Fourth Down by Kirsten DeMuzio

started packing up to go, Brooke informed me she was going home
with Seth. No surprise there.
    “Do you want us to drop you off on our
way?” She asked me. From the way they were already groping each
other, there was no way I wanted to be trapped in a confined area
with them, even for a few minutes.
    “No, thanks. I’ll just
walk.”
    Brooke winked at me. “You should ask
Ford to take you home. You know he doesn’t want you walking
alone.”
    Yeah, right. I was definitely not
asking him for anything. All the progress we had made over the last
week had been wiped away by his outburst earlier, and he was once
again the unattainably hot, moody guy who made me
nervous.
    As Brooke and Seth walked out I risked
a glance towards the bar. Uh oh. Ford was watching me intently with
a frown on his face. I should have walked out with them, so he
didn’t know I was going home alone. Instead I was stuck here with
no escape unless I wanted him to chase me down. So like the coward
I was, I scurried to the bathroom.
    I stayed in the stall for a
ridiculously long time, hoping he would be involved with a customer
when I snuck out. Finally I walked out of the bathroom - right into
Ford’s rock hard chest. He held my upper arms to steady
me.
    I batted his hands away. “Jesus, Ford.
It’s kind of creepy to loiter outside the ladies room.”
    He leaned back against the wall and
folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not loitering, Poppy. I’m
waiting to talk to you.”
    I leaned against the opposite wall of
the hallway and mirrored his position, crossing my arms over my
chest. Maybe he would give me some clue into his
behavior.
    He exhaled, “I’m sorry if I scared you
earlier. I was just pissed off that you didn’t ask me for a ride. I
thought we were friends...and I was worried about you.”
    “You didn’t scare me, Ford. You’re
just so moody and…confusing.”
    He ran one hand through his hair,
leaving it messy and sticking up. “I saw Brooke leave with Seth.
Did you drive here?” Clearly he was not going to explain his
earlier behavior.
    “No, my battery is dead,
remember?”
    “I stopped by and fixed it this
morning. It should be fine now,” he said. He fixed my car? Before I
could process that he continued.
    “I think we both know I’m not going to
let you walk home. Go sit at the bar and wait for me. I have about
twenty minutes of clean up, and then I can drive you
home.”
    I could have argued, but I knew it was
futile. “Fine,” I huffed and stormed off to sit at the far end of
the bar. His low chuckle followed me as I went.
    With my elbows on the bar and my chin
propped up in my hands, I spent the next twenty minutes sipping the
water Ford had set in front of me and watching him clean up the bar
and close out tabs. The band had cleared out, and there were just a
few stragglers left.
    Ford was at the other end of the bar
with his back to me when a rather large man sat down on the bar
stool next to me. He was probably in his forties, although his
greasy thinning hair and lack of teeth might have made him look
older than he really was.
    He waved his empty beer bottle in the
air and yelled, “Walsh! I need another one.”
    Eww. Judging by the alcohol wafting
from his pores, I would say he’d already had a few too many. Ford
turned around and the corner of his mouth twitched up when he saw
me wrinkling my nose and leaning away as much as I could without
falling off my stool.
    Ford slung the towel he had been using
to dry glasses over his shoulder and ambled over to this end of the
bar.
    “Last call was fifteen minutes ago,
Bill. You’re out of luck,” Ford said, resting his hands on his side
of the bar.
    Bill’s face turned an unusual shade of
red and he spit as he cursed at Ford, “You get me my goddamned beer
right now. That’s your job now, Walsh. You’re not a hotshot ball
player anymore. You’re just a washed up has been who needs to get
me a beer when I ask for one.”
    Ford narrowed his eyes, but