Page 22 of Notice Me, Jameson Hart

On the other end of the field, Robbie lines up with the special teams unit.

They’re working on field goals today, and even from here, I catch his focused expression that makes him look constipated more than anything else.

He takes three steps back, two to the side—the same ritual every time.

The holder sets the ball, Robbie approaches, and his leg swings through in one smooth motion.

The ball sails between the uprights, and his teammates whoop their approval.

And then there’s Jameson.

He runs routes near the thirty-yard line, and watching him move is like watching water flow downhill—natural, inevitable, beautiful.

He plants his right foot and cuts left sharply.

The defender chasing after him stumbles.

The ball arrives a split second later, and Jameson plucks it from the air without breaking stride.

His hands are sure, his movements are fluid.

He makes catching a football look as easy as breathing.

“You’re new,” a squeaky voice says.

I glance left and find a younger version of Jameson Hart studying me. He has the same bone structure, the same brown eyes, but scaled down and missing about six inches of height. Ethan, the younger brother.

“Am I?” I ask.

Ethan nods and sits down next to me. “My mom works at the hospital during the day, so I hang out here. Never seen you before.”

“I’m Kevin Pryor.” I gesture vaguely toward the field. “Adam and Robbie’s brother.”

“Oh!” His face lights up with recognition. “Jameson talks about your brothers all the time. Says Adam’s got the best arm in the state, and that Robbie has a wicked leg.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty good at the whole sports thing.”

“So, why haven’t you come to practices before?” Ethan pulls out a worn notebook and sketches anime characters while he talks. “Most siblings show up at least sometimes.”

“Theater kid,” I say, as if that explains it. To most people at Arcadia High, it does.

“Cool. My friend’s mom is involved in community theater. She played a witch once.” He flips to a new page and keeps drawing. He’s surprisingly good. “Are you enjoying practice?”

“Yes.” The lie comes easily. Much easier than admitting I’m enjoying watching his brother run around in short shorts.

Ethan nods, apparently satisfied with my answer. “Jameson says that having people in the stands, even during practice, makes the team play better.”

I watch as Jameson pulls off another spectacular catch that for anyone else would have been uncatchable. The entire offense erupts.

“Your brother’s really good,” I say before I can stop myself.

“He’s okay.” Ethan grins, clearly proud despite the blasé tone. “He works hard, spends hours in our backyard gardening with our mom. Everyone thinks he’s this dumb jock because he’s a ball of sunshine, but he’s secretly the brains of the operation.”

“So, what you’re saying is he’s not just another pretty face?”

“Pretty?” Ethan laughs. “Don’t let him hear you say that. His ego’s already big enough.” He starts shading his newest drawing. “But yeah, he studies film and makes spreadsheets to track defensive patterns. He’s a total nerd about it all.”

Spreadsheets, huh? I guess being gorgeous and athletic isn’t enough—he also has to be organized. “What else does he nerd out about?” I ask, with a hint of casual curiosity.

Ethan’s pencil pauses on the graph paper. “Why?”

“Just making conversation.” I shrug. “It’s hot, and I’m bored.”

“Alright. Uh…let’s see. Jameson’s super into cooking shows. Like, obsessed . He DVRs every episode of The Great British Bake Off and yells at the TV when someone’s pastry doesn’t rise properly.”

My brain struggles to process this information. Jameson Hart, destroyer of defensive lines, watches people make scones? “Does he bake?”

“His chocolate chip cookies are legendary. He makes them at Christmastime, and they’re gone in thirty seconds. And last week, he tried to make croissants from scratch. They looked like deflated footballs but tasted amazing.”

I file this away in the rapidly expanding folder labeled “Things That Make Jameson Hart Dangerously Perfect.”

Down on the field, the team runs another play. Jameson zigzags a few yards, and Adam’s pass finds him perfectly.

“He’s also weirdly good at crossword puzzles,” Ethan continues, warming to the subject. “Does the New York Times one weekly. Gets genuinely upset if someone spoils an answer.”

“Crossword puzzles,” I repeat flatly. At this point, why not? Maybe he also nurses birds with broken wings and speaks fluent French.

“Yeah, and he’s teaching himself guitar. Says it helps with hand-eye coordination or something.” Ethan rolls his eyes. “I think he just wants to be able to play campfire songs when we go to the lake.”

Each new detail is another weight added to my already overwhelming crush. I imagine Jameson strumming a guitar by firelight, his voice carrying across dark water. I bet it’s silky smooth, like Michael Bublé or John Mayer. I have to dig my nails into my palm to stay grounded.

“Sounds like he’s good at everything,” I say.

“Not everything .” Ethan’s expression turns mischievous. “He’s terrible at video games; I’m talking embarrassingly bad. I can beat him with my eyes closed. And don’t get me started on his dancing.”

“He can’t dance?” This feels important in some way, like finding a crack in marble.

“Oh, man, it’s painful. At our aunt’s wedding last year, I thought he was being electrocuted.” Ethan demonstrates with some truly awful arm movements. “But he does it anyway because he says confidence is half the battle.”

I glance over at the field and watch him high-fiving teammates. “What about dating?” The question escapes my lips before I can catch it.

Ethan raises an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“I mean, he must have girls throwing themselves at him constantly.” I gesture vaguely at the field, where he’s now doing jumping jacks that should be illegal in public if you’re wearing shorts as short as his.

“I guess? He doesn’t date much anymore. He’s focused on school, football season, and getting into a good college.” Ethan shrugs. “He’s been single since he broke up with Alison Harper last year. She moved to Boston, and they decided long distance wasn’t worth it.”

Alison Harper. I vaguely remember her. She was the student council president with dreams of attending Harvard. She was always kind, which would explain why Jameson would have dated her.

“Do you have any other burning questions about my brother?”

“What? No. I was?—”

“Relax.” He waves off my stammering. “I’m messing with you. It’s nice having someone to talk to up here.”

The whistle blows for a water break. Players scatter toward the sidelines, grabbing bottles and towels. Jameson pours half his water over his head, then shakes. The droplets catch the sunlight, and I have to stop staring before I do something stupid like sigh out loud.

“Have you read any of those books I recommended yet? The ones from Pages & Prose?”

Ethan stares at me with a confused expression. “What books?”

My heart stops thumping. “The young adult novels. Cemetery Boys, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda? Your brother said he was getting them for you.”

“He never gave me any books.” Ethan’s forehead wrinkles. “When was this?”

“Last week. During the rain. He came into the bookstore and asked for recommendations for you. Said you wanted to try young adult romance.”

Ethan shakes his head slowly. “I never asked him to get me books. I mean, I like reading, but I’m more into sci-fi and fantasy stuff. Dragons and spaceships, you know?”

The heat from the bleachers intensifies as I replay the bookstore conversation in my head.

There’s no way I could have misinterpreted anything.

He literally said he was looking to get some books for Ethan.

He’d asked questions and listened to my recommendations, and walked out with an armful of novels.

“That’s weird,” I say.

“Maybe he forgot?” Ethan suggests, but he sounds doubtful. “Jameson’s pretty good about remembering stuff, though. Especially if he went to the trouble of buying them.”

A new thought creeps into my brain, one that’s completely ridiculous.

There’s no way Jameson Hart saw me enter the bookstore and followed me in solely to strike up a conversation.

That’s the kind of thing that happens in movies, not real life.

Not to theater kids who can barely utter a coherent sentence around attractive people.

“Yeah, he probably forgot,” I echo, but my voice sounds strange, even to me.

Down on the field, practice resumes. Jameson catches another pass, and this time, when he jogs back, he glances up at the bleachers. Our eyes meet for half a second before I quickly look up, pretending to be fascinated by a cloud in the shape of a lopsided turtle.

“You okay?” Ethan asks. “Your face is getting red. Do you need water?”

“It’s the sun. I burn easily,” I lie. My brain is too busy reanalyzing everything to come up with better excuses.

Why would Jameson lie about the books? Unless he didn’t lie, exactly. Maybe he bought them for himself. But then why mention Ethan at all? And why ask specifically about romance, and be happy that all I recommended were stories with LGBTQ characters?

“Actually,” Ethan says suddenly, “now that I think about it, Jameson has been acting kind of weird lately.”

I force myself to focus. “Weird how?”

“Just different. He’s been on his phone more, smiling at it randomly. And the other day I caught him reading something on his laptop, and he slammed it shut when I walked in.” Ethan grins. “I figured he was looking at porn or something.”

“Ethan!” I choke on air.

“What? He’s eighteen. It’s normal.” He says this with the confidence of a younger sibling who’s made peace with his brother’s humanity. “But maybe he was researching those books you recommended. Like, pulling up reviews or something. That would explain why he was being secretive.”

My heart picks up speed until it’s beating faster than ever before. The idea of Jameson Hart secretly reading Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is almost too much to process. I picture him lying in bed, turning pages, maybe getting to the part where Simon and Blue finally meet and kicking his feet.

The whistle blows for another drill, snapping me out of my thoughts. This time it’s tackling practice, and I wince as bodies collide with bone-crunching sounds that I can hear from up here. Jameson takes a hit that would have sent me to the hospital. He bounces back up, right as rain, and laughs.

“He’s tougher than he looks,” Ethan comments, following my gaze.

“He already looks pretty tough.”

“Yeah, but he’s also kind of a softie. Cries at movies all the time.” Ethan mimics wiping tears. “We watched Marley & Me last month, and he went through an entire box of tissues.”

Another crack in the marble. I file this information away with everything else I’ve learned, building a picture of someone far more complex than the golden boy that he is.

“You’re smiling,” Ethan observes.

“Am I?” I consciously rearrange my face into something more passive.

“It’s cool. My brother has that effect on people.” He says matter-of-factly. “Even the straight guys get a little starry-eyed around him sometimes.”

“I’m not—I mean, I wasn’t?—”

“Relax.” Ethan pats my shoulder with surprising gentleness. “I’m not saying anything. Just observing.”

About a half hour later, practice finally winds down. Players gather around Coach Potter for a final pep talk, exhausted. Their shirts are soaked through with sweat, and they’re leaning on each other for support, moral and physical.

I can’t hear what Coach Potter is saying, but he’s animated and pointing at each guy. Once he’s done, the team breaks with a medieval shout. Adam and Robbie split off from the group, jogging toward the bleachers. They’re both grinning, high on endorphins and success.

“How was it?” Adam calls up.

“Educational,” I reply, which makes Ethan snort.

“You survived your first practice,” Robbie adds, as if it’s some kind of achievement. “Next time we’ll get you down on the field, maybe run some routes with us.”

“In your dreams, brother dearest.”

They laugh and gather their stuff from the bench as Ethan and I descend the bleachers. Other players drift by, some nodding at me in recognition, others ignoring the skinny theater kid entirely.

Then Jameson appears, because apparently the universe isn’t done testing my ability to form coherent thoughts.

“Hey, Ethan,” he says, then his eyes find mine. “Kevin. Thanks for keeping my brother company.”

“No problem,” I say.

Jameson grabs another water bottle, and I absolutely do not watch his throat as he drinks. “What did you guys talk about?”

“Dating, crossword puzzles…books,” Ethan says with a shrug.

Jameson pauses mid-drink, eyes bulging slightly. It’s only for a second, but I clock it. “Books?”

“Yeah, Kevin was telling me about some book recommendations he gave you.” Ethan’s voice is perfectly even, but I see the glint in his eye. The little troublemaker knows exactly what he’s doing.

“Cool,” Jameson says, and is it my imagination, or are his cheeks turning pink? It’s probably the exertion from practice. “Ready to head out?”

Ethan chatters about something as they walk toward the parking lot. Jameson listens with the patience of a good older brother. Right before they’re out of sight, Jameson glances back. Our eyes meet again, and this time, I don’t look away. He nods and flashes me a soft smile.

“Ready?” Adam asks, appearing at my side with his gear bag slung over his shoulder. His face is caked in sweat and dirt, and I wrinkle my nose at the stench wafting off of him.

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s get home so you guys can shower. You reek.”

He shoves me lightly, and I stumble. I shove him back, but he barely moves an inch. “I hate you,” I grumble.

“I love you,” he says in a baby voice and with puckered lips.

When we’re back in the van and heading home, my phone vibrates.

Rita

Status report! How was Operation Football Observation?

I think about Jameson’s guilty pause when Ethan mentioned books. About young adult novels purchased but never delivered. About the way he glanced back at me, like maybe he wanted to come back and say something more.

Me

Complicated.

Rita

AHHHH!!! Kevin Pryor, I need details immediately!

Me

Later. Still processing.

And I am. Processing the fact that Jameson Hart might have used his brother as an excuse to talk to me. That he might be secretly reading LGBTQ romance novels. That perhaps I’m not the only one with a crush that doesn’t make sense.

But that’s definitely too much to hope for. Right?