The game had started at 7:05 and ended around 10:30, and it was eleven o'clock by the time Brittany was finally let back to see Freddy. She wasn't surprised at all when the security guards had given her a slightly hard time. But once they'd figured out whose sister she was (and it didn't hurt anything when Freddy finally came and informed them that she was with him) they immediately let her through, apologizing, but Brittany knew it was just for the safety of the players.
"Thanks for letting them interrogate me. I love playing 20 questions with policemen," she joked with Freddy nonetheless once they'd hugged and had begun to make their way to the locker room to collect his things.
Freddy grinned, knowing her sense of humor intimately, "Sorry, hon. I was in the shower and thought they would have recognized you and let you through."
Brittany couldn't keep herself from smiling too. She loved hearing him talk, because his accent was so wonderful to her. She enjoyed listening to him anyway and everything he spoke was of deep interest to her -- and concern when needed. "I'm not famous myself, Freddy. Just because I have a brother that's of SOME interest to SOME people," she teased Derek in his absence, "doesn't mean I'm known by anyone."
"Well, I still vote you for the cover of Cosmo, nonetheless ... No matter what you or your brother say."
She laughed at him, grateful for the compliment though not entirely sure how to take it. She wasn't good with receiving them, but she tried hard to take his gracefully. If only, she wished at the moment, she could accept it by yelling out that she loved him, wanted to marry him, and bear his children for him ... she'd follow that by a careful kiss. But she didn't. She refrained, knowing that she wouldn't be able to do it, even if she were to try. She'd have to be a big fool, with a wish to ruin their impeccable friendship, to do a stupid thing such as that.
Freddy smiled down at her as she thanked him for the kind comment he'd made, and gave him a comfortable hug around the middle.
Nick/Sarah
"Do you want to go get a cup of coffee or something to eat with me? Seeing as though I told my friends to leave me here and your friend's getting a ride home with someone else, I thought maybe we'd need someone to ride the bus with anyway," Nick offered with a broad yet almost hesitant smile.
Sarah was quick to answer, having long since forgotten her shy nervousness and quickly falling into the same feeling of comfortableness with Nick that she'd felt at the club six months before. "Well, I have a car here," she explained as they began walking slowly towards the stadium exits. "As soon as Brittany and I flew in we rented a car so that we wouldn't have to depend on bus departure and arrival times or be at the mercy of crazy taxi drivers." She was quick to add with a warm and friendly smile that she'd love to have a driving partner and that food sounded delicious.
Nick admired her for how she could make somebody she hardly knew feel welcome and at home. She had a way about her that made you feel as though you'd known her your entire life ... and that was a good thing, and he wished at that moment that he had indeed known her longer than he had.
So they headed to the parking lot that held her rental car, talking amicably the entire way, and once they reached their destination Nick smiled at hers and her friend's good taste in cars. The shiny, seemingly new Toyota Supra sat alone under a dim street light, waiting to have its engine revved. He couldn't help but wonder: if these were the kinds of cars they rented, what did they own?
"So where were you two flying in from?" Nick asked once they were driving out of the parking lot and he had already voiced his appreciation of her choice in vehicles and she'd thanked him. "I thought you guys lived here."
"Yeah, we do. Brittany lives in Tampa with Derek, though he lives in Manhattan during the season. I live a couple of streets down from them. But Brittany and I go to school in New York."
Nick nodded and was silently glad that she seemed to be a talker once she was comfortable, so there wouldn't be conversation lulls. And there wasn't the entire evening. And after dinner they went back to Nick's house for drinks and even then the conversation didn't stop.
Freddy/Brittany
"So what made you and Sarah decide to come?" Freddy asked as they buckled up in his car, knowing the two of them should've been at school.
Brittany smiled and glanced out the window, and though she would have normally spoke teasingly she said it with all seriousness, "I heard my favorite pitcher was pitching."
He had to know that she meant some of the things that she said. But he did, and he loved and honestly enjoyed the compliments that she gave.
"Do you always tell guys what they want to hear?" he asked as he switched gears, quickly gaining speed on the freeway.
"Just you," her answer came as though she were distracted, and she was, wondering where they would be going.
They ended up at Brittany's and Derek's house, knowing that they wouldn't be bothering him since he was staying in Manhattan. They sat on the couch watching TV until two in the morning, like any other friends would do. At 2:05 Derek called because when he'd called the hotel to check up on his baby sister she hadn't been there. Derek didn't understand why they were staying at a hotel in the first place, but Brittany had insisted that if they didn't it wouldn't feel much like a real excursion away from school. "Girls" had been Derek's only response, but he hadn't forgotten to add a roll of the eyes which had earned him a slap across the head from his sister on one side and Sarah on the other.
As Brittany talked to her brother in the next room, Freddy could hear her scolding Derek and telling him to stop with the snide sexual remarks about her and Freddy. He pretended he hadn't heard her as she returned to the living room from her ten minute conversation. They decided soon after, when it was 2:30, that there was no point in either of them going back to their hotels and they may as well just stay there for the night.
So they finally shut the TV off and made their way to the guest bedroom where Freddy would sleep. Brittany was coming along to make sure the bed was made, and because Freddy had willingly accepted her offer for a back massage, since he'd pitched, and such a long game at that. Seeing the bed was made, Brittany sat down on it and watched and waited as Freddy took his T-shirt off unabashedly. They were comfortable with each other and Brittany wondered, at the thought, if Freddy would blush if she were to "accidentally" walk in on him in the shower in the morning. She giggled at the cerebration and he looked up from stripping down to his boxers. She could feel her stomach flutter as his eyes met hers and she bit her tongue to keep from asking if she could get naked too. Freddy didn't bother asking why she had laughed, and walked to the bed, quickly lying down on his stomach. Brittany could tell just by looking at his back just how tense his muscles were and she hesitantly, though Freddy didn't notice, straddled his behind and got to work.
