Chloe's P.O.V
Luke walked toward me with a brilliant grin on his face and sat down right in front of me, which was a little surprising since I heard Hailee ask him to sit next to her.
"Luuuuke," Hailee whined. "Didn't you hear me say that I wanted you to sit next to me?"
"Oh, you did?" Luke scrunched his eyebrows in confusion.
"Yeah," she rolled her eyes and pushed her black rimmed glasses up her thin nose.
"I'm sorry," he laughed slightly and placed his elbows on the table, rubbing his palms together. His green eyes then darted to mine, and I felt myself begin to blush by the contact.
Stop it, Chloe, I told myself as I looked away, feeling a small smile grow on my face before I even had a chance to stop it.
"How did you like the game?" Luke asked me all of the sudden.
I looked back at him to see him relax, a beautiful smile plastered on his face. "I thought–"
"The game was great as always, Luke," Hailee interrupted, scrunching up her face playfully.
I thought that he was addressing me, but I guessed I was wrong. Oops.
"I was actually talking to Chloe," Luke laughed, "but I'm glad you liked it."
Oh, so he was talking to me. At least I don't feel incompetent anymore. "I thought the game wasn't as good as it could be," I said honestly while nodding my head.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Really?" he asked and stopped rubbing his hands together.
I shrugged. "I mean, I expected you guys to win, but I was a little disappointed in that you let them score two touchdowns. I thought your defense was impenetrable, but I guess not." Dang it, Chloe. You probably sound rude! I added a small, nervous smile.
Luke tilted his head, and his smile only grew wider. "You are right about that. We shouldn't have let them score against us at all, but we had to let second string players play at that point."
"Even then," I continued a little more boldly, "they shouldn't have let it happen."
He nodded his head and raised his hands up in defeat. "I can't argue with that."
I smiled. "But I did notice that you got a touchdown near the end. It was pretty awesome. Are you going to make this a normal thing or?"
Luke couldn't stop grinning. "Thank you, and I hope so."
"Well, I think you will," I smiled back.
I immediately felt an elbow jabbed in my side and I glanced over at Hailee, who was smiling at me sheepishly.
"Ouch," I complained, rubbing my side while glaring at her.
She shrugged, mumbling sorry and looked back in Luke's direction.
"Hey Luke," I heard Prick's voice say. I looked up to see Prick, Marshall, and Heather walking in the pizza place with a mixture of smirks and content smiles on their faces.
Luke glanced at Jacob as they sat in their seats, Jacob next to Luke, Marshall next to Hailee, and Heather next to Jacob. "Hey man," he said in a friendly manner.
Sometimes I couldn't understand why Luke and Jacob were best friends. Maybe it was just a guy thing in general. Somehow, most guys were just friends with each other no matter how bad of a jerk the other person was. That, or Luke was completely oblivious.
"Sup Claire," Prick addressed me, flicking his head upward at me as his sickening blue eyes raked over me like I was some Thanksgiving turkey–whether that was a good thing or a bad thing I couldn't tell, but either way I didn't like it.
"Hey Pr-Jacob," I replied with disgust, hoping no one noticed my slur.
"Hmph," Jacob cocked his eyebrow and folded his arms, his piercing eyes staring directly into my own.
I shifted in my seat uncomfortably under his stare and looked over at Heather, who looked me up and down and gave me a small, knowing smile.
"Hey Chloe," I heard a tenor, musical voice say.
I looked in the direction it was coming from to see Kason smiling at me with his dimples showing, his hands shoved in his pockets. Jessica then came out from behind him and tucked a loose, dark strand of her hair behind her ear, her gaze immediately going to Luke.
"Hey Kason," I said as Kason made his way around the table and sat down next to me while Jessica sat down next to Luke, making sure to smile sweetly as she greeted Luke.
"I like your t-shirt," Kason winked, causing me to blush.
It took me a minute to figure out why, and then I realized it was because I was wearing a Bama t-shirt. "Oh thanks, they're my favorite sports team in case you didn't know," I winked back, feeling silly.
"I would've never guessed," Kason grinned as the waiter approached our table.
"What can I get y'all to drink today?" the waiter asked with a big smile, and I couldn't help but notice how it only grew when he saw Marshall, Heather, and Hailee.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Everyone ordered their drinks and the waiter walked away, giving us a few minutes to decide what to order.
"What should we order?" Kason asked the group, looking from Heather to Jessica.
"A pizza," Jacob snorted.
Wow. The most obvious thing to say. What a prick.
Luckily, Kason didn't seem to care about Prick's answer. "Okay then, what about we get two large pizzas and four of us split each pizza?"
"Not a bad idea," Hailee pushed up her glasses. "So me, Jacob, Chloe Marshall, and Heather will split a pizza while you, Chloe Claire, Luke, and…?"
"Jessica," Jessica answered with a smile.
"And Jessica will split up the other pizza," Hailee finished.
Our waiter came back with our drinks, asked us if we were ready to order yet which we replied no, and he walked away once more to give us some more time.
"Exactly," Kason nodded. Kason's eyes flitted in my direction, then in Luke's and Jessica's. "So…what should we order?"
I bit my lip as I looked at the menu. "I know what I would want, except you guys probably wouldn't like it," I laughed nervously.
Luke raised his eyebrows. "What is it? I'm sure one of us might like it."
I was pretty sure that was incorrect, but I wasn't going to argue.
"I hope it's not anchovies," Kason teased, leaning into me.
I crinkled my nose disgust. "No, it's definitely not anchovies." Sorry to anyone who thought anchovies were good, but I would have to pass on that one.
"Then what is it?" Jessica asked, sipping her iced water with lemon.
I broke into a smile. They're going to think I'm ridiculous. "Pineapple."
"Pineapple?!" Kason said a little louder than I had hoped. "You like pineapple on pizza?"
Kason's reaction was a little over the top, causing customers around the room look in our direction. I could feel my face heat up.
"Yeah, I like pineapple on pizza, okay," I said quietly, hoping everyone would look away from us.
"Well that's not weird. I like pineapple on my pizza, too," Luke gave me a small smile, almost as if to reassure me.
Did he really like pineapple on pizza too? "Really?" I asked with wide eyes.
"Yeah, I do," he nodded while shrugging bashfully.
"Listen, Chloe, fruit does not belong on pizza," Kason shook his head at me, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.
I cocked my brow and folded my arms. "Tomato's a fruit," I replied, and Luke burst into laughter. I looked over to see Luke's shoulders heaving and I started to laugh too. I guessed it was pretty funny.
Kason chuckled while Jessica snickered. "You really got me there," Kason smiled, his dimples showing again.
"Claire just roasted the hell out of you, Vanderbilt," Prick joined in, clapping his hands maniacally.
Even Prick thought it was a good one.
"Okay, okay, fucking tomato's a fruit. Big deal. Let's just decide what to put on our pizza," Kason said, tensing up his shoulders. I could tell that he was starting to get irritated. It was kind of weird how I noticed he was okay with making fun of others but not necessarily himself.
"We could just split the pizza in half," Luke suggested. "Like Chloe and I can get pineapple on our half while you and Jess get whatever you want on the other half."
"There's a deal on the menu that says we can get up to two toppings on each half of a large pizza for seventeen dollars," I pointed out. "Do you by chance like ham with pineapple?" I asked Luke.
He nodded and gave me a brilliant smile. "That's usually what I do."
"Perfect," I grinned.
The waiter came back and we all gave him our order, Kason and Jessica deciding they wanted pepperoni and meatballs on their half of the pizza.
"It'll be about twenty-five minutes," the waiter said, lingering a little longer around Marshall before taking his leave.
"I saw that you scored a touchdown, Luke," Jessica said, flipping her hair as she gave him a sweet smile. "Congratulations."
"Thanks," Luke replied, not seeming as eager to talk about it like he did earlier.
"Wish I could say the same," Kason rolled his eyes and sipped his root beer.
I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. "Why?"
"Considering that I didn't even get to play today," Kason huffed out.
I pursed my lips. Kason wasn't usually this moody, but a part of me understood where he was coming from.
Luke said nothing in response, which I thought was smart of him. He didn't want to get into an argument about it and rightly so. It wasn't his fault Coach Saban didn't let him play.
"I'm sure you'll get to play next game," Jessica tried to cheer him up. It was the first time I saw something positive about her. She was friends with Kason after all.
"I mean," Kason laughed, "Coach was pretty much letting all second-string players play at that point except me."
I opened my mouth to say something but quickly closed it. There was nothing I could say to make this situation any better.
"Let's talk about something else, shall we?" Jessica said, raising her eyebrows at Kason. She was trying her best to disarm the ticking timebomb.
Kason nodded reluctantly, and we talked amongst ourselves about what was going on in school. Kason's mood improved significantly as he made fun of Dr. Knapp, causing all of us to join in laughter with him. Everyone talked about their least favorite professors and what class they struggled in the most. Heather seemed to be struggling in everything, but that wasn't surprising. I somewhat felt bad for her because for all I knew she was struggling with something that I didn't know that was causing this to happen, but she seemed perfectly capable of doing the work, she just didn't want to do it.
The waiter came back with a large pizza in each hand and set it down on each side of the table.
My mouth watered at the smell of the fresh, tomato sauce and melted cheese. Even the mixture of toppings smelled heavenly. I couldn't help but stare at Luke and I's half of the pizza, already cut into four, perfect slices.
"Let's dig in!" Hailee said excitedly as she looked at her extra cheesy pizza.
Everyone nodded and we each took a slice of our prospective pizzas. I took the first bite and instantly fell in love. I didn't believe in love at first sight, but I sure believed in love at first bite. The sauce started to run down my chin and I had a hard time pulling away from the strings of cheese still attached to the pizza. I quickly took a napkin and dabbed at my mouth, only to see Luke staring at me.
"What?" I asked, my lips starting to curl into a small smile.
"You're just a messy eater," Luke smiled as he took an enormous bite out of his pizza.
"Sorry I don't eat like a princess," I laughed, causing him to laugh.
"I never said that was a bad thing," he said, and the look he gave me instantly made me blush.