Why did I feel the need to mess with my hair?

What was happening? I was on a date with a boy, and I seemed to be enjoying it. This is my life now, I thought. I date boys. I even hold hands with them. Sometimes.

I flicked a glance at Lee Frick across the table. We’d been holding hands just a few minutes ago.

I’m on a date with Lee Frick. And he’s… nice. Smart! I’d known he was smart for a long time—and nice, I guess, that, too. A good guy, always doing something. Filming games and practice, and now it turns out he was making a documentary, sort of.

About me, apparently.

The waiter arrived with menus the size of a tabloid newspaper. I looked up at him, and I knew I was blushing because of the idea of Lee filming me. The waiter smiled, his eyes widening, and I blushed harder.

I tried to think about football. I still played football! The earlier kaffee klatch run by Lee’s mom loved that I played football— the only girl playing a regular football team position in the state, probably even in the country.

The waiter asked me something, and I seemed to have agreed to drinking lemonade.

I’d been playing high school football for four years and Pop Warner for three years before that. Did everyone now remember me as having been a girl that whole time?

“Do you like shrimp?” Lee suddenly asked.

“Huh?” I responded intelligently.

Lee smiled at me, and the waiter grinned.

“We live in northern Arizona,” I pointed out. “The only crustaceans within 500 miles are probably those red crawdads in the lower Colorado.”

‘They know how to do shrimp cocktail here. It’s good,” said Lee.

I shrugged. The waiter blinked twice. “I guess I’ll try that. I’ve had it before, in Texas, on vacation.”

“Two shrimp cocktails and a basket of sourdough biscuits,” Lee said firmly.

“Very good,” the waiter smiled, agreeing with Lee but looking at me. He’s flirting, I realized. He must be nearly thirty—ten years older than me, at least. Am I supposed to be flattered?

I turned back to Lee and saw him flash a frown at the waiter’s back.

I tried not to smile seeing that, but why should I want to smile?

“He’ll be back with drinks and the appetizer,” said Lee. “How do you like your steak?”

“Oh,” I said. What did I know? I’d figured the shrimp would be our dinner. “Um, medium, I guess.”

“Baked potato? Salad?”

My eyes got wide in pure puzzlement. “Won’t the waiter ask me this stuff when he gets back?”

“I thought… I thought I’d order for both of us,” he said. “I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

I made a noise that might have been a laugh. “Aren’t your eyes usually blue?” I asked. “Are they green today?”

He grinned. “Maybe. But I finally get up the nerve to ask you out, and no Cowboy Lawrence is going to crowd my moves.” He signaled something with his eyebrows.

Okay, this time the noise I made was definitely a giggle. “Cowboy Lawrence?” I repeated.

“Ten years ago, he was Number Seventeen on the Lions, same position you play now.”

“Oh,” I managed. I couldn’t resist looking in the direction the waiter had gone. and saw him talking to the bartender, who passed him a tray with two drinks. The bartender looked right back at me and smiled.

I looked away, noticing as I did so several other pairs of eyes pointed in my direction.

“Oh, God,” I murmured.

“How big of a steak do you want?” Lee asked, distracting me a moment.

“Oh, small one,” I said. “I don’t want to go to sleep in the movie. Is everyone really looking at me?” (Well, I needed to know!)

“Probably,” he agreed, nodding. “Let’s get the loaded potatoes: butter, sour cream, chives, bacon and cheese?’

“Good Lord!”

“They’re not that big,” he scoffed. “Blue cheese dressing for the salad?”

“Uh, sure.” Why did I feel the need to mess with my hair? I tried not to look around the room, afraid of catching someone looking back. “Why are they looking at me? I don’t know these people!”

“Well, they kind of know you,” he said. “Ever notice that the stands are always full at football games? Even when we play out of town. And you’re certainly the prettiest football player they’ve ever seen.” He grinned.

I rolled my eyes and didn’t giggle at all.

Lawrence (was that a first or last name?) arrived with the lemonade, biscuits and shrimp— the last of which was served in little glass boats, covered in a spicy-smelling red sauce, with tiny forks.

“Thank you,” I murmured, not wanting to look at him.

“Yes, thanks,” said Lee. “We’re ready to order now.”

“Very good,” said the waiter, pulling out his pad and pencil.

“A ranch-hand steak, rare, for me, and a medium cowgirl for Miss Peterson, loaded potatoes with everything, and salads with blue cheese.”

A medium cowgirl? That must be the steak. I blinked several times and managed a small smile in Lawrence’s direction.

“Very good,” he pronounced the order, beaming back at me and provoking another strangled giggle. (I never used to giggle, I swear it!)

Lee watched the waiter leave, sneering a bit. He really did seem jealous and I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I didn’t remember ever having acted anything like this about someone paying attention to Megan, or Dolores, the only other girlfriend I’d had last year.

Wait. Did I have a girlfriend last year? Wouldn’t that have been— odd?

“So,” Lee began, “I’ve never asked this before. Why did you go out for boys’ football in the first place? You could certainly have played on any of the girls’ teams—or been a cheerleader?”

I made a face while I wondered what I would say to the question. “I guess I’d always thought cheerleaders were kind of silly. I was wrong, but I think I thought that.”

“Megan cure you of that idea?” he asked, a bit slyly.

“Sort of,” I agreed. “And just no other sport really appealed to me. And there was no girls’ football team.” What was I saying? “Not even flag.”

“You had to do some tall talking to get on the team. Title IX and all that.” The federal rule that said schools couldn’t discriminate against girls. “Coach Wilson told me that you just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

I grinned. That much was true. “Coach kept saying I was too small, too thin. He worried that I’d get hurt.” I shook my head. This I did remember, but as the old me. “I pestered that man so much he said I reminded him of a horsefly with a mean on.”

Lee laughed with me.

“Coach Wilson says you finally showed up in a too-big uniform and joined in the scrimmages before you were even on the team.”

I nodded. “Uh-huh, I had to show him how fast I was, and that no one could catch me. I didn’t get tackled until the third game of the season that year.”

But remembering was like having double vision. The uniform had been Jake’s old Pop Warner suit, brown and black instead of Lion blue and yellow. Too small for him, it had fit me like a tent with my ponytail sticking out of the helmet in back.

Ponytail?

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