Breaking Tackles: A Taking Flight Novel (3 page)

Courtney

“You all knew?” I ask my friends, my head spinning with disbelief and joy.

“Willa and Ana knew the longest,” Sophie says. “Kate and I only found out a week ago.”

“How long have you two known?” I ask Willa and Ana.

“Two weeks,” Willa says. “Adam asked me for recommend romantic places in the city. When my initial suggestions weren’t romantic enough for him, I kind of called him out on it.”

“Then,” Ana says, butting in, “she called me and asked if I might be able to swing Dad’s plane this weekend so that everyone could come celebrate.”

“This is insane,” I say. Then it hits me that I’m actually talking to Ana in person say, “Holy crap, you’re here. In real life.”

“Glad you finally figured that one out,” she says, hugging me. “It’s good to finally meet you.”

“You, too,” I say. “How the hell big is your dad’s plane?”

“It’s a jet,” she says, as if that’s a totally normal thing to say in everyday conversation.

“Oh, sure. A jet. Right. Wow.”

“You doing okay?” Kate asks.

“I think I’m incredibly overwhelmed.”

Looking around the bridge, filled with my family and friends, who are all talking and laughing and, well, generally in the way of the other tourists trying to take pictures on the bridge in Central freaking Park, I feel as if my life just got very surreal.

“Completely understandable, given the circumstances,” Willa says.

“We need to get a picture of everyone,” I say suddenly, and Sophie jumps into action.

“Hey, everyone! Courtney wants us all to take a picture!”

As everyone makes their way over and starts arranging themselves, with me and Adam in the middle, Sophie finds a random person nearby to take our photo. After our photo shoot, we’re getting ready to finally leave the bridge when someone yells, “Hey! Aren’t you Adam Kistler?”

“He is!” Rufus shouts back.

“Dude!”

“We know!” Rufus says, making us all laugh.

But then the guy wants to get a picture with Adam, who is nice enough to do it.

“Thanks, man,” the guy says. “Are you all out celebrating your draft?”

“Actually,” Jason says, “he just got engaged.”

“Oh,” the guy says, his eyes wide. “That’s so cool. Congrats!”

We say thanks and the guy goes on his way.

“I guess I’ll have to get used to that,” Adam says.

“Probably. I assume that’s going to happen a lot from here on out. And I’ll probably be the person they ask to take the picture,” I say.

“No way,” Adam says. “Just because you’re my fiancée doesn’t mean you’re a de facto fan photographer.”

Hearing the word
fiancée
for the first time sends a thrill up my spine and a goofy grin crosses my face.

“What?” Adam asks.

“You called me your fiancée.”

“That’s what you are. You’re going to be my wife.”

Whoa. Wife.

My face must have given away the mix of emotions I’m feeling inside, and Adam says, “Okay, we’ll take it easy with the “W” word. One thing at a time.”

“Sounds good, fiancé,” I say, trying the word out. Adam grimaces a little.

“See? It’s weird.”

“It’s just new,” he says. “We’ll get used to it.”

“Yo, lovebirds,” Kate yells. “Where to?”

Adam and I look at each other and it’s clear neither of us has any idea where to go.

“This way,” Willa says. “I’ll take you all to my ‘hood.”

Hours later, the girls and I head back to Willa’s while everyone else heads to their respective dorms and hotel rooms.

“I can’t believe you’re engaged,” Sophie says, staring at the ring.

“I can’t either,” I say. “Could y’all see my face when he asked?”

“We so could,” Ana says. “You looked completely confused.”

“I think I blacked out. I don’t remember much of what happened.”

“Don’t worry,” Kate says. “I totally recorded it on my phone. You can relive it.”

That makes us all laugh, but I actually want to see the video. Kate pulls it out and plays it for me.

“Lord,” I say. “Is that what I really look like in this dress?”

“What do you mean?” Willa asks. “You look great.”

“I look like a cow.”

“Oh, stop,” Sophie says. “You look amazing in that dress and you know it. And Adam knows it.”

“Girl,” Kate says. “You were smokin’ last night. Everyone was talking about it.”

I roll my eyes.

“No, seriously,” she continues. “Everyone online kept saying how gorgeous you looked.”

“What?” I nearly scream.

“Yeah,” she says. “I think there was a blogger who put you in the top twenty hottest girlfriends of the draft.”

“Please tell me that’s a lie.”

“Sadly, it isn’t,” Willa says.

“You’ve seen it, too?”

“I might have a Google Alert for Adam,” she says. When we all look at her without saying anything she says, “I don’t read that much about sports! I just wanted to know what was going on with him without having to freaking Google him every time. So I set up a Google Alert.”

“You’re such a nerd,” Ana says to Willa, before turning to me. “This is the kind of thing that’s going to happen a lot from now on. Just do your best to ignore it if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“I guess I just never thought that anyone would talk about
me
,” I say. “The attention should be on Adam.”

“But you and Adam are a package now,” Ana says. “So, like it or not, there’s going to be some attention on you, too.”

I mull that over before I realize exactly what Kate said.

“I made top twenty hottest girlfriends?” I ask.

“Yeah you did,” Kate says. “Let me pull the article up.”

We crowd around her phone, and sure enough, there I am at number eighteen.

After Adam Kistler and his girlfriend, Courtney Narducci, made their relationship status public, we were used to seeing the tomboy University of Missouri student dressed down. But she sure does clean up nice!

Beneath that is a photo of me from last night next to one of me in a Mizzou jersey and jeans, standing in the bleachers at a game. My hair is pulled back in a ponytail and I have on not a trace of lipstick. I’m wearing sunglasses in the photo, so what they don’t know is that I wasn’t wearing any makeup at all.

I usually don’t. I’m not good at putting it on and it makes my face feel weird.

“Where the hell did they get this photo of me?” I ask, pointing at the one of me in the jersey.

“The photo credit is from AP,” Sophie says.

“What is AP?”

“The Associated Press,” she says. “They have freelance photographers cover loads of events every day and upload their photos to their server. Then news sources pay for the photos to run alongside stories.”

“So what you’re saying is that there have been photographers taking photos of me for months now.”

Sophie shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “Apparently.”

I look back at the article and don’t know what to think. I feel like my privacy has been violated somehow, but know that I shouldn’t feel that way. I was in a public place. I just wish I had known professional photographers were taking pictures of me.

Kate pulls up another photo of me and Adam from last night. “God, your hair looks so great.”

“Thanks to Willa’s mom,” I say. “She made an appointment for me at some fancy salon called John Barrett.”

“Seriously?” Willa and Ana yell at the same time, clearly aware of the Bergdorf Goodman salon.

“She asked if I needed help getting ready before the draft and I told her that I was just going to put my dress and heels on, and maybe a little mascara. Then she told me that since this was a special occasion, it called for special pampering and made the appointment.”

“How was it?” Willa asks.

“It was fancy,” I say. “I felt weird and out of place.”

“Well, you looked absolutely incredible,” Kate says. “Did you buy any of the products they used?”

I shake my head. It never even dawned on me to ask.

“That’s okay,” she says. “We can go raid Sephora and have a beauty night.”

“That isn’t really my thing,” I say. They know this about me. I mean, I like getting ready to go out with them every now and then, but the idea of sitting around and playing with hair and makeup sounds, well, stupid.

“Please?” Kate asks, pouting. “It would be so much fun.”

“I could go for a makeover,” Sophie says. “I’m sick of my hair. I’m actually thinking about chopping it off.”

Thankfully, that takes the attention away from me and I’m able to try to process everything that’s happened in the last forty-eight hours.

As I attempt to wrap my brain around the fact that not only is Adam moving to New Orleans, but that he asked me to marry him—and that I said yes—I suddenly feel bone tired.

Like, can’t-keep-my-eyelids-from-closing tired.

“Hey, guys? I think I’m going to head to bed.”

Willa looks at the clock and says, “Yeah, it is getting pretty late. And you’re meeting your families for breakfast in the morning, right?”

“Right,” I say.

“We’ll move out into the living room so that you can get some sleep then,” Willa says, motioning for everyone to follow her.

Once they’re out of the room, I snuggle into Willa’s bed, feeling a little bad about kicking her out of her own room, but I’m asleep before I’m able to reconsider the arrangement.

The next morning, I wake up with the thought that I was number eighteen. On the day that I looked the best I ever have in my life, I was only eighteen.

As I sit up and run my hands through my hair, a strand gets caught and I remember my ring.