I Must Be Dreaming

With each passing moment, Rowan had more and more difficulty focusing on the Grad Student's lecture over the psychology of media. She could hardly bear the monotone that the frumpy man often used whenever he taught. Not that the Physchology of the Media wasn’t a boring enough topic to begin with. For it to be combined with this man’s unchanging tone would make the hour pass drone on and on.

Every time she would look at her watch not even five minutes had passed. Oh the humanity, why had she taken this class? Oh horrid it was to be tortured to death this way! God, she just wanted to be put out of her misery in some way, shape, or form. Preferably not by true death, but by death of the class.

Many of her fellow classmates were either sleeping or attempting to fight it off. Rowan was envious of them because she was too wound up to even think about fall asleep. It was like she had taken a shot of pure caffeine for breakfast this morning, she was so anxious. She could hardly stop her leg from bouncing up and down as a result of it. Why was she acting this way? Who would be when in a half hour she would find out what her next project would be for the Journalism department. She was desperately hoping that she would get assigned to cover the San Jose State game this weekend so that she could see Andrew. She probably would if she had her way. Seniority always gets first pick and since she had been an active member within the Communications department; she would get what she wanted.

Lucky for Rowan, she had remembered to bring along her trusty dusty recorder so that she could get a chance to zone out and focus on calming herself down for the meeting. Yes, it wasn’t technically aloud in the classrooms anymore, but there was no way she was going to be able to sit through the rest of the lesson and be able to remember any of it afterwards because it was just so uninteresting. If the man would ever learn how to put some inflection in his voice or at least make it sound like he cared; she might try actually listening for a change. But hell would freeze over before that happened. So she would continue to record the man and forget about the consequences of getting caught for now.

In the back of her mind, all she could think about was Saturday and how it couldn't get here soon enough. Unfortunately for her the week had been as slow as molasses in wintertime. Every time she thought about going to the game or about Andrew, she'd get all giddy and want the week to go faster. Instead, it seemed like everything would go by slower or she was just losing interest in it faster.

She decided to log on to her Facebook and update her status to, 'TGIT’. She wasn’t thankful that it was Thursday even if it was her last day of classes for the week. In fact, she was dreading it and hoped that Dallas would be starting the weekend early. Nothing sounded better to her than a fifth of rum or a couple shots of Kentucky bourbon. It would set her right for the rest of the week until the weekend started. Man, did she love college.

A loud cough from behind her caused her to quickly log off and try to pay attention to what was left of the lecture. Which finally wrapped up, for her to rush off to her Journalism meeting.

"Hey, Ro! What's happening? Can't wait to see whose doing what!" An acquaintance of hers by the name of Josh greeted, enthusiastically as he came up from behind her and slung his arm over her shoulders.

Normally, the familiar gesture wouldn’t have bothered Rowan, but for some reason it felt way too familiar now. Josh and her had hung together from time to time, but always when they were with a group of mutual friends. She had always felt like he wanted to be more than friends with her. Before she had thought that it was fun to string him along because she had never been able to commit to someone. Now, she just found it kind of creepy and she knew the sudden change from her usual indifference was because of her budding interest in a certain quarterback. So she quickly shrugged him off. When he gave her a questioning look, Rowan was quick to cover up action,

"Sorry, just a little nervous is all."

Josh only smiled and then offered, "I can help you with that." Bringing up his hand to massage the back of her neck in what was supposed to be a soothing manner but it only made her tense up even more. Why couldn’t he take the hint that she didn’t want to be touched by him?

Rowan stepped away and moved to take a seat in between Quinn and their other friend, Dallas, who both gave her questioning looks. They also knew that she enjoyed Josh’s attention on most days and for her deny herself it must mean that she had much more important things on her mind. Rowan ignored them only watching as the professor walked up to the front of the room to announce everyone's assignment...

He rambled them off in alphabetical order, one by one, going down the list of students. As he did so, Rowan said prayers begging God to let her cover the game on Saturday and apparently He had listened to her because when Harmon finally called her name got exactly what she wanted.

"Kowalski, you've got the big game on Saturday. Don't disappoint me. I'm counting on you." He warned almost like he knew there was something going on, but wasn’t quite sure. Rowan was normally so calm and collected about these meetings for her to be so jittery meant that something else was going on.

Glares from some of the other students seemed to cut through her like she was soft butter when they had heard that she had gotten the biggest assignment of the week. Especially, Alison Baker, one of those girls who thought they have to have all eyes on them all the time and get whatever she wanted. She had the perfect attitude for being in front of the camera. It was something Rowan hadn't wanted until now and she was just as determined to get there.

"Come on, what has she ever done on camera? Like how has she earned the job? All she has ever done is write articles for the paper and blog about the games. The most she has ever done is beat write for the anchors." She whinnied in her annoyingly high-pitched voice.

Apparently, Professor Harmon had heard her and chose to explain himself even though he didn't have to, "Because of what she hasn't down which is being professional with those of which she is interviewing. Miss. Baker, she also has a much larger knowledge of the game and how it's played. She also seems eager for the job unlike yourself as of recently."

That shut her up immediately, but it didn't stop her scowl or the daggers she was glaring at Rowan. It was a personal victory for her. She had never been gifted a spot in front of the camera or done any kind of field reporting to speak of. She had been a Field Producer before, but that was for minor sports like soccer or baseball.

"If you keep that expression on your face, it might stay that way." Rowan taunted the play boy bunny look-a-like, "Which would be a huge improvement compared to your usual fake smile."

There were some 'Oh snap's!' and 'burns' that escaped the mouths of some of the guys around the room. Most of them had been expecting the two girls in question to start fighting at some point in the year. Many of them had once been Allison’s followers, but recently many of them were beginning to just how talented Rowan was and that she wasn’t all stuck up about it. Quinn and Dallas both offered me their fists to bump in congratulations and Rowan gave them both a quick tap. Rowan felt freaking awesome. After the encounter, the room had been left buzzing in shock and surprise but they were quickly silenced by a glare from Mr. Harmon before he once again began to assign everyone else’s weekly tasks.

Rowan was practically skipping out of the meeting room once it had come to its conclusion. Linking arms with Quinn and Dallas, she declared, loudly,

"Let's go get something to eat! I'm hungry and I wanna celebrate!"

"Totally, Ro! This is an awesome opportunity for you!" Dallas chimed in. He was always quick to agree to food and was hardly ever picky about it. Filling his stomach was his highest priority before anything else.

Quinn laughed at his enthusiasm before she turned to Rowan, "Where to?"

"How about Papa John's? I want some pizza!" Rowan decided, loudly, jumping up on an abandoned bench on the sidewalk near the architecture and engineering building. Still unable to get over the fact that she had gotten chosen to cover the game.

"Yeea-yuh!" Dallas and Quinn hollered in agreement.

"Let's go!" Rowan commanded, jumping down to lead them to their destination but before she even realized it, she had collided with another person for the second time in a week.

Why had she been born with such a lack of awareness? It was going to get her killed one of these days and she knew. She almost had a heart attack when she saw that she had run into Andrew yet again! There was no way that it was a coincidence. No, this had to be some sort of twisted sign that fate was trying to bring them together for some reason. Luckily, no one got knocked to the ground this time. That would’ve twice as embarrassing for her because her two closest friends were now present.

"Hey." Andrew breathed out with a goofy smile, before he whispered, "Not that this isn’t a welcome surprise, but what are you doing here?"

If Rowan could feel any giddier, she was definitely feeling it. She had never been this excited to see someone in her entire life, let alone some guy she hardly knew. But for some strange reason she decided that she was okay with that as she informed him,

"Hey yourself, and I was just going to go get pizza to celebrate my newest venture."

"Do you get to cover the game?" He inquired, finding himself anxious for her answer. He had a gut feeling that he was going to find out her ever-elusive name after all. He hadn’t been able to focus much on his studies, eat, sleep, or play FIFA with the guys. She had consumed his every thought from the moment she left the dinning hall. The only time where he found reprieve from the beautiful mystery was on the gridiron during practice as he forced himself to prepare for the San Jose State game. He wanted to be able to impress her with a win.

"Yes!…" Rowan whisper-cheered and was going to fill him in on the details but she was cut off by Quinn and Dallas, who were practically raving for some pizza by now.

"Ro, come one! We want pizza!" A blush tinted her cheeks again because she knew Andrew had heard that.

This meant he might be able to figure out what her names was before the game. Would that mean that their bet was off or would be something else entirely?

"Ro?" He echoed with an even wider smile, "Is your name Rowan?"

At this point, Rowan knew she had to make a break for it or the bet might not matter anymore. Even if there was a part of her that wanted to tell him that her name was Rowan, but that part was very small compared to her desire to continue to string him along, "I can't confirm or deny that statement! See ya Saturday, Luck!"

Andrew could only smile and shake his head after her as she jogged away to join her friends. He figured that he wouldn’t get a confirmation from her. No, she would make him sweat it out until Saturday. As he watched her walk away, he didn't think that she's look back but she did and with a smile. It set his heart on overdrive, caused his pulse to quicken, and caused his palms to sweat. He knew he could get used to seeing that smile and her more often.

"Rowan…"
…

Rowan looked back at Andrew one more time and almost sighed aloud. She knew she could get used to seeing him more often. Just the mere sight of him had caused her heartbeat to quicken and her knees to become weak. She hadn’t been able to sleep much since the prospect of seeing him again and come up in their conversation not two days ago. She wanted him to win the bet so badly; she had almost called it off completely and told him her name right then. But she had to play coy and she had to make them both wait.

"Was that who I thought it was?" Dallas asked with a sly smile on his face. The native Hawaiian was Rowan’s closest friend at Stanford and had certainly been able to pick up that there was something going on between Rowan and Luck.

Rowan bit her lip unsure of she should answer him or not because it would be weird to explain it to them. Plus she had kind of blown them off that day and didn’t want them to be jealous of the fact that she had chosen to spend time with Andrew Luck instead of them. She also kind of wanted to keep it a secret, "No, it wasn't. Who do you think it is again?"

"Um, I don't know." Dallas caught on. He knew that if Rowan didn’t want to talk about it now that she would tell them later on and he was more than willing to wait. Quinn, however, wasn't happy with the answer but she wasn't going to push her friend because they were in a public setting and didn’t want to cause a scene.

"Now, let's go get that pizza. I smell a party that needs to be started!" Dallas suggested, always knowing when to kill the tension between his two female friends. He knew there would be hell for Rowan to pay when she decided to share what was going on between her and Luck. Especially, if it happened to be a matter of the heart and Quinn would be quick to kill her for not telling.

"Let's do it!" Both girls agreed at the same time and thus they were off.