(ch. 19 up) God Put a Smile Upon Your Face

[Shelly]

opinions? on what? ill tell you anything you need to hear just so long as we get the next chapter. haha.

[Dr. J Crane]

Jill, as I've said before - are you frickin' kidding me??

We are following this thread! Period! POST!!!!!!

[this bike is a]

Yeah!

[dior4ever]

i second that!!!

[jill]

MissDIOR, I didn't even know you were still reading, haha.

Well it's good to know (hard to believe for me, sometimes) that people still are interested in this! I'm still not very confident with my writing, obviously.

The next chapter should be up late friday night/early saturday morning-ish.

[this bike is a]

RAD

[jill]

Ugh, I'm like dead, but almost done. It'll be up before the weekend's over.

[Shelly]

;D

[jill]

Chapter 16

Panting and scurrying off of Ashley, out of a position that now felt so wrong, Riley just blinked in disbelief. The chances of being seated next to the girl on the plane, let alone seeing her again, had been one in a million. Now, she was a likely player for his team. Was someone trying to get him fired? Was this girl stalking him? He doubted both possibilities.

She just lied there, struggling for breath, gawking at him. She looked mortified, guilty. Riley’s skin crawled as he wondered how young she was, and with that he couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. Anger filled the place where his shock was starting to fade as he dashed over to Linda, the girls’ old coach. He tried not to be too obvious as he watched Ashley jog. She moved with her own rhythm, as if she was running to a song that was beating in her heart, filling her from her center. Her structure, too, was different from the other girls’- she was a surfer among the swimmers. She was strong though, and held her own with the other girls. He wondered what had driven her to achieve this level of skill.

“Pretty good, aren’t they?” Linda said, pride glowing in her eyes. He considered this. To be honest, he didn’t have much experience when it came to women’s soccer, so he just nodded.

“What about her?” he asked, trying to sound casual as he glanced over at Ashley. “Number three.”

“Oh, Ashley?” she said, not really asking. “She’s a great runner, really responsive most days too. You’d be crazy not to put her on the team; she’s one of our best players.”

Ashley’s stride carried her past yet another runner. “I can see that.”

“A warning, though,” his ears perked up. A warning? What kind of warning? “She’s usually late. Well, not usually, but punctuality isn’t a strong suit of hers. She’s totally worth it though- you get over her coming five minutes late pretty quick.”

“How’d she get so good? I mean, she doesn’t look like a natural athlete…” Riley said, struggling to keep his eyes off of her. Despite how messed up and wrong everything was now, she continued to mesmerize him, and he hated it.

“That’s exactly what I thought when she was a freshman,” he felt sick at the word ‘freshman’. High school freshman were what, fourteen? Linda went on, “But she just is a really good runner, and she likes the game. She runs a lot on her own to stay in shape, so I guess you could say she’s kind of a learned athlete.”

Riley just nodded again, resenting the woman for reminding him of Ashley’s age. He went on to ask about some of the girls trying out, so that she didn’t suspect anything. Linda rambled on about the backgrounds and weak points and strong points of the other girls; Riley pretended to listen.

He replayed their parting at the airport in his mind, but only that. He didn’t think he could handle traveling any father down memory lane quite yet. Things suddenly made sense. This whole time, he had thought she had hesitated because she didn’t like him. Now he realized that she had sensed that he was more than a few years older than her. She knew that if she were to see him again, he would discover her age. She knew all this, the whole time. He felt an odd sense of betrayal, as if he had been tricked. People didn’t usually trick him this easy, and he didn’t like the feeling.

Blowing his whistle, he called to the girls that they could stop jogging. What next? He forgot for a moment. Then it came to him, though. Stretching was important before and after running. Godd@mn it. He jogged over to them with a quiet groan, wishing this was an all-boys school. Actually, the school used to be all-boys when he attended it, and wasn’t aware it had changed until he arrived at tryouts that morning. He didn’t tell Linda this, of course, as this would make him seem unprepared.

The girls sat down on the grass and started the routine as they all had memorized it, with the hamstrings. Legs stretched out in front of them, they wrapped their hands around their feet. Riley made his way down the line of bodies, tapping down bent knees in order to straighten and stretch hamstrings. Most of the girls shook at this, but when he reached Ashley, he found that the backs of her knees were flat against the grass and her forehead was touching her knees. She was perfectly still. He breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t have to touch her, but soon the girls had finished their hamstrings and were up on their feet again, working on their quads.

By the time the first tryout day had ended and Linda had left, Riley had managed to avoid eye contact with Ashley. The girls were shuffling off to the parking lot, soccer bags in tow. He spotted her chatting with two other girls and a frightening notion struck him. She couldn’t tell anyone about what had happened between them, and he didn’t quite trust that she wouldn’t. He needed to talk to her immediately. He dashed up to her and she glanced over her shoulder at him as he approached. She raised a curious eyebrow at him, turned back to her friends, and excused herself. The two other girls walked on, chattering a little too excitedly among themselves. Ashley slinked up to him, head down. When she looked up at him, he was speechless again. He had known exactly what he was going to tell her, but for some reason now, he couldn’t think of the words. Her voice was a welcome departure from the silence.

“Small world, huh?” her gaze was sweet and shy. He forced himself to speak, thinking of what he needed to set straight. He couldn’t loose this job. There were too many opportunities that he planned on taking advantage of. Ashley hadn’t been one of them.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked, irritated with her for being so adorable. He willed her to stop it.

“Now?” her eyes wandered back to her friends, who were disappearing into their Lexuses and BMWs. A few of the girls seemed to take note of the pair, unnerving him.

“Yes. It’s important,” he said, trying to stay calm. He wanted to grab her and shake her.

Ashley crossed her arms over her chest and locked eyes with him again. He sensed honesty in hers. “I don’t know what to say…”

“How old’re ya, fcukin’ fifteen?” he couldn’t take it any longer. Now that they were finally alone, he could let loose. What was she going to do about it?

Her smart eyes widened. “I’m fcuking seventeen, thank you very much. Apparently, so are you.” With that, she started towards the parking lot. Riley followed close behind, livid.

“No, I’m not. I will not be. Nothing happened yesterday on that airplane. That is the point,” he said, a hand now grasping her arm.

“Don’t lie to yourself, something definitely happened. Just thank God more didn’t,” she said under her breath.

“Ash, look at me. Listen,” he grabbed her other arm and spun her around to face him just as he had in the airport yesterday. He shut the memory out of his mind and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. “You cannot tell a soul that we even knew each other before today.”

“I know,” she said, nodding. She looked at him, almost offended. “I’m not dumb. Yes, I’m seventeen. Like it or not though, I’m still the same girl you met on that airplane yesterday.” She lifted her tee shirt a little, revealing the smeared ink he had left on her abdomen. Riley knew she was right, but wished she wasn’t.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked after another tense pause.

“I was so scared. I never thought I’d see you again, so I figured it didn’t matter.” He understood. Everything made sense in hindsight, and his rage dissolved.

“You were terrified,” he nodded slowly, loosening his grip on her.

“Still am,” she said, barely audible. Riley realized what she meant. He wanted to hug her and hit her at the same time. Under any other circumstance, he would have been thrilled. Everything was wrong now though and this just complicated things even more. She turned away and walked towards her car again, and this time he walked by her side. He knew that seeing her every day as a team member would be torture, and he would never be able to forget the way her lips had brushed his on that plane. He would never be able to forget the kiss that made him so uncharacteristically lose control.

“You can’t think of me like that now,” he said. She just shook her head solemnly.

“Riley, I’ll try not to. I can’t help how I feel though,” she said.

“Well you’re going to have to fake it,” he said. “We both are.” Her eyes smiled at that. If only she knew…

They reached her car and he opened the door for her. She hopped in, rolled the window down, and in her own quirky way wished him luck for the season ahead of them.

“God put a smile upon your face.”

Helpful feedback makes me write faster, hehe.

[Shelly]

i. love. this. story.

i play soccer, and i would want him as my soccer coach ANY day. even if he didnt know waht he was doing.

[this bike is a]

greatness.



Paul is next, yeah?

[§hannon]

You know...
I was listening to 'God Put A Smile Upon Your Face' while reading this chapter...
And do you even have the slightest clue how well it sounds with this story?
SO freakin' cool.

Coldplay fo' life. Hahah.

[blue-eyed struck]

Great story-telling Jill! and I loved that last quote! Keep it coming!

[Niquinga]

I haven't been able to get on that much so I just read chapters 12-16 and let me say that they were amazing. You are such an excellent writer Jill, exalt.

[jill]

Wow, thanks so much guys. ;D Reading all this literally made me smile, hehe.

shannon said:

You know...
I was listening to 'God Put A Smile Upon Your Face' while reading this chapter...
And do you even have the slightest clue how well it sounds with this story?
SO freakin' cool.

Coldplay fo' life. Hahah.

Shannon, I love you. Haha, actually yes, I named the story after the song because it fit so perfectly. And it's one of my favorite songs.

Coldplay is sex.