how that felt and I was slowly beginning to think that I was feeling that way with Alex.

"Well," started Uriah. "You two have gotten closer."

"We've all gotten closer with her," I tried to defend the two of us constantly hanging out with one another.

"Yeah, but Eric honestly, you don't ever get close to anyone," said Edward. The guys got quiet for a while until Aidan spoke up.

"Since we're on the topic of my sister," Aidan started looking a bit upset. "You all don't need to play security and watch her anymore."

"What," asked Four.

"Drake guys aren't messing with her anymore," asked Zeke really serious. I remember that besides Tris, they tried the same thing with Shauna. Guilt filled within me again for all the stupid stuff I led to that.

"That's just it, I'm pretty sure they still will, but she made me promise," Aidan said sounding so frustrated.

"That night in the cafeteria," said Uriah. "That's what she made you promise?"

"That's stupid," interjected Peter. "I hope you told her no."

"I promised her though and I don't want to back out of it. As much as I want her safe, I don't want to break any promises." You could see the conflict on his face.

"Well, you may have promised her, but it didn't mean that I would have to stop looking out for her," I said. And in all honestly, I didn't want to just abandon her. I felt drawn to her. Part of it might have been guilt. I couldn't help but think of that night we almost kissed. We hadn't talked about it since, but Edward was right. We did get closer. She thanked me for saving her that night and if it was up to me, I would do anything to make sure I would never see her hurt or scared like that ever again.

"Thanks Eric," he said as we did a hand shake.

"See, that's what we're talking about," said Edward. "You obviously care about her more than you let on." If he was right again about this, then man was I in deep.

The rest of the ride there our conversation was about other stuff. When we finally got to the school, I was looking for Alex to come off the other bus. But they arrived before us and the squad was already at the field setting up and waiting for the JV to finish.

After our pep talk from our coach, we all walked out of the lockers. Edward, Aidan, Four, and I stood in the front waiting for them to announce us so we could run on the field. It was then that I saw her on the sidelines. Her wavy black hair that I thought always flowed just right on her, was done up in tight long curls and up in a ponytail with a red streak running through her hair like the rest of the cheer leaders. Once she looked our way, our eyes met, and her whole face lit up when she smiled. It was her big brown eyes that I just couldn't forget about. I am a guy, so I'm not going to lie about her body. I thought she was hot, a lot of the guys did. She had the curves and that little sway when she walked, and played it better than some of the other girls at school. But it was something about those eyes. She would always make her eyes look so innocent, yet I swear it was like a little devil played inside her. That how most of it was with her. Everything started off nice, but she could act so naughty sometimes. She was serious and at the same time she could behave so silly. I swear that girl could drive me insane. Dammit, I think I was starting to like her.

It was a hard first game. We went into halftime down by a touchdown and a two point conversion. Yet throughout the whole first half it seemed like we were playing catch up. During third quarter I caught an interception which led to a tie. Later on Edward caused a fumble, which led to Aidan throwing a pass to Four for the lead. As hard as we blitzed, when our offense got on the field, they would blitz twice as hard back. Aidan was almost sacked so many times. Each time I turned to look at Alex who look frightened for her brother. It was a pretty good game on the sportsmanship side of things, with minimum penalties on both teams. I think the main problem coach was going to address was that Uriah got called on a false start three times and that there was an illegal substitution twice on the defense when Al ran out once and the second was when Roman ran out. Several times we couldn't get the ball down the field, which resulted in Will giving us field goals instead.

Despite all of that, we won the game 39-34. Most of the guys met up with their girlfriends after the game was done. I wanted to find Alex, but she was nowhere in sight. Aidan called me over and said he was going to find his parents. I met his family several times and I thought his dad was pretty cool. Not to mention he was somewhat of a Dauntless Academy legend.

After Aidan received hugs and congratulations from both of them, his mother turned to give me hug. She never really was angry with me about last year. She knew it was out of my control, the things that my mother and sister did.

"You both played so well, Eric," she said in a friendly manner. "Any parent would be proud," she added.

"True," said Mr. Kent as he came to pat me on the back. "That was some good defense son." I put on a smile at him calling me son. It was a good feeling that I hadn't felt in a while.

"Where's your sister," asked Mrs. Kent. Just then the most beautiful, sexiest, smartest, caring, yet naughtiest and craziest girl I knew came running down the field.

"Dad!" Alex ran into her dad's arms as he hugged her tightly. Once, he released her, Mrs. Kent engulfed her in a hug too. They really looked like a happy family.

"You really look nice, Alex," said her dad. "Brings back memories, doesn't it Martha," he said pulling his wife closer to him and kissed.

"Really, out in public," Alex said looking around as her mom and dad started to laugh. "And you," she said hugging Aidan. "You almost knocked out couple times. Not to mention that time you almost got picked off in the third."

Aidan pinched her side. "Hey, they kept blitzing all night."

"You couldn't even punch it in when you guys were at the six-yard line!" I was a little surprised how much he knew about the game. It was true what Aidan said, his sister did know a lot about sports. That just made her so much more attractive to me. Oh shit, what am I thinking? It's been like a month and this girl had me wrapped around her finger and I don't even think she was trying.

"Alex," her father reprimanded. "The team did their best. You need to stop being so hard on your brother. It was a tough game. All in all, though we won!"

"That's true, we did get a victory," Alex said as she finally turned to see me standing there observing her and her family. "Defense wasn't too bad either," she said as hugged me. I really was hoping for this all night. "You had a good third quarter, mister," she said pulling back. Once I saw that smile on her face, I wanted to kiss her. But I realized her parents were there and just settled for another hug.

"Thanks Alex," I said loudly. "Can we talk later," I whispered right before releasing her for the second time. She pulled back, gave me a small smile and nodded.

"Alright, go get your friends too Alex," said Mr. Kent who apparently had set up to take us all for some dessert to celebrate. With that she hurried off, to what I assume was to look for Christina them.

Mr. and Mrs. Kent, and Mrs. Pedrad, Zeke and Uriah's mother, took us out for some dessert, mostly shakes, smoothies, sundaes, cake, cookies. Of course Alex threw her dad that innocent look that I saw her give Aidan a few times to get her way. I had to laugh when I saw it work on her dad too. She got to walk away with a dozen white chocolate chip cookies, a dozen peanut butter cookies, and half of carrot cake. She already had an Oreo shake and a brownie sundae.

"No wonder you're so sweet," I joked when she said next to me in the booth. "You're full of sugar."

"Shut up," she said playfully throwing half a cookie at me. I caught it before it fell to the ground and threw it in my mouth.

"It's not bad."

"See," she said this time handing me a full cookie. "You can't just have one." I took it and ate it. It really was good.

"I can't believe you got your dad to buy you all that junk-food using that look you always give Aidan."

"What look," she said eyeing me out suspiciously. She knew she was caught. I smiled at her. Then I saw her attempt to make her eyes big and puff out her lower lip.

"It's not really going to work with me. As cute as you look right now, you're going to have to do better than that," I said smiling back at her.

"Fine, it's on. I guess I just need to perfect it," she said straightening herself out and finishing up her brownie sundae. "You said you wanted to talk," she said softly as she finished the last bite. I did, but just as she asked I felt scared to tell her something both she and I weren't ready for.

"Alright kids, thirty minutes until the buses leave," called coach. "I know you all want to get back." Then I realized how I could get around 'the talk'. Zeke and Uriah were planning on throwing a party in one of the old abandoned buildings back on campus.

"Hey, did you hear about the party," I asked.

"Yea, Shauna told me. Although I don't think Aidan would let me go."

"Why don't you ask him," I said smiling at her. Time to perfect your innocent face, I thought to myself. Immediately she picked up on my thought and smiled back at me.

"Hey Aidan," she called as he walked over. "Are you going to the party Zeke and Uriah are throwing?"

"Yea, but you're not," he replied. Oh no, he asked for it.

"Really Aidan," she said making a pouting face and looking up at her brother with those big brown eyes. I could tell she was trying to get them to look angelic, because I noticed Aidan shake his head a little as if to clear the image of his sister pleading with him.

"No," he said a little lighter. She almost got him. I couldn't believe it. Aidan usually never gave in that quickly. I wanted to look at what she was doing, but I knew I would just give it all away.

"I'll stay out of trouble, I promise," she said softly and almost like a five year old asking their mother to stay up for just a few more minutes. I could only imagine what she looked like now. Honestly, I gave in to those eyes before telling her a little bit of last year. But I knew I had to keep my guard up until I knew for certain that I truly liked her. So as much as I wanted to imagine her face in my head, now was not the time. Aidan looked up at me. She saw his attention shift and demanded it back by sitting up to block me from view. Once her brother and her locked eyes, she tilted her head. Besides all that pleading, she had to offer something else to get him to budge.

"I'll even stay by Eric the whole night if I have to," she said almost sounding frustrated.

"Okay," Aidan answered right away.

"What," I asked.

"You can go to the party Alex, but I want you to stay close to Eric, don't go wandering off." With that he walked away.

"It almost didn't work on him," she said resting her head on her hand and looking at me. She looked so adorable I just had to laugh.

"Well, looks like you'll need more practice than you thought," I teased. Just then coach said it was time to get ready to go back. She said she would see me back at campus and headed off to tell her parents bye.

Almost the entire campus was at the party. We cleared the floor on the top for the upperclassman. Every so often a sophomore would come up, but they didn't get to stick around for long. In all of that I couldn't find Alex. I ran into Tara and Rachel, though. I was a little upset they made the cheer squad. I would end up seeing more of them throughout the year. They would just give me glares and then continue on to whatever they were doing.

I heard that Rachel, Emily, and Britney found them a couple new guys to harass, so I didn't really care. There's was only one girl that I couldn't get out of my head and I couldn't find her anywhere.

Did she decide not to come? Or worst, what if she came and she had already gotten into trouble?

"Are you lost," someone asked behind me.

I knew right away, that it was Alex. I turned to see her smiling at me. She looked absolutely sexy right now. She had on short shorts, boots, and nice blouse that hugged her body. Immediately I hugged her, happy to see she hadn't been harmed.

"What's wrong?" I guess she could see the panic on my face.

"I thought you got yourself into trouble," I said releasing her.

I ran my fingers down her cheek remembering that night back in my dorm. I continued to run it down her arm, until I found her hand, intertwined our fingers and pulled her towards the stairs to walk up another level.

"Come on."

"We're not going to stay," she asked.

"I just want to get some air, talk to you a while, then we can head back down," I answered. We walked around a corner where I saw Peter had Lauren up against a wall, making out. "Well, we can't talk here," I said leading her to the other side of the level.

"Why don't we just sit here," she said motioning to what looked like an old lab table.

I guess this used to be the science building back in the day. She jumped up to sit down on the table. I ended up standing, facing her, and placing both of my hands on either side of her. She didn't seem to mind.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"You," I answered simply. I realized that I didn't really drink that much tonight, so I couldn't really blame whatever I said on the alcohol.

"What about me?"

"I just really..." I looked down. How do I tell her? "I just really..." Okay, now why the hell was this so hard? She took her hand and lifted my head up to look at her.

"I'm sorry I ever judged you Eric," she said softly. That was what I had wanted this whole time, her forgiveness. But I could not help but think that I wanted so much more right now. "You know what," Alex began again while removing her hand and looking down. "You don't need to tell me about last year anymore."

I was so happy, she was going to finally let me in and trust me. She wasn't going to believe whatever stupid rumor she heard.

"I told myself I didn't really care about what you thought about me," I started. "But I was just fooling myself. I don't know why but I just care way too much about what you think. I can't stand it when you're mad at me. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world when you're happy with me. I don't know how to explain it Alex."

"Like I said, you don't need to explain it anymore," she said giving me a smile.

I ran my hand down her cheek again, moved closer and pressed my lips to her forehead. Everything was screaming to just kiss her, but I just couldn't. Not in this dirty building. She deserved so much better than this, so much more than all those other girls. Why? It is because she is someone special, someone worthwhile. Someone I was slowly letting into my heart. We stayed like this for a couple minutes. I was just enjoying her being wrapped in my arms until she broke the silence.

"Why don't we go back down and dance?"

"Sure," I smiled at her, helped her off the table, and then headed back to the party.