Kiss List by J. S. Abilene Page B

his fork and stuffed it into his mouth. He swallowed and then said, “At least, they will if Sadie keeps on playing like she has been.”
    “So you’ve been playing well?” dad said to me.
    “Well?” Dylan said as he unsuccessfully tried to lift another carrot to his mouth. It slipped off his fork and landed with a splat in the middle of his mashed potatoes and gravy. “She’s the best player in the state. We’d be playing a lot better if we had her on our team, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen anyone play like her. You must’ve played with her a lot when she was growing up, sir.”
    My father couldn’t help it. His chest swelled with pride at hearing the praise about me. He asked Dylan about how Dylan’s soccer team was doing. Get Dylan talking on the subject of soccer and he can go on for hours. His eyes lit up excitedly as he spoke and his passion was obvious. This was the Dylan I knew. Though I don’t think he wanted to, my father was soon taken with Dylan as well. Dylan was just too funny and nice to dislike. Soon the two of them were talking like old pals, which was definitely not cool with me because it led my dad to discover a new activity he could enjoy: embarrassing me in front of Dylan.
    “And when she was three,” dad said with tears of laughter in his eyes, “we went to a hardware store and she told me she had to go to the bathroom. I told her to wait. I let her get out of my sight for two minutes and there she was sitting on a model toilet...”
    “Okay dad, I think that’s enough,” I said in panic.
    No sooner had I gotten Dylan away from the dinner table than Caroline snatched him away again. She asked him if he wanted to see her paintings. Of course he said yes and she dragged him up to her room to show them to him. My jaw dropped when I saw how often she touched his arm or batted her eyes at him. The little brat was trying to steal my man!
    By the time Dylan was ready to leave for the night I was horrified. I led him out to the front porch and closed the door behind us. “I’m so sorry for...” I began.
    Dylan waved me off. “Are you kidding?” he said. “I had a blast. It was hilarious.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Well I’m glad you at least enjoyed it,” I said. “I was horrified.”
    Dylan laughed. “You have an amazing family,” he said. “You’re very lucky.”
    Then he took my hand softly in his and stroked the back of it gently with his thumb. I felt a tingle inside of me as we kissed. The kiss quickly grew passionate but then I heard a loud, “Ahem,” from my dad on the other side of the door. Dylan and I both broke out in laughter but I noticed that he didn’t waste any time getting to his car and leaving after that.
    Unfortunately, my time with Dylan was not always so lighthearted. Dylan’s parents were going through a divorce and he often wanted to video chat at night. He was so sad and I knew he needed someone to talk to so I never cut him off. Sometimes we would talk for hours and then I would be exhausted the next day at school and at practice. Dylan seemed to have some deep reservoir of energy and he would be all excited and funny at school. At night, however, I saw an entirely different side to him, one that nobody else got to see. I loved him for letting me in and for not being afraid to show his sensitive side. It was just hard to be there for him and also compete at an elite level athlete while maintaining a top-notch GPA.
    It was Aaron Caldwell, of all people, whom I finally opened up to about it. I let a rookie defender steal the ball away from me one afternoon during practice and Coach Dumfy exploded. He told me that I couldn’t slack off this close to state and said I was letting the whole team down. My game had deteriorated significantly and he had seen enough. He yelled and told me to go home, to get some rest, and to come back the next day with my head screwed on straight.
    I was furious with him but mostly with myself as I stormed out of