Grass Eater
The scoreboard glitched exactly at 11:47 p.m.
One second Abraham Steele stood center field, mud streaking his jersey, blood splitting a knuckle, forty thousand watts turning his sweat into a movie scene he didn't even signed for. The next, every LED panel in Westbrook Stadium ditched the final score and started looping the most embarrassing forty-three seconds of his life.
Him. 6am practice. Three weeks ago. Empty field, pre-dawn light, the particular mood of a man who'd already logged five miles and was now running drills because sleep was a myth. He’d been tearing through cone formations when his foot caught the base of one. Not even a graceful fall — the cone wasn’t doing anything wrong — but gravity won immediately. He ate the dirt with full commitment face-first into the mud, because his arms completely lagged on the catch.
He’d lain there for two seconds. Stood up with grass on his cheek. Looked at the cone. Looked at the empty stadium around him. And said — to nobody, taking the fall deeply personal —
“WHO PUT THAT THERE”
Dubbed over it: a full orchestral violin arrangement. Slow. Mournful and absolutely brutal to watch.
#GrassEater was trending before the crowd even finished reacting to his Victory.
His team had already lost it. Eli had collapsed against the goalpost making noises that weren’t words. Three defensive linemen were holding each other up like they’d just survived war. The coaching staff was fighting their own faces and losing.
Abraham was scanning the bleachers.
And then—from the VIP section—one slow, deliberate clap cut through the chaos of forty thousand people.
Abraham found her the way he always found her. Immediately. No searching. Like his eyes had an Aisel Voss calibration setting that operated without his permission.
She was in white tank top wearing a white cap highly insane for a football field. Definitely meant she’d planned it. May be she’d been thinking about this moment for weeks.
Chestnut hair catching the harsh stadium lights perfectly, as if she'd rehearsed the angle. Icy eyes holding the specific satisfaction of someone who had just won something they would never admit they were competing in. She lifted a champagne flute at him from across the field. A toast.
The screen behind him changed one final time.
A single title card:
“Dedicated to the captain.
You’re welcome for the content. — A.V.”
He stood there. Trophy in hand. Grass metaphorically still on his face. Thirty thousand witnesses.
Abraham Steele laughed.
The real kind. Full-chest, eye-crinkle, genuinely a human laugh. The type his teammates had never once heard in public before. It lasted exactly four measured seconds.
Then he found her eyes across the stadium and pointed. Slow. Specific. The gesture of a man who had just made a decision he intended to keep.
She didn’t flinch. Just raised her glass higher, that small perfect mouth curving like she already knew she’d won this round and was already planning the next one.
The Chaos Tribunal group chat detonated at 11:49 p.m.
Chaos Tribunal
Zara:EVIDENCE LOG #1: I have the voice memo from three weeks ago where she said “let him cook” and then served him a whole five-course meal of public humiliation. Timestamped.
Eli: bro she really said “let him cook” and then served him a whole five-course meal of embarrassment
Abraham:I’m right here, you dumb people.
Aisel: Then leave Mr. Wise.
Abraham: Make me leave Voss.
Zara:adding to the denial folder. Current runtime: 4 hours 17 minutes.
Eli: This is the most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed and I hate it here.
Abraham was still on the field when the first notification hit. He didn’t check it. He didn’t need to. He could feel the energy shift in the stands, the way the crowd was already rewriting the night into legend.
Aisel Voss had just declared war in front of the entire college.
And he had never wanted anything more.
He caught up with the Messy Terrors in the tunnel, Eli still wheezing, Zara already pulling up security footage on her phone like she was building a case file in real time.
“You’re smiling like a psychopath,” Eli said, wiping his eyes. “Stop it. It’s scaring the freshmen.”
Abraham didn’t stop. “She planned that for three weeks.”
“Evidence suggests she’s been planning it since the Harrington match announcement,” Zara said without looking up. “I have the receipts. Don’t test me.”
Aisel appeared at the end of the tunnel like she’d been waiting for them, white dress somehow still pristine, hair falling past her hips, a sight that routinely left normal people how to speak. She was flanked by two girls from the fashion department who looked like they were trying very hard not to scream.
She stopped ten feet away. Icy eyes locked on his. The air between them thrummed, thick with sudden, pitching gravity.
“Captain,” she said, voice smooth as the champagne she’d been drinking. “Nice fall.”
“Problem,” he answered, because that was her contact name now and he was committed. “Nice toast.”
She tilted her head , looking at him like a chess grandmaster tracking a predictable opening move. “You looked like you needed content. I’m generous.”
Eli made a dying noise. Zara was filming.
Abraham took one step closer. The crowd noise from the stadium was still bleeding into the tunnel, but it felt like the world had narrowed to this exact hallway, this exact girl, this exact war they were about to wage.
“You know I’m going to get you back for that,” he said, low enough that only she could hear it.
Aisel’s smile sharpened. “I’m counting on it Captain.”
She turned and walked away before he could answer, the white dress catching the tunnel lights like a dare. Her friends followed, already whispering.
Zara lowered her phone. “I’m starting a new folder. ‘Aisel’s Terrible Decisions.’ Current runtime: already too long.”
Eli was still staring after her. “Bro. She just emotionally waterboarded you in public and you’re smiling. This is actually unwell behavior.”
Abraham didn’t argue. He was still smiling at her. His smile was real the first genuine grin that felt like it had been waiting eighteen months to appear on his face.
Because she had just done the one thing no one else ever did. Girls around him always walked on eggshells to stay on his good side, but she had always been the one who challenge him directly.
They wanted the title of captain; the status. Aisel just wanted to tear him down to see what he was made of.
She had looked at him—really looked—and decided he was worth the trouble.
And he was going to spend every single day after this making sure she never regretted it.
Chaos Tribunal
Abraham:You changed my contact name.
Aisel: You started it.
Abraham:Bigger Problem. Bold choice.
Aisel: Accurate choice.
Zara: I need financial compensation for being forced to witness this.
Eli: Someone mute this thread before I throw my phone into the ocean.
Zara: please take this flirting to the DMs i’m begging.
Eli: Nahh let them cook I want to see who folds first
Abraham pocketed his phone and followed the sound of her laughter down the tunnel, already planning his first move.
The war had started.
And he had never been more ready to lose.
Grass eater Part 2(To be continued......) do drop comments below how far you guys are liking it.
