Will and Everett walked through the side doors into the hallways of Dillon High School. Everett would still not shut up about the Elizabeth Riggins thing, "I'm serious, Will. Do not pursue this chick. Does she have a killer body? Yes. Is her feisty attitude a total turn on? Hell yes. Will Coach Riggins beat you to a pulp if he finds out you so much as looked at her? Damn straight. Listen to me, man. She's not worth dying."

Just as he said that, Will spotted Elizabeth's ponytail swish ahead of him. He started to walk faster toward her, "Mhm, yeah. Sure, man. Will do."

"I repeat, Saracen, NOT WORTH DYING," Everett shouted after him.

Once Will caught up to Ellie, he was almost out of breath, "Excuse me, Elizabeth? I believe we met briefly this morning, I didn't really get a chance to say anything before you walked off."

Ellie rolled her eyes and kept walking, "Strategic planning on my part."

"Well, look. I just wanted to tell you that I think you're the prettiest girl I've ever seen. I mean not that that's the only reason that I wanted to talk to you, but I mean, it's what first caught my eye."

Ellie spun around and put a hand on his chest to keep him from moving further, "I already told you, Saracen. I don't talk to football players." She turned back around and continued walking.

"Don't you think that's a little weird, considering the fact that you're a cheerleader?" he asked, just loud enough for her to hear.

She stopped in her tracks, but didn't turn to face him, "Actually, no. I don't find it weird at all, and I don't have to explain myself to you. I already made it clear I don't want to talk to you, so please just leave me alone." She then stormed toward her next class.

Will stood in the middle of the hallway, just watching her walk away. He just didn't get it. What cheerleader didn't talk to the football players? But he knew one thing for sure; he was going to get Ellie to talk to one football player, himself.

LATER ON THAT DAY:

Will sat at a table in the cafeteria by himself, waiting to for Everett to get his food from the lunch line. He felt a heavy hand slam against his back and before he knew it, Josh Powell was sitting in the seat next to him.

"Saracen, what's up man? QB1! Big man on campus!" Josh Powell played defense for the football team. He was a little bit of a meat head.

Will chuckled. As ridiculous as Josh was, he could always make him laugh, "Yeah, I guess so."

"So, dude, first order of business: which cheerleader are you gonna bang first?"

Will literally spit out some of the water he had been drinking.

"I'm being completely serious, man. Those ladies just keep getting finer and finer. Megan Gooding is a total fox, but word on the street is she's crawling with diseases."

Will just shook his head.

"Corinne Daniels is pretty sexy, but we all know she's saving herself for your buddy, Everett. Zoey Hardwick is ridiculously flexible and those eyes just scream kinky."

Will had just started to tune Josh out when he said something that made his ears perk up.

"But, OH MAN! Have you seen that new freshman? Coach's kid? Damn! You could bounce a quarter of that sweet ass! And just imagine doing her mom at the same time, I mean their practically twins. It'd be like having a threesome with the same hottie!"

At this point, Will was practically seething. Hearing Josh talk like that about Elizabeth made him want to tackle his friend and beat him senseless. He was practically red in the face from bottling all that rage up when Josh said, "Well, later dude, I'm gonna go see if I can charm the pants of Zoey."

Soon after Josh got up, Everett sat down.

"Dude, what's up? You look really freaking pissed."

"Nothing. Josh just said something Josh-like about Elizabeth that rubbed me the wrong way."

Everett's eyes went wide, "What? Are you freaking kidding me? Dude! You're overprotective of her now? Not cool, man, not cool! Okay, we talked about this. Little Riggins is off limits!"

Will rolled his eyes, "We didn't talk about this man. You talked, I ignored you."

Everett proceeded to try to persuade Will to go out with anyone else but Elizabeth, "What about Corinne Daniels? Huh? I mean, she's really pretty and I'm sure she'd go for you!" Corinne Daniels was a cheerleader that had lived down the street from Everett since they were little kids. She was also quite obviously in love with Everett. The only person that didn't know was Everett himself.

"You know, dude, I just have this feeling in my gut that I'm not her type.

Everett got up to throw his trash out, "Look, Will. Suit yourself, but please listen to me when I tell you- No, when I beg of you, do not go out with Elizabeth Riggins. Go out with anyone but Elizabeth Riggins."

"Whatever, man. You don't have anything to worry about. She's made it very clear that she's not interested in football players."

Everett rolled his green eyes, "She lying, Will. All girls are interested in football players. Especially bighearted, polite quarterbacks."

EVEN LATER ON THAT DAY:

Ellie walked into her chemistry class and took a seat on the left side of the room. She had taken the pre-requisites to the class over the summer so the kids in the room were all juniors, instead of sophomores like her. However, knowing that much did not stop her jaw from dropping when Will Saracen walked into the class room.

"You've got to be kidding me, "she muttered as he took a seat at the desk just diagonal from hers.

Soon Mrs. Thorpe started the class. She gave a brief introduction, and then she said, "Alright, your first grade this semester will be a project. I'm going to assign every one of you a partner and you are all going to a conduct an experiment outside of school. I expect a report by the end of the next week." She then proceeded to go down the list of names, assigning partners. You can imagine both Ellie and Will's shock when she said, "And finally, Elizabeth Riggins and Will Saracen, you too will be working together."

After class, Ellie walked straight up to her teacher's desk," Mrs. Thorpe, there has to be some way I can switch partners."

Mrs. Thorpe clucked her tongue, "Miss Riggins, I'm afraid I won't be switching around any partnerships. You should be thankful, Mr. Saracen is a model student and you could have a much worse partner."

Ellie sighed and walked out the door, and shortly after Will followed her, making sure to thank Mrs. Thorpe on his way out.

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth, wait up!" Will was racing after her.

Ellie spun around, "Look just come over tomorrow night so we can get this over with okay?"

"Okay. Yeah, sure thing."

THE NEXT NIGHT:

Will and Ellie had been working on their project for the last hour and to say it had been awkward would be an understatement.

"Look, I know you said you didn't owe an explanation as to why you don't talk to football players, but I was thinking I'm here now, and you kind of have to talk to me. So, maybe you could share, just because," Will thought out loud.

Ellie let out a deep breath through her mouth, "When I was a little girl, my dad used to take me to the Panther games. He would pick me up, and put me on his shoulders. He was just so happy watching the game, even when they lost. It was our perfect thing.

"And when I got older, and he started helping out with the team, he couldn't really take me to the games anymore, and we didn't have our perfect thing. So, when I reached high school, I thought cheerleading would be the perfect way to be there on the sidelines with him. I thought it would be a way to preserve our perfect thing. I also knew that talking to the players, and building relationships with them would somehow tarnish that. It wouldn't be just me and my dad's thing anymore. I guess it's kind of stupid."

Will looked her right in the eye, "It's not stupid. It's not stupid at all."

Ellie gave him a small half smile, "I'm finding it increasingly harder to ignore you, though."

He laughed, "Then my master plan is working!"

Ellie leaned in closer to him, to the point where their noses were touching. And then, Ellie Riggins kissed her first football player.