"Carlos, did you see that?" Jay cries in his ear, slinging an arm around his shoulders to pull him tight into Jay's side. Carlos opens his eyes to find Jay's exuberant face inches from his.

"Yeah man, I saw." Carlos grins widely at him, making his freckles stand out more on his cheeks. Despite the way he'd been thinking, he truly felt proud of Jay. Carlos slaps Jay's chest lightly and hoots along with the cheers of the rest of the team, letting Jay know from the look in his eyes exactly what he was feeling, though Carlos himself wasn't fully aware of what that was. Jay's expression changes, his brown eyes getting dark, and then someone calls for victory pizza in Ben's suite after the game, to which Jay can't help but look up with a grin.

"Yes!" Jay calls out, pumping a fist in the air. He jostles Carlos lightly against him as he fist bumps Ethan, the son of Prince Eric and Ariel.

The crowd finally thins and for some reason Carlos's attention is drawn over to where the coach is standing by the sidelines. He watches as a kid in a green Falcon's uniform walks up to him with a monkey hanging off his shoulder. Carlos frowns, but before he can comment Jay jostles him again, drawing his attention to where Mal and Evie are waiting for them on the sidelines.

Ben spots them at the same time, pausing mid-sentence while talking to Chad. He turns away from the clearly insulted prince and runs to Mal, picking her up and spinning her around. Carlos smiles lightly as he watches Ben lean down to give her a kiss only for her to turn her head away with a small blush. While she'd never admit it and they'd never say anything, Carlos, Jay, and Evie knew she was nervous over her first kiss, possibly even afraid.

Jay leaves Carlos to saunter up to them doing Superman poses as Carlos follows behind, laughing at his friend. The others laugh at his posturing and Ben shoves him lightly in the shoulder.

"Hey," he says, "we had something to do with it too, you know."

"Really, I hadn't noticed" Jay teases, at which Carlos punches him lightly on the back. Jay grins but stops gloating, and straightens up instead. He and Ben start walking away discussing the game and weaknesses they'd noticed in the other team to use next time. Mal was pulled along willingly towards the boys locker rooms across the field by Ben, who hadn't released her hand.

Evie and Carlos are left watching them walk away, and so Evie threads her arm through Carlos's with a pleasant smile and the two set off after them at their own pace.

"So, whats wrong?" Evie asks as she smiles and waves at Doug, who is still by the bleachers helping pack up orchestra equipment.

"I don't know what you mean." Carlos says, keeping his eyes glued on Jay's figure ahead of them.

"Don't play dumb with me, I perfected that look." She gives him a sidelong look, which he misses. "Also," she says lightly, "stop staring at Jay's bottom, you're going to start drooling."

Carlos finds himself on the ground before he has the sense to realize that he'd just tripped over his own foot. He stares up at Evie.

"I—I—what?" Carlos sputters.

Evie simply raises an eyebrow as Jay runs back to them and grabs Carlos, whose eyes are still wide and staring at Evie.

"What happened?" Jay demands. He helps Carlos to his feet and immediately begins wiping grass off the back of his jersey. Carlos, whose brain seemed to have stopped working, continues to stare at Evie. She smirks at him.

"We are going to finish this conversation." She warns before flouncing off to save Mal, who is in danger of being dragged into the boys' changing rooms by her oblivious boyfriend.

"Earth to Carlos." A hand waves in front of Carlos's face, almost skimming his nose, and Carlos instinctually snaps out of it to move his head back. He snaps his eyes up to Jay, who's looking down at his stunned friend with a creased brow.

For a reason Carlos does not understand, he finds himself unable to hold the eye contact and looks away with a small blush.

"So, are we going to Ben's party or what?" Jay asks, already looking past him to the boys crowding into the changing room. His face holds an open longing that makes Carlos want to smile and cry at the same time. He sticks with smiling.

"Of course, I would never dream of keeping you away from your victory pizza."

Jay chuckles and throws an arm over Carlos's shoulders once more, dragging him after their teammates.

Okay, I know the last two chapters were pretty short, but I promise they'll be getting longer! Also, I'm posting every Monday and Thursday. So, who do you think the guy with the monkey is and what does he want? Also, if anyone guesses the monkey's name correctly, I'll do a shout-out to you at the beginning of the next chapter!