Andrew and Paige were still kissing. It wasn't a quick kiss. Nor was it particularly intense.
It simply lasted longer than either of them would have expected for a first kiss.
As if, after so many weeks of glances, teasing, getting to know each other, and moments when both of them had come far too close to crossing that line, neither of them was in much of a hurry to pull away.
Eventually, they did.
They both opened their eyes at almost the exact same time.
Paige was breathing just a little faster as she looked at him. Even she seemed slightly surprised by how natural it had felt.
Andrew didn't look away either. For a moment, a question that had been popping into his head every now and then for weeks had finally been answered.
Yes.
Kissing Paige had been every bit as good as he'd imagined.
"Okay... maybe you do have a point about my height," Andrew said, a faint smile appearing on his face.
Paige let out a soft laugh, "I told you. You're too tall. It's not normal."
Andrew had needed to lean down quite a bit to reach her.
"Next time, you could meet me halfway," Andrew replied anyway.
Paige raised an eyebrow, 'Next time?' she repeated the phrase in her head.
It wasn't exactly subtle.
Andrew had just made it pretty clear that he had no intention of letting this remain a one-time kiss.
Still, Paige liked the line, smiled, and said, "Fine. Next time I'll stand on my tiptoes so you can stop complaining."
Andrew smiled. He picked up the bowl of popcorn and the two of them walked toward the living room.
They sat down together on the couch.
Andrew placed the bowl on the coffee table in front of them.
The movie was still paused on the screen. Neither of them made any move to grab the remote and press play.
For a few seconds, they simply sat there in silence, staring at the television, far too aware of what had just happened.
Paige began lightly tapping her fingers against her leg.
"Well..." she finally said, without looking at Andrew. "This is weird."
"Yeah..." Andrew replied. He glanced at her from the side and quickly clarified, "Not bad. The kiss wasn't the weird part."
Paige turned toward him and immediately nodded in agreement, "Obviously not. The kiss was great."
At that last part, a smile began to spread across Andrew's face.
Paige realized what she'd just said a second too late, "Don't start," she said, raising a finger.
Andrew lifted both hands, "I didn't say anything, and I thought it was great too," he said.
Paige watched him for a moment. Then she nodded. She liked that. Not turning everything into a competition.
Andrew looked back at the screen, "Although I wasn't expecting to kiss you this quickly today," he admitted.
"Was it on your schedule for the day? Beat Washington, break the record for most passing touchdowns and, later, kiss me?" Paige asked, looking at him.
"Pretty much," Andrew replied with a calm nod.
Paige laughed and gave him a light nudge with her elbow, amused.
Although, if she was being honest, she couldn't exactly pretend she hadn't thought about the possibility too.
She knew there was a good chance they would end up kissing that day. She just hadn't expected it to happen so quickly.
Practically within the first five minutes after they'd arrived at the apartment.
They both knew this had been building for weeks.
It had started as a friendship, almost by accident, as Paige became part of the group.
Then, little by little, Andrew became the person she ended up connecting with the most.
The person she argued with the most, had the most fun with, and also the only person she had ended up telling things she hadn't told anyone else.
By that Saturday, both of them had arrived at the apartment knowing perfectly well that whatever this was no longer felt like a simple friendship.
Internally, they had both considered that afternoon a date. But the kiss changed something.
Until then, they could still stay in that comfortable space where none of the things they felt needed too clear a definition.
Not anymore. They had crossed a line. It didn't mean they were suddenly boyfriend and girlfriend. But it did mean they were no longer in the same position as before.
"So... what now?" Paige asked.
"We watch the movie," Andrew replied, finally picking up the remote.
"Not that..." Paige said.
Andrew stopped before pressing play, "Then what?"
Paige made a small gesture between the two of them, "I mean us. Where do we go from here?" she replied.
Andrew paused to think.
Paige continued, this time speaking a little faster, "I mean, I'm not saying we're boyfriend and girlfriend now. That would be ridiculous. We just kissed once and we're still getting to know each other. But I want to know... your intentions, I guess you could say."
Paige kept looking at him. For a moment, she wondered if she had sounded too intense. Paranoid, even.
Or if Andrew simply hadn't understood what the hell she was trying to ask.
But he didn't seem uncomfortable. He was still thinking.
After everything Paige had told him about her past, Andrew understood pretty quickly where that need was coming from.
She wanted clarity. To know if, for him, this was something casual. Something that could last two weeks and disappear. Or if he genuinely wanted to explore what there was between them.
Paige knew Andrew wasn't a womanizer. Quite the opposite. But she still wanted a certain sense of security. To know that he wasn't going to treat her like a temporary option and leave her behind if an opportunity came along to be with another girl he was interested in.
"It's not casual," Andrew finally said, "I want to keep getting to know you. Keep going out with you, and if two months from now we figure out we don't want to kill each other because we're completely incompatible as a couple, great, we'll find out."
Paige laughed, her expression softening a little.
Andrew continued, "I don't know exactly where it's going to end up. And I guess trying to know that now would kind of ruin the whole point. But I'm not kissing you because I was bored on a Saturday afternoon. I'm genuinely interested in you."
Sean would probably be proud if he heard him.
That last part did manage to throw Paige off a little. Not too much, but enough.
Paige looked down and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. For a few seconds, she avoided eye contact. She wasn't used to feeling nervous because of a sentence.
But she also wasn't used to someone who knew so much about her looking at her that way and telling her, with complete clarity, that he still wanted to get closer.
"That's great..." Paige murmured.
She sounded much calmer now. She looked at him again and added, "I'm interested in something serious with you too."
"That makes me feel better," Andrew said with a small smile. "At least now I know you're not going to suddenly graduate, leave Los Angeles, and leave me wondering what the hell happened."
Paige rolled her eyes, "I wouldn't do that. In Texas, I left, yes, but I told my mother and the rest of my family. It's not like I just vanished out of nowhere."
She paused and added, "Now put the movie on, Romeo."
Andrew laughed. This time, he pressed play. Then he picked up the bowl of popcorn and settled closer to Paige.
A lot closer. Until they were practically pressed against each other.
Paige smiled slightly when she noticed. She didn't move away. Quite the opposite.
She ended up leaning against him a little, resting part of her head against his shoulder while the bowl sat between them.
The movie started.
For the next few hours, they did exactly what they had done with the previous ones: comments, criticism, jokes, and looks of disbelief at some of the melodramatic and painfully cringe-worthy lines.
At certain moments, there was almost a sense of shared suffering at the idea that there was still another movie left.
Until the credits finally appeared.
Paige let out an exhausted sigh, "This one was definitely the worst," she commented.
She let her head sink even farther against Andrew, almost between his shoulder and his chest.
Andrew, leaning back against the couch, looked down at her.
From that angle, he could barely see part of her face. Mostly, he saw her blonde hair resting against him.
"Yeah," Andrew replied, "It was worse than I thought. But look on the bright side. When we go see the last one, I don't think it can possibly be as bad as this."
"Good point..." Paige said without moving.
The position was far too comfortable, and Andrew's warmth wasn't exactly doing much to convince her to pull away either.
After a few seconds, she added, "Although I think New Moon and this one are seriously competing for the worst."
"I think this one wins," Andrew said with quite a bit of confidence.
Paige lifted her head slightly to look at him, "Why?"
"Jacob's imprinting," Andrew replied.
Paige grimaced.
Yeah.
That was hard to beat.
The movie had followed Bella and Edward's marriage, their honeymoon, and the impossible pregnancy that began shortly afterward.
The baby, half human and half vampire, grew at a rapid pace and drained Bella's health until it practically brought her to the brink of death.
The birth ended up being brutal, with a desperate C-section.
Bella bleeding out while Edward tried to turn her into a vampire to save her.
For a few minutes, the movie made it seem like she had actually died.
Jacob, devastated by Bella's supposed death and filled with hatred toward the newborn, initially wanted to kill the baby.
Until he looked into her eyes and the imprinting happened.
Within Twilight's mythology, it was a kind of immediate supernatural bond that werewolves formed with a person.
An unbreakable connection. The person they imprinted on became the center of their existence.
Not necessarily romantic from the very beginning, at least according to the story's explanation. But with the obvious possibility of becoming that once the other person grew up.
That was precisely the part that made the whole thing so disturbing.
Jacob had just formed that bond with a newborn baby.
Then, when the rest of the wolves arrived ready to eliminate her, Jacob stepped in.
Imprinting was one of the strongest laws of their kind.
They couldn't harm the person one of them had bonded with.
So they ended up backing down.
"Right," Paige said. "But I did enjoy watching Bella suffer through the entire movie."
She picked up her phone while still leaning against Andrew.
"But she lived," Andrew replied, now grimacing himself. "They make us think she died and then show her eyes opening completely red."
Paige sighed again and said, "You're right. That sucked. Stupid writers."
In reality, she had seen that twist coming long before it happened.
It didn't make much sense for Bella to actually die.
The story wouldn't dare do it. And with a Part 2 still left to release, even less so.
Besides, Sam had already spoiled that Bella would eventually become a vampire, so Paige knew from the beginning that she was going to survive one way or another.
She picked up her phone and quickly searched for the movie's score.
Then Paige let out a small whistle, "Twenty-five percent from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. It beat New Moon, which has twenty-eight."
"Told you," Andrew replied, smiling as he looked at the screen.
"It's only three points," Paige muttered.
She then started checking some of the reviews. The audience score was considerably higher. Around sixty percent. But by that point, neither Paige nor Andrew was particularly surprised by the difference.
The previous movies had shown something similar.
Sixty-one.
Seventy.
Numbers that, without context, could make it seem like the general audience had received them fairly well.
But they had both reached the same conclusion. A good portion of those ratings probably came from people who were already fans of the saga. That didn't mean their opinions were worthless.
But their reviews weren't exactly a neutral sample.
Because someone who already didn't like Twilight after the first or second movie was hardly going to make it all the way to the fourth just to leave an objective review.
The people who were still there were, for the most part, the ones who already wanted to be there.
Andrew and Paige were a pretty strange exception.
"Let's read some reviews... ahem..." Paige said, clearing her throat. "From Brian: if I had to rank the movies in the Twilight saga, I guess you could put this one right after the first in terms of quality, but only because New Moon and Eclipse were terrible."
"Well... he showed some mercy. He put it as the second best, not the worst," Andrew commented.
He didn't really agree with that. Although he did agree with the part about the other two being terrible.
Paige swiped across the screen, "Next. Ellie: a movie focused entirely on Bella's dad would probably be more interesting than all the hormonal garbage in this one."
Paige slowly looked up at Andrew.
Andrew was already looking at her.
They both held it together for barely a second before bursting out laughing.
They liked Ellie.
After four movies, Charlie was probably still the character Andrew and Paige liked the most in the entire saga.
They kept reading several more reviews. None of the critics' reviews were positive.
Then Paige went to post her own review. She had an account.
She wasn't a critic, but she was part of the general audience.
They had already done the same thing with the previous movies.
By this point, writing a short review together had almost become part of the ritual.
"We could start with something like: I expected nothing and I'm still let down," Paige commented.
She typed the sentence.
Then she stopped and turned her head toward Andrew, waiting.
Andrew thought for a few seconds, "Which is why you honestly deserve better than having to watch this movie."
Paige started typing with a smile.
Andrew continued, "If you can watch it with someone you're comfortable enough with, you probably won't suffer as much."
Paige finished writing. She reread the entire review once. Then she nodded, satisfied, and posted it.
"Well. Four out of four. Our entire career as professional Twilight critics can now be found on the Internet," Paige said.
Andrew nodded, remembering the previous reviews. Then he looked at her, "We're pretty big haters, aren't we?"
Paige stayed silent for a moment. Then she slowly nodded, "Yes, we are."
With that done, Paige locked her phone and sat up from the couch.
Andrew did the same. Then he remembered something, "Oh, by the way, there's something you should know..."
Paige, who was standing and stretching a little, turned her head toward him, "What?" she asked.
Andrew lightly scratched the back of his neck, "About what we talked about before the movie. About both of us seeing this as something that could become serious... Well, my parents asked where I was going, and I told them I had a date with you."
Paige went completely still. For a couple of seconds, she said nothing.
Andrew raised his hands slightly, "It's not like they're going to think we're already couple. I'm telling you because the next time they see you, they're probably going to look at you differently. Especially my dad. Cam."
Paige immediately pictured the situation.
Cam, who was very expressive, curious, and easy to read. Talking to her more and watching her more closely.
Mitchell, the opposite, more restrained, not saying much, and observing her with much more attention than before.
That changed things quite a bit. Not because she had to act differently. But at least now she would understand why, the next time they crossed paths, it might feel like she was suddenly being evaluated.
"Okay. Thanks for the warning," Paige finally said.
She actually liked knowing.
Because it meant something else too.
Andrew hadn't dodged the question when his parents wanted to know where he was going.
He hadn't simply said he was going out with a friend. Nor had he avoided mentioning her name.
He had said he had a date and had given them her name.
That, in a pretty simple way, reinforced everything Andrew had told her earlier.
That he didn't see her as something casual. It was a small action. Andrew probably hadn't even thought about it that way. But to Paige, it meant something.
"So what now? Do you have plans later?" Paige asked.
It was a little after six in the evening. She didn't really feel like leaving. But if he had plans with his family or something, she didn't want to get in the way.
"At six-thirty we were going to watch Alabama against Texas A&M. It's one of the best games of the day. With Steve, probably Howard and Leonard. If you want, you can stay," Andrew replied.
He paused for a moment. Then corrected himself, "Actually, I'd like you to stay."
Paige looked at him with a faint smile, "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Although Mónica, Rachel, and Haley will probably end up coming too. Sam definitely will. So basically it's going to turn into another group hangout," Andrew added with a shrug.
Paige narrowed her eyes slightly, "You took all the specialness out of it pretty fast."
Andrew laughed, "I'm being realistic."
"Alabama, Texas, huh?" Paige said, returning to the subject of the game. "Texas has that Manziel guy they compare you to a lot, right?"
"Yes. Johnny Football Manziel," Andrew replied.
He explained a little more clearly where those comparisons came from.
Johnny Manziel had burst into the national conversation over the past few weeks.
It had been about three weeks since his name had started appearing seriously in the Heisman race, and by this point several sports networks already had him ranked somewhere between fourth and fifth on their respective lists.
Andrew had been there much longer.
His name had entered the conversation practically from the first week and, after Oregon, most rankings had him sitting directly in first place.
From Paige's perspective, the narrative was pretty obvious.
Manziel was the one trying to catch him.
Not the other way around.
Of all the candidates, he was perhaps also the one who drew the most natural comparisons to Andrew.
Even more than Collin Klein.
Not necessarily because they played exactly the same way. In fact, they were quite different.
Maybe that was part of it, along with the popularity that was quickly growing around Manziel.
The Johnny Football nickname was already beginning to spread across the country.
There was also another detail that was impossible to ignore. Manziel was a redshirt freshman.
Andrew, a true freshman.
If either of them ended up winning the Heisman, he would become the first freshman ever to do it. Although the media constantly made a point of emphasizing the difference.
Manziel had already spent a year inside a college football program. Andrew had arrived straight out of high school only a few months earlier.
All of that made that night's game one of the most attractive matchups of the entire day.
Alabama was the number one team in the country.
That alone was enough for any of their games to receive national attention.
But Texas A&M came in ranked number fifteen, with a quarterback firmly inside the Top 5 of the Heisman race.
On top of that, Manziel would be playing at Alabama. A hostile environment and one of the best in the country.
Texas A&M was clearly coming in as the underdog.
"When you went to college as a kid, was it Texas A&M?" Andrew asked after explaining all of that.
"No," Paige replied, shaking her head. "Although it was the closest major university to my hometown, I went to the one in Austin. It had more prestige for the work they had moved me ahead in... or, well, my mother enrolled me there following my tutors' recommendations."
Andrew nodded. The University of Texas at Austin. The Longhorns. One of the most historic programs in college football.
Four recognized national championships, with the most recent one still fairly recent: the 2005 season.
In his first life, Andrew probably would have chosen that university without thinking twice.
He had been a fan.
In this one, however, things had been different.
Texas had been among the schools that recruited him.
The Longhorns had offered him a scholarship and had seriously tried to convince him.
But Andrew had ultimately turned them down. When he made his five official visits, he was looking for something different.
He didn't want to simply arrive at one of the country's traditional giants and become another star in a story that had already been written for decades.
He wanted a challenge. A program with resources and potential. Texas A&M had actually been one of those five visits.
But in the end, he chose UCLA.
"Oh, right. I have a friend at Texas A&M. She's from my hometown and started there this year," Paige suddenly commented.
Her eyes widened slightly as she remembered, and then a smile appeared.
Andrew immediately recognized that expression. Something was coming.
"You actually kept a friend from your hometown?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
From everything Paige had told him, she had never really managed to have many genuine friendships during those years.
"Well... ex-friend," Paige corrected herself with a grimace. "Remember when I told you I did some stupid things?"
Andrew nodded.
"Well, it turns out..." Paige began, telling him the story.
Probably the stupidest thing she had done during that rebellious phase.
Missy had been one of the few people her age Paige had genuinely considered a friend.
A real friend, and when they were both thirteen, Paige had come up with the brilliant idea of convincing her to steal Missy's father's truck and drive together all the way to Florida.
They hadn't gotten very far. The police intercepted them before they could even get close to their destination. After that, Missy's parents came to a pretty understandable conclusion.
Paige was a bad influence, and they forbade their daughter from seeing her again.
Andrew listened to the whole story in silence. When she finished, he couldn't help laughing.
Paige hit him on the arm, "Hey. It's a tragic story about how I lost my only friend during a dark period of my life. Show a little respect."
"Sorry, sorry," Andrew replied, still smiling.
It was just that the image of a thirteen-year-old Paige planning an escape to Florida in a stolen truck was far too funny compared to the controlled Paige standing in front of him now.
Paige looked at him with obvious disapproval.
Andrew tried to pull himself together, "So... this girl, Missy. She's at Texas A&M... What does that have to do with the game? Did she travel to Alabama?"
"Not that I know of. The point is, she's a fan of yours," Paige said, pointing at him with her index finger and giving him a small tap on the chest.
"Really?" Andrew replied, genuinely surprised.
While his mind started connecting the pieces: Missy, Paige, and Medford.
"Yes. And a pretty big one. From the little I talked to her, I'd say Mónica-level," Paige replied.
That did make Andrew raise his eyebrows a little.
Paige ended up explaining what had happened.
Missy had gotten back in touch with her through Facebook after the Oregon game.
Apparently, during one of the television shots showing the small section of UCLA fans who had traveled all the way to Eugene, Paige had appeared for a few seconds celebrating with the rest of them.
There hadn't been that many fans who made the trip.
So if the cameras focused on that area, it was perfectly possible to recognize someone.
Missy had recognized her.
After years without talking, that had been enough for her to message Paige.
At first, she hadn't gone straight to the point.
They talked a little about everything. But sooner or later, Andrew had ended up coming into the conversation.
Paige hadn't told her very much.
Simply that yes, she studied at UCLA and that she had traveled to Eugene to watch the game.
She hadn't mentioned that she knew Andrew personally. Much less that they were this close.
Missy didn't seem to suspect it either.
As far as she was concerned, Paige had simply had the incredible coincidence of appearing on television during a game she had gone to watch because she now studied at UCLA and had friends who liked football.
"So, what I want to do is send her a video of you and me saying hi to her," Paige said, clearly amused by the idea. "She'll probably freak out."
'There it is,' Andrew thought.
He knew that smile was hiding something.
"She's probably getting ready to watch the Texas game right now. Imagine her suddenly getting a video of you saying her name, and then me showing up next to you like it's the most normal thing in the world," Paige added as she pulled out her phone.
Andrew couldn't think of many reasons to say no.
Paige opened the front-facing camera and held out her arm, "Hi, Missy," she said, looking directly at the screen. "Look who I'm with..."
She tilted the phone slightly.
Andrew appeared in frame. He had to move a little closer to Paige and lean down to fit properly into the shot. He raised one hand in greeting.
"Hey, Missy. Thanks for supporting me and for following the games. Hope you enjoy today's one and your team wins."
Paige smiled, clearly satisfied.
She centered the camera back on herself, "Just wanted to show you that... see you!"
She stopped recording.
She checked it for only a few seconds and sent it. Then she locked her phone.
"I'd pay to see her reaction," she said, still smiling.
They both sat back down on the couch, this time facing each other.
There were still more than fifteen minutes before Steve and the others would start arriving.
"Anything to kill time?" Paige asked.
Andrew thought for a few seconds and finally replied, "A game."
"Oh, what kind?" she asked, immediately interested.
The idea had come to him because of what had happened earlier.
The Batman line.
Know your limits, Master Wayne.
And Paige answering without hesitation: Batman has no limits.
She hadn't just recognized the movie.
She had also known exactly what line came next.
So Andrew suggested something simple. A movie game.
One of them would say a line from a movie.
The other had to guess which movie it came from.
Paige listened to the rules and nodded. But naturally, it took her less than ten seconds to modify them.
"One point for guessing the movie," she said. "Two if you can also say exactly what the next line is."
Andrew raised an eyebrow. That made it considerably harder and considerably more fun, "Fine."
They decided who would go first with rock, paper, scissors.
Paige won. A small smile appeared on her face.
She would be the first to test Andrew's movie knowledge.
"You look stupid and rich," Paige said.
Andrew thought for a few seconds. Then he replied, "Actually, I'm smart and poor."
Paige's eyes widened slightly. She hadn't expected him to nail the exact next line.
"Love Story. From nineteen seventy-something..." Andrew added with a faint smile.
"1970," Paige corrected him. "Two to zero so far. Your turn."
She hadn't exactly started with something easy. Love Story was a huge classic of romantic cinema.
Released in 1970, it had grossed more than one hundred and thirty million dollars during its original run, an enormous figure for the time.
Adjusted for inflation and for how different the movie market was back then, its commercial impact would be comparable to a movie today crossing one billion dollars at the box office.
But it was still a movie from more than forty years ago.
And a romance.
Paige hadn't shown much mercy for the first round.
Luckily, Andrew had a pretty strong knowledge of movies. He had seen a considerable number of older films, classics, and titles outside his favorite genres.
Steve probably would have been eliminated on the first try.
Howard and Leonard might have recognized the name of the movie, but getting the next line right would have been another story.
'So that's how you want to play? Fine...' Andrew thought.
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