Football season has started, and so has the school year. *sigh*

Back when I was in middle school, the year in phys. ed. would begin with flag football. Our P.E. class was coed, so it seemed ideal—no tackling, no injuries, no worries. The girls never had to fear being dragged across the field trying to stop a male receiver from making a touchdown; all we had to do was pull a flag from the receiver’s waist, and it was equivalent to stopping him dead in his tracks. This is what made flag football so fine and dandy for a coed class.

I, of course, had to find some way to ruin that.

Don’t get me wrong. I was pretty good at sports—for a girl. I could actually hit the baseball whenever I swung at it; I could get a bullseye or two in archery; and I could hold my own ranking in a racquetball tournament.

Flag football? I was a defense coach’s dream. Some how, some way, I always managed to get past the blockers and get to the quarterback before he could throw the ball. It made me one of the first girls chosen when captains picked their teammates, but it also made me a primary focus of any opposing team. They called me the safety girl, which I never understood because even to this day I’ve never really taken the time to understand the rules and terms of football; whatever it meant, I knew it was a compliment.

One day, I had a tough time getting past the opposing team’s blockers; I managed to wiggle past two of them just enough to reach out a hand for the quarterback’s flags, which I could see fluttering around his waist and hips. They were blocking me more persistently than usual, so I grabbed blindly and pulled down, realizing somewhat belatedly that what I grabbed was cloth, not tarp. The quarterback yelped and dropped the ball to pull up his sweatpants, and all the guys looked at me with wariness or amusement.

“Just what are you trying to do?!” demanded the quarterback.

I blushed and mumbled an apology.

Next down, they were all on me again, and despite the small mishap, I was just as determined to get the quarterback’s flag. I managed to twist and turn my way around the blockers, and this time, I watched where I grabbed; I kept my focus on the strip of blue tarp hanging down his front from the waist, and it never even occurred to me what else was there. My hand simply clutched at the end of the flag, only to find it a little more substantial than usual.

Okay, let’s say it was meatier than usual.

“Holy f—!” The quarterback’s eyes closed tightly for a moment before they opened wide on me in pure shock. My mouth had frozen in a gasp, and my hand was poised over my reddening face, but I was still aware enough to notice the quarterback’s blush rising from his neck to his forehead, right before he reached down to readjust himself between the legs.

Everyone else had stilled at the exclamation and stared at either him or me. It seemed to last forever, this painful Kodak moment, and then…

“Dayum,” one of the guys breathed.

“Okay, April,” my captain said, ever the fixer of bad situations. “No more covering the quarterback. From now on, you’re covering the receivers.”

As we exchanged glances at that piece of news, the quarterback and I managed not to flinch or smile.

Share this post: