All Chapters of The Nerd's Playbook: Chapter 11 - Chapter 15

The bell rang like a dismissal and a warning all at once.Conversations resumed, louder than before, as if everyone had been holding their breath and finally remembered how to breathe again. Chairs scraped. Trays shifted. Laughter burst out in uneven pockets. Brianna Kendricks was already halfway across the dining hall, but her presence lingered behind her like a spicy fragrance.Penny leaned toward me. “I don’t like her.”“She might be a good person for all you know.” I murmured sweetly, ever the optimist.“I don’t like people who insult my clothes without making eye contact.”I almost smiled, but the knot in my chest refused to loosen.Shirley checked her watch. “Come on. You’ll miss first period if we don’t move.”As we stood, I felt it again. That strange awareness. As though something had been pressed into me and left a mark I couldn’t see. Brianna hadn

He stood slightly apart from the others, taller than I remembered, broader in the shoulders. His jersey stretched across his chest, white and unforgiving, the bold black number one stamped against his back like a declaration. His hair was darker under the floodlights, curls damp at the edges, enhancing his boyish features. He laughed at something a teammate said, head tipped back, utterly at ease.My breath caught.No.No, no, no. “That’s Dean?” I whispered faintly.Sally didn't answer.And for a split second, he was the only person I saw on the field. He was my central focus. Every other person was blurred in the background. The stadium noise dimmed, like someone had turned the volume down on reality. My heart slammed once, hard enough to hurt.The announcer called his name.The crowd surged to its feet, sound rising in a violent wave, but I didn’t move. My fingers tightened around the edge of the bench as if it might drift away from me. I forgot to breathe. I forgot Penny and Sally

The rest of my shift passed in fragments. Orders blurred. Conversations overlapped. I caught flashes of Dean’s profile when I wasn’t looking for him, which annoyed me more than I cared to admit. He barely touched his food. Ruby ate in huge chunks, as if she was not savoring the meal but the situation.When the terrace finally thinned, Antonia waved me over. “Take a break, Lisa.”I slipped into the narrow corridor near the storage room, pressing my palms against the cool wall. My chest rose and fell unevenly. I wasn’t upset, I told myself. Just unsettled. When I returned from my break, Dean and Ruby were nowhere to be found. I breathed a sigh of relief.I clocked out as fast as Antonia would allow.She pressed some leftover churros into a paper bag like contraband, and told me not to work myself thin. I promised I wouldn’t and stepped outside before she could read my face too closely.The evening air was cooler than I expected. The streetlights along the driveway hummed softly, illumin