Chapter 338: Top 3

’So that’s how you want to play? Fine...’ Andrew thought.

Andrew settled a little more comfortably into the couch and started thinking about what movie and line he could choose.

It didn’t take him long. Five seconds later, he said a short, simple line, "You’re late."

Paige didn’t even frown. She barely needed to think about it. Maybe two or three seconds passed, "A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to."

Andrew looked at her strangely. He hadn’t expected that level of accuracy.

Paige tilted her head slightly, "What?"

"Nothing. It’s just that you were fast. And I didn’t expect you to have watched The Lord of the Rings," Andrew replied.

Paige looked at him as if he had just insulted her, "The trilogy won seventeen Academy Awards and is considered one of the greatest trilogies in history. It would be pretty un-cinephile of me not to have seen it. Besides, I really liked it."

"Fair point," Andrew said.

It wasn’t exactly some obscure franchise hidden away in an exclusive corner of geek culture.

It had been a massive phenomenon at the box office, at award shows, in terms of viewership, and in critical recognition.

"My turn, we’re tied at two. Let me think for a second..." Paige said.

The game continued for several minutes. It became clear pretty quickly that neither of them was perfect.

There were movies Andrew hadn’t seen.

Others Paige hadn’t seen either.

Sometimes one of them vaguely recognized a line but couldn’t place it.

Other times, they knew perfectly well what movie it came from, but the next line escaped them.

Andrew’s problem was something else.

Whenever Paige had seen a movie, she almost always remembered what came next.

That was where her memory started making a difference.

Andrew could recognize a movie and earn a point.

Paige, on the other hand, would often recognize the movie and then deliver the next line practically word for word.

Two points. Then another two, and so on. Little by little, she started pulling ahead.

Andrew had already gone three rounds in a row without managing to get a full line right and earn two points.

Paige noticed. A smile began to form on her face. She shifted across the couch until she was much closer to him.

Andrew stared at her.

Paige met his gaze and asked in almost a whisper, "Why so serious?"

She said it with an expression and tone that tried to imitate the Joker.

"Let’s put a smile on that face... The Dark Knight," Andrew replied without taking his eyes off her.

"Correct, but I want more enthusiasm," Paige said, shaking her head.

"Excuse me?"

"I acted out the whole Why so serious? part," Paige explained, still far too close. "You can’t answer like you’re reading off a grocery list."

"That’s not part of the rules," Andrew countered, still serious.

Paige studied him for a second. Then she smiled, "Well... then I guess we’ll have to put a smile on that face," she said, raising both hands and placing her fingers at the corners of Andrew’s mouth, gently pushing upward as if she were trying to force a smile onto his face.

Andrew looked at her with a mixture of surprise and disbelief, clearly not expecting that.

His serious expression only lasted a few seconds.

Paige, still holding his face, leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss.

Just for an instant.

Long enough to catch him by surprise.

Then she pulled away as calmly as if nothing had happened and settled back into her spot.

Andrew kept looking at her and, almost without realizing it, a faint smile finally appeared on his face.

"There it is," Paige said, satisfied. "Looks like my lips are more effective."

Andrew let out a small laugh. He realized he had started taking the game a little too seriously.

He was still competitive, of course.

So was Paige.

But not enough to actually get in a bad mood over losing. Paige had found a pretty effective way to pull him out of his fixation on the score and remind him that this was just an improvised game for the two of them to have fun.

"All right, your turn. You’re three points behind," Paige said, settling more comfortably into the couch and waiting for the next line.

Andrew nodded. He stayed silent for a few seconds, thinking.

Then he looked up at her, and this time, when he spoke, he did so while staring directly into her eyes.

"You’re so... beautiful."

Paige froze.

Andrew hadn’t said the line the way he had said the others.

This time, it had sounded natural and sincere.

Paige felt something tighten slightly in her chest before her brain fully recognized the reference.

Star Wars.

Of course. She should have expected it.

Revenge of the Sith. One of the many scenes between Anakin and Padmé.

Paige regained her composure and held his gaze, "It’s only because I’m so in love."

Andrew smiled when he realized she had recognized the next line. But instead of ending the round there, he continued, "No. It’s because I’m so in love with you."

Paige blinked. That wasn’t how it usually worked. Up until then, one of them would say a line, the other would identify the movie or respond with the next line, and then they would switch turns.

But Andrew had decided to keep going and, on top of that, with that particular line.

Paige noticed the double meaning perfectly well. Even so, she didn’t look away, "So love has blinded you?"

Andrew’s smile became a little more obvious, "Well... that’s not exactly what I meant."

"But it’s probably true," Paige shot back.

That was where the scene ended.

Neither of them asked whose turn it was next, or how many points they had now.

They simply stayed there, looking at each other in silence.

Paige could still feel that strange pressure in her chest.

She knew perfectly well they were lines from a movie. But Andrew could have chosen any scene from the surely hundreds of movies and lines he had seen.

But he had chosen that one.

In the end, they both started leaning in almost at the same time.

The distance disappeared again, and they kissed once more.

This time, the kiss lasted longer than the previous one, more like the first kiss they had shared a few hours earlier.

When they finally pulled apart, it took both of them a few seconds to fully return to the present.

Paige was still thinking about too many things at once.

About the kiss, for starters, about how good it had felt, and also overanalyzing those lines from Anakin and Padmé.

Andrew, on the other hand, was having considerably less profound thoughts.

He had just discovered that a Star Wars line could genuinely be used for something romantic.

It was probably the first time in his life that had ever happened, and it had worked.

Part of him was already imagining Leonard and Howard’s reaction if he ever told them.

Probably envy.

Paige shook her head slightly, forcing herself out of her own thoughts, and checked the time, "It’s almost six thirty. I won. By five points," she announced, recovering that satisfied tone she had carried through a good part of the game.

Andrew looked at her and smiled, "Yeah, you win," he said in a normal tone.

Paige frowned. That had been way too easy, "What are you smilin’ about?" she asked.

She had expected, at the very least, a little more suffering.

"I almost had you," Andrew replied, pointing at her.

Five points might sound like a lot, but they had actually played quite a few rounds, so from that perspective, the difference was relatively small.

Besides, Paige had a prodigious memory, and Andrew knew she knew Star Wars.

So he knew that by giving her a line from that movie, she would probably score points, but he had decided to do it anyway.

Going up against a genius of her caliber in a memory game and only losing by five points was almost a victory.

Paige didn’t seem to share that interpretation, "You almost had me? You never had me!" she replied, still frowning. "I gave you the Joker one so you could get two points."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Andrew replied, amused. "I almost beat you."

Paige opened her mouth to respond, but Andrew beat her to it.

"Why so serious?"

Paige fell silent.

She stared at him for a couple of seconds, fully aware that he had just used the exact same line against her that she had used a few minutes earlier.

Finally, she huffed, and even though she tried to keep frowning, a smile ended up forming on her face, "You’re annoying when you want to be."

There was something admirable about Andrew’s ability to turn a clear defeat into some kind of moral victory and then immediately start bragging about it.

Only a few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

It was Steve and Sam.

"What did you guys think of Twilight?" Sam asked as soon as she came in, wearing an enthusiastic smile. "Excited to go see it at the movies next week?"

Andrew and Paige exchanged a look.

Just for an instant.

"I suspect they spent more time kissing than watching the movie," Steve commented with a teasing smile.

Andrew and Paige turned their heads toward him at the exact same time.

Then they looked at each other and, in perfect synchronization, both slowly shook their heads.

Steve frowned, "Why are you doing that?" he asked.

"Nothing, nothing..." Andrew replied, walking over to pat him on the shoulder.

Paige looked at him with an expression full of fake sympathy, "Poor Steve... I’m so sorry."

"Why?" Steve asked, confused, looking from one to the other. "I don’t understand, and I don’t want your pity!"

Sam watched them without really understanding what was going on.

Andrew and Paige, on the other hand, did.

The pity was completely sincere.

Steve had been forced to sit through the entire Twilight saga with Sam, a self-proclaimed fan, which meant he had probably spent hours holding back comments, criticism, and jokes so he wouldn’t ruin the experience for her.

To Andrew and Paige, that sounded almost like a form of torture.

They could pause a scene to criticize it. They could make fun of a line of dialogue. Steve, on the other hand, couldn’t.

He had probably been forced to smile and nod. To make matters worse, he still had Breaking Dawn – Part 2 waiting for him at the theater the following week with an extremely excited Sam.

Right at that moment, the doorbell rang again.

A few minutes later, Leonard and Howard were in the apartment as well.

"How did the lovebirds spend the afternoon?" Howard asked as soon as he walked in, looking directly at Andrew and Paige with that smile he had been using for weeks every time he found an opportunity to tease them.

Until recently, Paige would usually respond with an irritated look, some cutting remark, or simply tell him to shut up.

Not this time.

Paige smiled, "Pretty well, right, Andrew?"

Andrew understood immediately. They had already talked before about a way to neutralize Howard’s annoying comments.

"Yes, pretty well," he said.

Howard blinked. That wasn’t the reaction he had expected.

Paige continued, "We watched a movie together, criticized practically every scene, wrote a review, played for a while... A very pleasant afternoon... together."

"Very," Andrew said with a nod.

Howard stared at them. His smile began to disappear. He had expected both of them to deny it, get nervous, or something similar.

Andrew decided to push a little further, "We should do it again."

"Definitely," Paige replied.

Howard immediately made an expression that was easy to recognize: envy.

Leonard couldn’t help smiling when he saw Howard’s face.

Steve, already sitting in front of the television while looking for the game, didn’t even bother turning around, "Don’t try to mess with them, dude," he said. "You’re not gonna pull it off."

"I was just asking..." Howard said, refusing to admit he had been trying to tease them.

"Whatever you say..." Steve said as he finally found the channel.

The game was already starting when, only a few seconds into the first quarter, someone knocked on the door.

Knock, knock.

"Must be the girls," Andrew commented, referring to Haley, Monica, and Rachel.

"Mm..." Howard, Steve, and Leonard murmured almost in unison without taking their eyes off the television.

Even Howard and Leonard were completely absorbed in the game. By that point, they knew football fairly well, much more than anyone would have expected from them a few years earlier.

They had been following Andrew since ninth grade: league games, playoffs, finals, road trips, opponents, and now UCLA.

They weren’t experts at the level of a coach, but they understood perfectly well when a game mattered.

This one did.

The number one team in the country against the number fifteen team.

And on the other side was Johnny Manziel, a quarterback who, in just a few weeks, had gone from being an interesting SEC story to establishing himself as one of the leading Heisman contenders.

Paige didn’t make the slightest attempt to get up either.

She was sitting comfortably at one end of the couch, close to Andrew, with her attention fixed on the screen. She didn’t experience it as intensely as the guys did, but she had clearly stopped watching football only because Andrew played.

After watching so many games, she had started to develop a certain taste for watching games that weren’t UCLA’s too. Though, of course, always with them, never by herself.

Sam was the one who finally got up, "I’ll get it," she said, walking toward the door.

"Hey, Monica... where are Haley and Rachel?" Sam asked with a smile as she opened the door.

"They’re not coming," Monica replied as she stepped inside. "They’re going out with some friends from fashion school."

Sam nodded without giving it much thought.

It was Saturday.

Of course Haley and Rachel had plans.

Neither of them studied at UCLA, nor were they going to organize their entire social lives around Andrew and his friends. They had their own classes, classmates, parties, and circles outside the group.

Monica had been invited too.

But between getting dressed, going out, spending money, and probably ending up somewhere way too loud, she had preferred to stay.

Watching football with her friends, eating in peace, and not having to impress anyone seemed like a much better plan.

When she walked into the living room, everyone greeted her in almost the same way.

A couple of raised hands.

A few "hey"s.

No one looked away from the television for very long.

Monica dropped into an open spot on the couch and immediately looked at the score.

It was still 0-0.

"Do you think Manziel can do anything?" Monica asked.

Steve made a small face, "He’s good," he admitted.

"Very," Leonard added, adjusting his glasses.

"But he’s facing Alabama," Howard commented.

There wasn’t much that needed explaining.

The reigning national champions, the number one team in the country, and Nick Saban as head coach. They had a defense built to maintain structure, close down space, and punish mistakes.

To make things worse for Manziel, they were playing at Bryant-Denny Stadium in front of more than a hundred thousand people.

The kind of atmosphere where improvising stopped being quite so easy.

"His biggest advantage is when the play breaks down and he does something that shouldn’t work," Howard continued, lacing his fingers together and watching the screen with a completely serious expression, "Against most teams, he can escape, buy time, and find something. But Alabama doesn’t lose its shape that easily."

"Makes sense..." Monica murmured.

For a few seconds, no one said anything else. Until Steve’s stomach decided to join the conversation.

The sound was clear enough for Leonard to turn his head slightly.

Steve placed a hand over his abdomen, "By the way... what are we eating?"

"We could order pizza," Leonard suggested. "Or that Korean food we always get."

Monica raised a hand, "No need."

Several pairs of eyes finally shifted away from the television.

"I have pizza dough ready," she explained. "We just need to stretch it out, put the toppings on, and stick it in the oven."

There was a brief silence.

Then the reactions started.

"I love you," Howard said immediately.

"You’re definitely number one," Steve added, giving her a thumbs-up.

"This night just got a whole lot better," Leonard commented.

Andrew nodded and looked at Monica, "Your pizza is the best."

Monica looked at them with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment, and a faint smile eventually appeared on her face.

Ever since she arrived in LA, she had taken cooking seriously, so it was nice to see that they already liked what she made, "It’s just pizza," she said, trying to downplay it.

"It’s your pizza. With your dough and your sauce. If I try to make it, we’ll probably end up ordering another one," Paige said, looking at her.

Monica let out a small laugh.

The conversation gradually died down, their attention returning to the television.

The game continued.

A little over five minutes in, the first touchdown of the night came.

To the surprise of Andrew, the rest of the group, the commentators, and practically all of Bryant-Denny Stadium, it belonged to Texas A&M.

Manziel had put together an excellent drive, moving his offense all the way down to just one yard from the end zone. From there, he handed the ball off to Christine Michael, who charged straight into the defensive line, absorbed the contact, and powered his way across.

Touchdown.

The stadium became considerably quieter than it had been just a few seconds earlier.

Texas A&M didn’t take long to strike again.

On the next meaningful possession, Manziel found one of his receivers with a short pass of around ten yards for another touchdown. The extra point was good.

14-0.

Steve and Leonard looked at each other. This definitely wasn’t the start either of them had imagined.

Alabama still had no answer. Their offense failed to produce a touchdown. Not even a field goal, and with around forty seconds left in the first quarter, Christine Michael found the end zone again.

This time, the extra point was missed. Unusual, but possible.

The score became: Alabama 0 - Texas A&M 20.

A twenty-point difference in just one quarter.

Alabama, playing at home in front of more than a hundred thousand people, had just given up twenty points without answering with any of their own.

As the final seconds ticked away and both teams prepared for the second quarter, Monica stared at the screen in disbelief, "This is the number one team? Because if they keep this up, they’re going to get blown out."

Leonard let out a small laugh, "Yeah... this is turning out to be fun in a way I didn’t expect."

He had imagined a close and tense game. The kind where every possession seemed to matter.

Not one where the underdog finished the first quarter with a twenty-point lead.

Not even UCLA, during that disastrous start against Oregon, had ended the first quarter down by twenty.

And they had been playing in Eugene. Alabama was doing this in its own stadium.

Paige smiled and turned her head toward Howard, "Mr. Analyst, anything to say? Want to enlighten us with your wisdom again?"

Howard looked at her with a grimace.

Only a few minutes earlier, he had been talking about how Manziel wasn’t going to have nearly as much freedom to improvise against a defense like Alabama’s.

Now the scoreboard was telling him he had been completely wrong.

"You’re happy because you’re from Texas, aren’t you?" Howard said, crossing his arms.

"Not really," Paige replied. "Although I have a friend who goes there."

Andrew turned his head slightly, "Ex-friend," he corrected her, with far too much satisfaction.

Paige looked at him for a second, smiled, and leaned a little closer, "Fine. Ex-friend, Mr. Precision. Happy?"

"Yeah, better," Andrew said, satisfied.

Paige then noticed that Howard, Leonard, Steve, Monica, and even Sam had all turned toward her.

"Long story," Paige said with a sigh, clearly not very interested in explaining the whole thing.

If she had to choose who she would rather see win that night, she would probably pick Texas A&M.

But not out of any sense of Texan pride.

It wasn’t that she hated the place where she was born or wanted nothing to do with Texas. She simply didn’t feel any particular connection to Texas A&M that would make her support the team with the enthusiasm of a real fan.

In fact, during her first and rather unusual college experience, she had actually ended up enrolled at Texas A&M’s biggest rival.

The University of Texas.

And even that hadn’t managed to turn her into a Longhorns fan.

Her real reason for preferring a Texas A&M victory was much simpler.

It helped UCLA.

Or, more precisely, it helped if one of the undefeated teams still ranked above them finally started to fall.

Despite Alabama’s terrible start, none of them considered the game over.

There was still far too much time left.

The commentators didn’t seem willing to do so either. It was still Alabama, and UCLA’s comeback against Oregon the previous week was still far too fresh in everyone’s minds for anyone to treat twenty points as a definitive sentence.

Twenty points was a lot. But not impossible.

Alabama didn’t take long to prove it.

During the second quarter, they began to regain control. Their offense scored two touchdowns, while Texas A&M failed to put up a single point.

By halftime, the score had tightened considerably.

Alabama 14 - Texas A&M 20.

"Oh, come on..." Steve huffed as he got to his feet. "Don’t tell me they’re actually going to blow a twenty-point lead."

Andrew let out a small laugh and gave him a pat on the back, "Let’s trust Johnny Football."

Monica turned her head toward him, "You know he’s your rival for the Heisman, right?"

"I know," Andrew replied. "But I’d rather Texas A&M win."

If Manziel managed to pull it off and beat the number one team in Tuscaloosa, his Heisman campaign was going to skyrocket.

Up to that point, most people had him somewhere in the top five.

A win like that would probably put him almost immediately among the top three candidates.

The comparisons with Andrew would only increase.

They were both freshmen, and both played in spectacular, unconventional ways.

If Manziel managed to beat Alabama now, he would have his own signature game to answer Andrew’s comeback against Oregon.

Monica arched an eyebrow, "Even if that makes his campaign stronger?"

"It helps us a lot more if Alabama loses," Andrew replied.

That was the difference. Andrew wanted the Heisman. But he also wanted something much bigger.

He wanted UCLA to keep climbing in the rankings and, if enough things went right, to keep the possibility of entering the national championship conversation alive.

"Makes sense," Monica murmured.

With halftime underway, she took the opportunity to go prepare the pizzas.

The advantage of having brought practically everything ready was that it didn’t take her long. She stretched out the dough, added the sauce, cheese, and the rest of the toppings while Sam tried to help without getting in the way too much.

By the time there were about five minutes left before the third quarter started, the first pizza was already out of the oven and disappeared quickly.

The game resumed.

The third quarter was much less spectacular than the first.

Now it looked much more like the game Leonard had imagined from the beginning. Close, tense, with every yard coming at too high a price.

There was only one score in the entire quarter.

An Alabama field goal.

Texas A&M was held scoreless again.

Alabama 17 - Texas A&M 20.

After the initial 20-0 start, Alabama had scored seventeen unanswered points.

Worse still for the Aggies, their offense seemed to have completely stalled.

Nick Saban’s defense had adjusted.

The openings Manziel had found early on were no longer appearing nearly as easily.

Steve watched the screen with an increasingly resigned expression, "They’re going to do it, aren’t they?"

The comeback was starting to feel inevitable.

However, Texas A&M finally responded in the fourth quarter.

First, they managed to get close enough to convert a field goal.

17-23

Later, they got another similar opportunity.

This time, the kicker missed.

Steve grimaced, "Tsch... dude, how do you miss an extra point and then a field goal?"

"It was thirty-seven yards, that’s not automatic for a kicker," Andrew commented as he took another bite of pizza.

Andrew did agree with him about the extra point.

That was different.

The odds of making it were too high to waste in a game that important.

But a thirty-seven-yard field goal could be missed.

With around eight minutes left, Manziel produced the play Texas A&M needed again.

A twenty-four-yard touchdown pass.

17-29

The Aggies then attempted a two-point conversion to extend the lead.

They failed.

Steve crossed his arms and let out a small laugh, "Heh. Two points aren’t as easy as they look."

UCLA had turned two-point plays into something of a trademark over the course of the season, so Steve wasn’t about to miss the chance to point it out.

’Do you actually want Texas A&M to win or not?’ Leonard thought without saying anything, glancing at him from the corner of his eye.

The game, meanwhile, refused to settle down.

Alabama answered almost immediately.

A.J. McCarron found one of his receivers on a fifty-four-yard deep pass and, within just a couple of minutes, the Crimson Tide was back within a single score.

24-29

In fact, if they managed to score a touchdown, they would take the lead.

The room became much quieter.

Fortunately, Texas A&M managed to survive the final minutes. When the clock finally hit zero, the score was still exactly the same.

24-29.

For a fraction of a second, there was silence.

Then Steve suddenly jumped up from the couch and shouted, "YES!"

Howard was still staring at the screen with an incredulous expression.

The number fifteen team had just beaten the number one team in front of more than a hundred thousand fans who had expected another flawless Nick Saban performance.

Leonard looked at Steve with amusement, although he was still clearly stunned as well.

They had started the night expecting a competitive game. But he hadn’t really imagined seeing Alabama go down.

"UCLA TOP 3, BABY!" Steve shouted, raising his arm with his palm open and looking at Andrew with an expression that made it pretty clear what he expected.

Andrew looked at his hand, "Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We have to see how they vote," he said more cautiously.

"Come on, man," Steve insisted. "There were only three undefeated teams: Alabama, Kansas State, and Notre Dame. We were fourth. Alabama just lost. The top three belongs to us. Come on!"

He raised his hand again, this time more insistently.

Andrew eventually smiled and gave him a high five. He didn’t want to take it for granted. It still depended on the voters, on how they evaluated Alabama’s loss.

But Steve was right about one thing. The odds were high.

UCLA was already ranked fourth and, on top of that, had just won its own game in dominant fashion. Alabama, meanwhile, had lost at home and would now have exactly the same record as them.

It would be pretty strange for the voters to keep Nick Saban’s team ranked above them.

Sure enough, the next day, Sunday, November 11, the major rankings were updated.

The AP Poll top five looked like this:

#1 Kansas State — 10-0

#2 Notre Dame — 10-0

#3 UCLA — 9-1

#4 Alabama — 9-1

#5 Georgia — 9-1

The BCS standings showed an almost identical picture.

For the first time since the beginning of the season, UCLA was inside the national top three.

Only one spot away.

That was what mattered.

Because to reach the BCS National Championship Game, they needed to finish among the top two teams in the country.

Until a few weeks earlier, that possibility had seemed too distant to take seriously.

Not anymore.

There were only two undefeated teams left above UCLA. If one of them stumbled, the door could open.

But thinking too much about it wasn’t entirely a good thing.

UCLA couldn’t control what Kansas State or Notre Dame did.

They couldn’t afford to spend every Saturday watching other scoreboards and calculating scenarios while forgetting the only thing that was actually in their hands.

Keep winning.

And the next obstacle was hardly a small one.

USC.

The Los Angeles rivalry.

The Trojans were ranked number eight in the country. If they wanted to keep dreaming, they first had to beat them.

The week of preparation for that game was beginning.

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