Fifteen, Love
Austin Moon hated the country club. It was full of bratty little kids, too nice front desk clerks with fake smiles, and people with worse fake British accents than the one his parents used in their mattress store commercial.
But when his mom heard Dez begging him to come with him to the accursed place she had a never ending arsenal of responses to his constant refusal, ranging from "Your father and I are too busy at the store and it would be such a pity to see the money we put into the membership go to waste," to "You're young, go out, enjoy the sun." (What had finally convinced him was "You're going, or it's no pancakes for a month.")
When he, Dez and Dez's sister Didi finally got to the country club and settled down they were immediately offered smoothies by a too eager waiter, who looked at Austin as if he had requested a sparkling pink unicorn when he asked for pancakes (so what if it was three pm, there wasn't any written rule that pancakes were to be eaten only at breakfast). Ugh, the country club was horrible.
Or maybe not so horrible. Because there, at the tennis courts, stood no other than Ally Dawson. She was the nicest girl in school, the type of girls who were popular because they were friends with everyone, and by far the prettiest one there (at least in Austin's opinion).
"Hey, Dez, isn't that Ally Dawson from school?" Austin asked Dez, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Yeah, she teaches tennis here every day," Dez answered, in between sips of his smoothie.
"She's really pretty, right Austin?" this came from Didi, who was looking at Austin suspiciously.
"I haven't noticed. It's not as if I stare at her when she isn't looking 'cause that would be weird." he replied, trying to sound as casual as possible. He failed miserably.
Didi turned away from him, muttering something that sounded like 'boys', and even Dez looked at him as if he was slightly crazy.
"Hey look, Ally finished with her lesson. Let's go say hello," he pointed out, hoping to distract Dez.
It worked. Dez jumped from his chair and yelled "Race you to the tennis courts!" while Austin trailed behind.
"Hey Ally!" Dez called her.
Ally turned to face them and smiled. "Hey Dez, hey... Austin, right? We were in music together in freshman year."
Austin nodded. She remembered him, though it had been nearly three years! He felt like tap dancing throughout the whole tennis court.
"Yeah. You were the girl who could play piano with her eyes closed."
Ally's lips twitched, as if she was trying to suppress a laugh. "And you were the guy who could play a trumpet through another trumpet."
"So what are you doing here? Don't you work at the music store at the mall?" damn, he sounded like a creepy stalker.
"I do. But I wanted to roll into senior year with a car, and I don't think I'll be able to buy one with fish sticks and car wash coupons, and that's all my dad pays me. He's the owner." she added on as an afterthought.
They sunk into an awkward silence until Dez- has he been standing there the whole time? - said, "So Ally, did you know that Austin doesn't stare at you when you're not looking?"
"That's… good to know." Ally seemed unsure as to how to respond to that.
And… cue the awkward silence again. God, he was going to kill Dez later.
Scrambling to find a new topic for conversation, he said the first thing on his mind. "So you play?" he asked, pointing to the tennis racquet held loosely in Ally's hand. Of course she plays, you idiot, he chastised himself, she works here teaching other kids!
Ally smirked slightly, "Yeah. I'm pretty decent too, if I may say so myself. My friend Trish"- Dez shuddered slightly at the mention of the feisty Latina Ally spent most of her time with. It was no secret that the two didn't get along- "got me this job, as her cousin's boyfriend owns the place. She works here too. What about you?"
"Oh, yeah, I love tennis. It's my favorite sport, with all the balls and the racquets and the nets. Who doesn't like tennis? It's such a fun game! Right, Dez?"
Dez was making shut-up-you'll-get-us-in-trouble motions behind Ally's back, but when Austin and Ally turned to him, he let out a nervous chuckle and said, "Yeah! Tennis is awesome! Yay, tennis…" he trailed off, glaring at Austin. If looks could kill….
Ally checked her watch. "I have to go now, Trish is my ride and she's leaving in five, but I'd love to play with you sometime."
"Sure! Cool! That would be awesome! I'd love that!" Austin replied. God, he sounded way too eager.
"See you guys soon." Ally waved at them and walked to the exit.
"Dude, do you even know how to play tennis?" Dez turned to him as soon as Ally was out of ear shot.
"Define 'know how to play.'" Austin put air quotes around the words.
"We're dead. We are officially dead."
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Austin spent most of that night trying to learn how to play tennis, and the little information he had managed to understand he relayed to Dez the next day on the drive to the country club.
"So apparently the score has something to do with love-" will that help him with Ally? "- and there's a difference between a game, a match and a set, or was it a pair? And someone is a server, whatever that means, and you have to score four points to win, but it has something to do with forty and with a two. And that's all I got."
Dez stopped at a red light and turned to look at him. "I repeat what I said yesterday. We're dead."
"You're over reacting, how hard can it be to hit a ball with a racquet? And speaking of a racquet, did you know it's spelled with a q? I always thought it was spelled w-r-a-c-k-e-t."
"Yes, I'm sure you can now impress Ally with your amazing spelling skills. And just so you know, our uncle tried to play tennis, but after three lessons he quit because it was too difficult," Didi called from the back seat.
"Was that the uncle who can't climb three flights of stairs without almost fainting?" Austin asked with a slight smirk.
"Nope, it was the competitive swimmer and track runner uncle," Dez answered cheerily.
Oh, what had he gotten himself into?
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They had gotten to the country club quite early, due to Austin's over enthusiasm (his mother had been rather surprised to see Austin awake and dressed at seven thirty in the morning, usually during summer break he didn't get out of bed before noon), so Ally wasn't there yet.
In the meantime, Austin decided to watch the people playing tennis over at the courts. Really, it didn't seem that difficult.
Half an hour later he got bored, especially since the couple playing tennis decided they'd rather play hockey, that of the tonsil variety, and he felt weird watching people make out (he hoped that every tennis game ended that way, though. He'll Google it later).
Deciding he wanted an ice cream, Austin got up and walked to the little ice cream shack on the other side of the pool.
He was halfway back to his seat and about to take his first lick of the overpriced chocolate ice cream he bought when he was stopped by a little girl.
"Excuse me sir, I think you're holding my ice cream."
Austin looked at her confused. "I don't think so; I mean I bought it just now, with my own money. Maybe your ice cream is someplace else?"
"No, that's my ice cream!" The little girl stomped her foot on the ground.
"No, it really isn't." Austin was unsure what to do. Why didn't they teach you in school how to deal with crazy little girls who want your ice cream? It seemed much more useful than trying to find the value of x.
The little girl seemed displeased by his answer, and Austin only had time to think 'oh god' before she opened her mouth and started screaming at the top of her lungs.
"Okay, okay, you can have my- your ice cream. Just please stop screaming!" he yelled, trying to get over her screams. Was the girl half banshee or something?
The little girl stopped screaming immediately and held out her hand expectantly.
With a sigh, Austin handed her his ice cream and she skipped away.
Turning around, he returned to the ice cream shop.
The woman at the counter raised her eyebrows when returned less than five minutes after he left, and he could have sworn he heard her mumbling "Fat ass kids these days" behind his back.
Grumbling about crazy little ice cream stealing banshees and judgmental ice cream sellers, Austin forgot to look where he was walking. And suddenly he found himself very wet, with his second ice cream sinking into the pool below him.
He floated in the chlorine filled water for a few moments, pondering whether he should swim after his ice cream or if it was already too water soaked to be edible, before he felt a pair of arms wrap around him and pull him out, making the decision for him.
"My ice cream!" Austin pouted as soon as he was dumped rather unceremoniously on dry land.
"Listen, dude, I'm pretty sure an ice cream isn't worth drowning for," his savior, a dark haired, blue eyed lifeguard, said, a smirk on his face.
"Whatever," Austin muttered, stomping away.
When he reached Dez, who was sunbathing (or rather, burning), the redhead looked up at his dripping wet best friend.
"Hey dude. What happened to you? I thought you were just going to buy an ice cream."
"Let's go home," Austin grunted, not in the mood to start explaining his overly long and complicated ice cream story.
"But I was- never mind." One look at Austin's face had Dez complying immediately.
Calling Didi, they left the country club, both rather relieved that at least they didn't have to play tennis with Ally that day, for they were woefully unprepared.
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The next week Austin had to stay away from the country club, and, inevitably, Ally, for Dez had indeed burned himself while sunbathing. Therefore, it was with tremendous relief that he entered Dez's car when he had finally healed.
"Whoa, man, what's the rush?" Dez asked him as he practically threw himself into the car.
"He's just excited to see Ally again, aren't you, Austin?" Didi asked.
"What? Pfft, what makes you think that?" Austin asked her. Seriously, how were girls so good at reading feelings?
Didi just rolled her eyes but didn't answer him. Instead she asked Dez to turn on the radio, and after he complied, they spent the rest of the ride in silence.
When they had reached the country club, Austin wanted to say hello to Ally right away, and maybe invite her to eat something, but to his disappointment she was in the middle of a lesson so he couldn't do anything but wave, which she returned cheerfully before helping a little girl swing her racquet correctly.
Austin was bored out of his mind, as Dez was flirting with some tall blond girl in the pool chair next to him, Didi had gone to say hi to some friends from school and he hadn't brought his most recent Galactic Avengerrrr comic for fear of it getting wet, so when he saw that Ally had finished her lesson, he practically ran over to the tennis court.
"Hey Austin, how are you?" Ally asked him when he came up to her.
"Great, thanks. How was the lesson?" Good, he sounded like an interested friend rather than a creepy stalker.
"It was so fun, I love teaching kids. I teach music lessons at my dad's store during the school year too, and it's always awesome to see a kid manage to do something you taught him."
They sank into silence as Austin tried to figure how to best word his next sentence.
"So I was wondering… I mean, I thought maybe… umm… would you like to go eat lunch together?" Should he make it sound as if he was asking her out on a date, or as if it was just as friends?
"What about Dez and Didi?" Was this her way of letting him down easy? Gahhh, girls were so difficult.
Nevertheless, he played along. "Didi is hanging out with friends and Dez is flirting with some girl. I'd invite him along, but he seems to actually be succeeding this time, and I'd hate to ruin it for him."
Ally giggled, "Okay, sure. There's this new restaurant across the road that-"
She was cut off by someone calling her name. With a jolt, Austin recognized the lifeguard who had saved him a week previously sauntering over.
While he regretted being rude to him after he had – unnecessarily - saved him, though, really, he had lost to rather expensive ice creams, he had every right to be in a bad mood, Austin couldn't help but dislike the guy for interrupting Ally's positive response to the non-date date.
"Hey Quinton." Ally sounded slightly less enthusiastic than she had when greeting Austin, or so he hoped anyway.
"Hey Ally; I was wondering if you'd like to join me for lunch?" Was that Quinton guy just going to ignore his presence? Guess so.
"Sorry Quinton, Austin already asked me. Maybe next time?" at Quinton's confused look, Ally hurried to introduce them."Quinton, this is Austin, he's a friend of mine from school. Austin, this is Quinton, one of the lifeguards here."
"Yeah, I know, we've already met." Austin mumbled, not daring to look into Quinton's eye for fear that he'll start singing, "Nana banana, she's going out with me and not with you!" feeling that would not sit well with Ally.
"Ahh, yes. He's the guy I told you about, Ally. The one who was drowning because of his ice cream." perhaps Quinton hoped that he could humiliate Austin enough to make Ally want to go with him to lunch instead.
But rather than laughing, Ally looked alarmed. "You drowned?" she asked Austin in concern.
"Yeah, I'll tell you about it over lunch." Austin answered, trying to hide his giddiness.
"Speaking of lunch, we'd better go, Austin. My next lesson starts in forty five minutes. See you around Quinton." and with that, Ally took Austin's arm and half dragged him away from a red faced Quinton.
As soon as they we're out of sight, Ally jumped at Austin and hugged him, muttering, "Thank you, thank you so much. I literally love you right now."
"You're welcome?" surprised, but not displeased, Austin formed the phrase as a question.
Ally seemed to realize their rather intimate position, because she let go of him immediately and took a few steps back, red coloring her cheeks.
"Sorry, it's just that Quinton has been asking me to lunch about twice a week, and I've been running out of reasons to refuse him. I mean, I'm sure he's a great guy, he's just a bit too pompous for my liking."
Deciding to check later what pompous meant and to make sure not to be that, Austin winked at her. "You can call me any time you want to avoid a lunch date with Quinton. I'm willing to be your fake boyfriend and everything, just say the word."
Ally's tinkling laugh could be heard throughout the whole country club lobby.
"Thank you for the offer, and don't be surprised if I call you up on it. Now, let's go eat, I believe you have a story to tell me."
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Their lunch date had gone quite well, at least, in Austin's opinion it did. But he was pretty sure Ally had enjoyed herself as well.
He had told her his whole ice cream saga from a week earlier, and while at the time he hadn't found it even a bit funny, Ally's giggles were infectious, and found himself laughing with her.
They also had a debate about whether pancakes were better than pickles or not, and it ended in a stalemate as neither one was willing to back down.
The only two down sides to their date was that A, it wasn't a date, and B, He and Ally had agreed to play two on two tennis the next day, him and Dez versus Ally and Trish.
But all in all, Austin was pleased with how the date had gone, and was especially happy when, upon their parting, Ally said, "We should do this again sometime."
"Yeah, I had a lot of fun. We should definitely do this again," Austin nodded eagerly.
Giving Austin a hug, Ally went back to the tennis court, where her next lesson was about to start.
Austin stood there for a few moments smiling stupidly, before going back to his pool chair, where Dez was waiting impatiently.
"Where were you, dude? You weren't answering your phone and we need to leave in half an hour, tops."
"Sorry dude," Austin smiled apologetically, "I was eating lunch with Ally."
Dez's anger dissipated immediately. "Oh, how did it go?"
"It went pretty well. How did your flirting session with Blondie go?" Austin smiled as he saw Dez blush.
"Not bad, which is why we are leaving soon. We have a date at the movies tonight, and I need at least three hours to get ready."
"Cool, dude. Oh, and by the way, we have a two on two tennis game against Ally and Trish tomorrow."
"What?! I finally get a shot at having a girlfriend, and you decide to kill me by making me play tennis against Trish? Trish who had expressed the will to hurt me on almost daily basis?" Dez looked completely horrified and betrayed.
"Come on dude, it won't be that bad. And Trish never really hurts you. You two just don't get along that well because you're too similar," Austin tried to convince him.
"How dare you compare me to that monster? I'll have you know that I am in no way-" Austin cut him off.
"Don't you have a date to get ready to?"
Dez jumped up. "You're right! Let's go! I won't have enough time to get ready!"
Pausing only to grab Didi's arm, Dez rushed out of the country club, his sister in tow.
Austin walked after them in a slower pace, shooting one last glance at the tennis courts.
As if she sensed his gaze, Ally looked up at him and smiled before returning to her lesson.
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The next day found Austin fidgeting nervously in Dez's car, pretending to listen to Dez talk about his awesome date.
Unless he had some hidden tennis powers, Ally would find out that he lied about playing tennis, and if he backed out, Ally would find out anyway that he lied. Either way, she would probably be mad. After all, most people did not take being lied to lightly.
Today was Ally's free day, so when they arrived at the country club she and Trish were already waiting on the court, racquets in hand.
"Hey Austin! Hey Dez!" Ally greeted them cheerfully.
Trish, on the other hand, was slightly less happy. "Doof. Doof's slightly hotter best friend."
"Ignore Trish. She's grumpy in the morning. So, are we going to play?" Ally asked them.
"Yeah, let's play," Austin said as he and Dez exchanged a fearful glance.
They took the spare racquets that Ally was holding and went to the other side of the court, mentally preparing themselves for a very humiliating loss.
Trish was the first server, and she threw the ball in the air before hitting it with her racquet. It sailed over the net and… hit Dez in the stomach.
"Trish!" Ally reprimanded her as she cracked up. Dez was clutching his stomach, gasping slightly.
Seeing that Trish wasn't going to apologize, Ally came over to their side of the court. "Sorry Dez, it won't happen again."
"I'm fine. Who really needs internal organs anyway?" Dez wheezed.
"Do you want to keep playing, or do you want to rest?" Ally asked.
Yes! This was great. Dez just needed to say he was too injured or whatever to play, and he wouldn't have to humiliate himself in front of Ally.
"Nah, I'm fine. Nothing like a good game of tennis to heal me of my injuries," Dez perked up. Oh, crap.
Ally picked up the ball and went to her side of the court, and Dez mouthed 'you're welcome buddy' behind her back.
Ally served the ball expertly, and it avoided both Dez's and Austin's wildly swinging racquets, scoring Ally and Trish a point.
"Fifteen, love!" Ally called.
Austin picked up the ball and backed up, like he had seen Ally and Trish do before serving.
He threw the ball in the air and tried to hit it with his racquet, arm flailing.
To his extreme pride, his racquet actually managed to make contact with the ball, but his pride turned to horror as the ball sailed through the air and promptly hit Ally in the head.
Ally fell to the ground, and the other three players rushed to her immediately.
"Oh god, Ally, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hit you," Austin apologized, but he doubted it could be heard over Trish yelling death threats at him for hitting her best friend.
Ally just groaned slightly. "If someone could take me to the infirmary, that would be great."
Austin jumped up. "I'll take you!"
Trish opened her mouth to argue but closed it after Ally took Austin's extended hand. Instead she gave Austin a threatening look and backed away slightly, giving them room to walk.
"Can you walk, or do you want me to carry you?" Austin asked Ally.
Ally took a tentative step forward and, seeing she was steady enough on her feet, replied "I can walk. Thanks though."
To Austin's surprise, Ally didn't sound as though she hated him, but it would probably change soon enough, seeing he would have to come clean about his inability to play tennis.
When they got to the infirmary Ally took out an ice pack and placed it tentatively on her head before sitting down.
They sunk in an awkward silence before Austin started talking.
"I'm really sorry, Ally, I didn't mean to hit you with the ball, it was a mistake. Please don't hate me."
Ally looked at him for a long moment. "I don't hate you Austin. It was an accident." Austin felt a wave of relief. "But, Austin…" uh oh "you can't really play tennis, can you?"
Austin decided to just come clean. "No. To be honest, I didn't even know how to spell racquet up until last week." Ally let out a small giggle at that. "I just… I've liked you for a while, and I really wanted to impress you, and you seem to like tennis, so I lied. And I would have really liked to take you out on a date, but now you're probably mad at me for lying, and Trish wants to kill me, and I'll just stop talking now."
For some reason, Ally smiled at him. "Don't worry about Trish; I'll make sure she won't kill you until after you take me out on that date you mentioned, and only if it will be completely horrible." Wait, what? "So what do you say, tomorrow at eight? I'll text you my address?" Austin nodded, slightly dumbfounded.
"What's your number?" Ally asked, and Austin gave it to her, not believing this was happening.
"Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Austin." She pecked his cheek before walking out of the infirmary.
Ten minutes later, Dez found a slightly dazed Austin, still in the infirmary, a hand on his cheek and a goofy smile on his face. "Dude, you okay?" he asked, wondering what happened to make Austin look so happy.
"Yeah, I'm great," Austin replied, thinking about where he'll take Ally tomorrow. "Everything is absolutely great."