‘I’m gonna remember you,’ he promised, pointing a finger at her.

Mary Kate was still in huffy mode, so she just folded her arms, looked Football Dude right in those blue eyes and said, ‘Well, I hope I remember anything now that you’ve hit me in the head. If I get even ten points less than a perfect verbal score on the SAT this spring, you’re getting sued.’

But Football Dude just stared at her admiringly for a minute before jogging off to retrieve his ball.

I was staring at her, too. ‘Mary Kate!’ I said. Where had she possibly learned to throw a football like that? Did she secretly have some bionic robot bicep under her extra-small fleece that NASA scientists had engineered? And, if so, why was she always asking me to finish blow-drying her hair when her arm got too tired?

As she turned towards me, the red flush of anger drained from her face and she blinked a few times, dazed. Her fists unclenched. She was coming back to reality after her rage blackout. She looked at me, then at Football Dude jogging away towards Boys’ Quad, and asked: ‘Wait. Was that guy, like, really cute?’

That week, Fajita Friday in the cafeteria was overshadowed by excitement about the Toothless Beast and the possibility of him bringing his hockey butt to St Mary’s. Buzz was at an all-time high; people were chattering loudly at every table, and, between that and the sizzling of the fajitas, it was surprising we even heard the voice call from across the cafeteria:

‘HEY, YOU! HEY, GIRL WITH THE KILLER ARM!’

We turned and saw Football Dude waving at us enthusiastically.

‘Oh no!’ Mary Kate panicked. ‘It’s that sexy man who almost gave me a concussion!’

‘And you’re “the girl with the killer arm”,’ I added. ‘Who would’ve thought? I had my money on “the girl with the Jane Austen tattoo”.’

‘COME OVER HERE! COME SIT WITH US!’ Football Dude was smiling and beckoning to us, so Mary Kate and I grabbed forks and napkins and, gripping our trays tightly, made our way through the busy dinner crowd.

Football Dude was sitting with a bunch of other jocks. Clearly, they were all varsity athletes and they’d just come from practice. They were wearing the official St Mary’s grey varsity sweatsuits and drinking big glasses of blue Powerade; the guys had shaved heads and the girls had messy buns on top of their heads. Football Dude – his name was Michael – introduced us to everyone and said to his friends, ‘This is the girl I told you about.’ Then he turned to Mary Kate. ‘Hey, I was hoping I’d run into you. There was something I wanted to ask you.’

‘Yes,’ Mary Kate said immediately, breathlessly, gripping the edge of her seat. ‘Whatever it is, yes.’