On Tuesday morning, I walked to the stadium with a smile on my face. I shouldn't be smiling, really, because Coach Baxter called for an early morning practice, leaving us all trudging to the field by 6 AM.

And yet, I didn't mind. In all honesty, I was excited to see Vincent again. Despite spending a long weekend at home with him, I somehow hadn't reached my limit of how much of him I can handle.

"Lily," Rory moans from the bench as I approach. "I'm so hungover."

I give him a blank stare and ask, "Why were you drinking on a Monday night?"

He glances up at me with squinted eyes and mumbles, "I was celebrating getting a C on my paper."

I roll my eyes at him. "You knew that we had early practice today."

"I didn't think I was going to get so hammered," Rory tries to excuse lamely, but ends up groaning. "I'm an idiot, I know. But can you please help?"

"Obviously," I tell him with a small smile. "Go sit in the shade. I'll be right back."

I drop my backpack on the ground beside the bleachers and continue walking into the tunnel of the stadium. I pass the locker room and hear the boys hooting and hollering inside, and wonder how the hell they're all so riled up this early.

As I pass the door, it swings open, and I catch what the guys were chanting: "Bradshaw's whipped!"

Vincent himself is the one who stumbles out of the locker room with a small smile on his lips. His gaze lifts to meet my amused one as I wonder if they were all giving him shit about coming home with me for the weekend.

"Hey," I greet and watch his small smile widen. "What's that about?"

He rubs the back of his neck and says, "Uh, getting whipped into shape. You know, so I can finally practice with everyone again." I nod slowly, not fully convinced, but he just grins and changes the course of the conversation. "Where are you headed?"

"The fridge," I tell him, and push away all the butterflies entering my stomach. "I have to break into my stash of Pedialyte for Rory."

Vincent falls into step with me and we start walking toward the ice baths, where the fridge was located. He seemed equally as chipper as I this morning, and it threw me off. He usually hated mornings, but I guess he was wired with excitement at the prospect of finally practicing with the team again.

"They don't deserve you," Vincent swears with a shake of his head. "You're too good for those boys."

I raise my eyebrow and give him a pointed look. "You're one of 'those boys'."

I turn into the room with the fridge and open the handle while Vincent leans against the doorframe and watches me grab two bottles.

"The difference is, I know your worth," He tells me confidently.

I tuck a bottle of water and another bottle of Pedialyte under my arm and pretend as if his words didn't surprise me. "Do you?"

As I approach the doorway, Vincent slides in the middle so he's blocking my exit, with either hands gripping the edge of the doorframe. He leans down a little to get closer to me as I stand there, my heart thumping a mile a minute for no good reason in my chest.

There's too little distance between us. When he breathes, I can practically feel it on my cheeks. He grins at me. "I do."

And then he swiftly takes the bottles from underneath my arm and turns back into the tunnel. "Hey!"

"Relax Lil," Vincent says calmly, looking back at me. "I'm just carrying them for you."

His chivalry wasn't necessarily new, but the frequency of it was increasing by the day. It was like Vincent was trying to make me fall for his charm.

He hands me the bottles when we reach the stadium and tells me that he has to change from his sneakers to his cleats in the locker room. I bring the provisions over to Rory, who was in the shade against the base of the bleachers with his head in his hands.

"Here," I say as I hand him the Pedialyte. "This is full of electrolytes. It should help."

He looks at me gratefully, takes the bottle, and begins to chug as if his life depended on it. I watch his ridiculous chugging speed, unsure if he was just going to puke it all up, but when he finishes the bottle, he gives me a grin.

"Now drink this," I say, handing him the water. "Make sure you stay hydrated. More than usual, okay?"

Rory grins at me. "Thanks Lily."

"Any time," I tell him and return his smile.

As practice starts up and the boys all jog out onto the center of the field, I start to think about Vincent. We had gotten considerably closer over the past few weeks, and it had gotten to the point where I was excited about 6 AM practice because it meant I got to see him. When the hell did that happen?

I knew that I had to distance myself from him before I ended up really liking him. Right now, it was just a crush-- a manageable crush-- but how long until I was swooning over him? His constant flirtatious comments didn't help my little crush, either; he was annoyingly charming and I didn't know how to be unfazed by it.

Practice went smoothly for the first half hour without anyone needing to be taped up or examined, and I was proud of Rory for not throwing up under the morning sun. A few times, I heard Vincent's last name being hollered by the coaches, but by the time I looked over to him, I had missed whatever he did to get himself in trouble.

Until this time, when I was standing in the sun and tugging the ponytail out of my hair until it fell all around my shoulders. I look up in time to see Vincent get tackled onto the ground as one of the bigger guys on the defense sacked him. And it was because he was looking at me.

"Damn it, Bradshaw," Coach Baxter shouts as he throws his hands up. "Take a picture, it will last longer!"

My cheeks turn bright red as I realize Coach was talking about me, and I look down so that my hair can act as a curtain and shield my blush from any watchful eye. I peek through my hair to make sure Vincent was okay, and feel a twinge of relief when he climbs back up.

Vincent makes it through the rest of practice unscathed and more focused, and Rory manages not to get sick at all. I'm equally proud of both of them. When the final whistles blow and signal the end of practice, I'm more than nervous when I hear my name out of Coach's mouth.

"Lily and Bradshaw," Coach Baxter calls from the 50 yard line. "Come here."

I spare a glance in Vincent's direction and meet his gaze, which looked equally as confused and nervous as mine. We walk out to where Coach was standing with a football in his hand, and when we're all together, he tosses the ball to Vincent.

"I don't know what's going on between you two," Coach starts, and immediately my cheeks flame up. "And I don't want to know. But whatever it is, it cannot keep affecting your performance on the field."

"Sorry Coach," Vincent says somewhat quietly. "It must've just been first day back nerves."

He shakes his head and gives Vincent a pointed look. "I've seen you nervous. This is you being distracted. I know relationships can—"

"We're not dating," I feel the need to interject.

"I don't give a shit," Coach supplements quickly, pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Whatever is going on between you two is causing Bradshaw to lose focus. I'm telling you both right now so we can nip this in the bud. When we're on this field, nothing else matters but the game. Got it?"

Vincent sets his jaw and nods. "Got it."

I mumble, "Got it."

"Good," Coach Baxter says gruffly. "You're both free to go."

I turn around feeling utterly mortified by the talk we just had, only taking partial comfort knowing that Vincent had been there too. But the boy himself abruptly turned away from me and walked the opposite direction, as if I was the last person he wanted to interact with.

I pretended like his abrupt exit didn't shoot a twinge of hurt through my chest and instead walked back over to my spot on the sideline to gather my things. As I was collecting my water bottle and notebook into my backpack, a very sweaty Trevor approached me.

"What was that about?" Trevor questions, then squirts water from his bottle into his mouth as if he's never tasted water before.

I shrug and mutter, "Just making sure Vincent felt okay after his first practice back."

He lowers the water bottle and shoots me a suspicious look. "You mean it had nothing to do with the fact Bradshaw found you much more interesting than the football?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say automatically.

When I stand up, Trevor bumps my shoulder with his and lowers his voice. "You can't pretend like nothing is going on between you. Even I can feel the sexual tension from across the field."

"Trevor," I whine, mostly because he was embarrassing me but partially because I didn't want anyone else to hear his completely true accusations. "Drop it."

He sighs dramatically and promises, "Fine. But only for now."

I sling my backpack around my shoulder and give him a fake smile. "Thank you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have two hours to nap before my first class."

"Wait!" Trevor cries, newly excited. "I have to give you something for Jane. Wait here."

He pivots in his feet and starts sprinting toward the tunnel, where most of the guys were heading. I let out an exhausted breath, entirely ready to climb back into bed, and sit down on the bench while I wait for him to return.

I let my thoughts distract me for a few minutes before I hear footsteps approaching, and look up to see Vincent walking toward me. Well, it really looked like his end goal was to make it to the exit, seeing as his gaze was set on his phone and I doubt he noticed I was there.

"Hey Bradshaw," I call from my seat on the bench, but he doesn't look up.

But I know he heard me, because suddenly his shoulders tense.

"Vincent!" I say again, this time rising from my seat.

Instead of answering me, Vincent grabs his headphones from around his neck and pulls them over his ears. I watch in shock at his blatantly rude attempt to ignore me and decide that he wasn't going to get away with it. With a newfound scowl set on my face, I jog to catch up to him and block his path, until he has no choice but to finally look at me.

He's wearing a matching scowl as he rips his headphones back off his ears and around his neck and snaps, "What?"

"Did you not hear me?" I ask in annoyance. "I was calling your name."

"I heard you and I was choosing to ignore you," Vincent tells me point-blank, and then tries to side step me to get around me.

However, I was too angry to let him do this, and I block his path again. "What the hell is your problem?"

"You," He practically growls, and takes a threatening step forward to scowl down at me. "Right now, you are my problem. And you need to get out of my fucking way."

This time, when Vincent steps to the side, I'm initially to shocked to mirror his movements to keep him from passing me. But when I regain my composure, I run to catch up to him and stand in front of him again, this time putting my hand on his chest to stop him from walking away from me.

"What's going on?" I ask incredulously, and then try to ask in a calmer voice, "Is it because of what Coach said?"

"Jesus Lily," Vincent mutters. "What don't you get? I told you to get out of my fucking way."

The look in his eyes sends chills down my spine, and not in a good way, so I simply step aside so that he can get by. He stares at me for a long minute before storming away and leaving me standing there wondering what had just happened.

Trevor found me standing there, watching Vincent retreat off of the football field, with deep creases set between my brow. When I heard him coming up from behind, I took a deep breath and tried to rid all evidence of my previous conversation before turning around and forcing a smile.

He was smirking when I turned around and tried to wiggle his eyebrows. "You two just can't stay away from-- Where are you going?"

I had started walking back toward the bench to gather my backpack, prepared to escape Trevor's ill-timed comments as quickly as possible. He seemed to catch on that he should be dropping the matter, because by the time I scooped my bag up and turned back around, Trevor was holding a bag of Skittles out toward me.

"These are for Jane," He says with a small smile.

I take the bag slowly and ask in confusion, "Skittles?"

The corners of his mouth tug upward a little more. "Yeah. She'll get it."

His smile is infectious enough to get me to muster up a tiny one of my own. I could tell how much he liked her, and it made me happy to see him this excited over my best friend; not to mention the fact that he was making her change her ways, which only spoke to how much she liked him back.

By the time I got back to my dorm room, I placed the bag of Skittles on Jane's bedside table and crawled into my own bed. I had a solid hour and a half before my first class, and even though I had convinced myself that all I wanted to do was sleep, my body didn't comply. Instead, my mind stayed wired on thoughts of Vincent.

I was torn between being annoyed that he was so quick to blame me for him getting distracted, and understanding that he was probably upset with himself and took it out on me. After all, he had just been cleared to practice with the team again, and he didn't preform as well as he probably wanted to. But it was his fault for getting distracted, not mine.

Eventually, when the thinking of him becomes too much, I pull out my phone and go to our messages, prepared to extend some sort of olive branch. My fingers freeze when I see the three tiny dots moving across the screen, indicating he was already typing, and I watch eagerly as they disappear and then reappear.

Sometime in between watching him type and debating whether or not I should text him first, I fell asleep in bed, my phone still in my hands, thinking about the stupid football player that was getting in the way of my nap.