I always had a thing for athletes. Not sports (no sirree), but athletes, yes. All my crushes were on boys who played one sport or another well. I even have a journal entry written in elementary school about playing soccer against one of those crushes and “accidently” running into him.
I had sworn off crushes by my freshman year in high school, but when Chad arrived on the scene, playing baseball, soccer and football, my heart did a little thump. After we started dating, I would sit in the stands and hear comments all around me about what a great player he was, and my face would burn a little, and my heart would do a double thump.
14 years later, and he is playing in a soccer league again. The kids and I went to watch him last Thursday. Holding our little doll in my arms, the boys running around behind me, I heard one of the other players say, “Chad is playing well today.”
Blush. Thump thump. 16 all over again.
