CHAPTER 4

Karen is driving her Range Rover with Jason in the passenger seat and I'm in the back.

"Okay you guys. Call me when you guys are done so I can pick you up," Karen says.

Jason and I step out of the car.

"Bye, Mom," Jason says and we wave goodbye as Karen drives off.

I readjust my tennis bag on my shoulder as we walk down the pathway towards the park.

"So, call me when you're done or whatever, okay?" I say to Jason as I follow the pathway towards the tennis courts and Jason walking down towards the basketball courts.

"'Kay!" he yells back.

Pateel and I are done playing three games. We're now sitting down on the tennis courts with Pateel telling me what happened with Dillon yesterday.

"Aw. That's cute," I reply to what she had to say about what Dillon said to her.

"Excuse me?"

Pateel and I turn our heads to find a man with his seven year old daughter right beside him.

"Do you know how long you're going to be playing?"

"Oh, yea. We're finished, you can take the court now," Pateel says as we stand up with our tennis bags on our shoulders.

"Thanks," the man replies.

Pateel and I are walking down the pathway.

"Let's go see what Jason's up too. He didn't call me yet," I say.

We arrive near the basketball courts and we see a group of guys running across the court yelling, "Over here!"

We decide to sit on the grass by the side of the court, a few feet away from their water bottles and Gatorades.

We're watching them play when we see one of the guys, with brown wavy hair, steal the ball out of Jason's hands and runs down the opposite side of the court. He seems about ready to make a lay-up when he trips over his own two feet.

Pateel and I burst out laughing. Then I hear the other guys on the court start laughing.

"Way to go Adam!" a guy says sarcastically.

"That's what you get for taking away my ball," Jason retorts.

"Water break," a guy yells, and I recognize him as Cam.

The guys walk towards their pile of water bottles. Jason comes over to sit down next to me and chugs down the rest of his water.

"You guys enjoy the game?"

"Yea, you guys are pretty entertaining," Pateel replies.

"You guys keeping score?" I ask.

Adam comes over and sits down, and says, "Yea. And my team's winning 100 to 10."

Jason punches Adam on the shoulder, "You wish."

"Yea, right." He looks over at me and Pateel and introduces himself, "The name's Adam."

"Jacqueline"

"Pateel"

By now the other guys are sitting on the grass with us; so now we're all in a big circle.

Cam is sitting next to Adam and says, "Hey Jacqueline." Giving me a smile.

"Hey," I reply with a small smile of my own. I'm a little bit surprised that he would say hi. When I saw him sit down next to Adam, I didn't know whether to say hi or not.

The sun is starting to set, causing the sky to be the colors of orange and purple.

"Well that's game I guess," a guy says. Pateel and I have seen him before. His name's Taylor.

Then some of the guys start on their own little conversations.

Jason looks over at Pateel and me and says, "So how was your game?"

I've been playing tennis since last summer and Pateel just started a few months ago, so I ended up winning all three games.

"It was good." I reply nonchalantly. I didn't want to make Pateel feel bad; she was getting frustrated when we were playing. I glanced her way, and received a grateful look from her.

"What do you play?" Adam says. He was listening to our conversation.

"We play tennis," I reply and point to my Prince Tennis Bag that I was leaning on.

"Are you guys on the tennis team at school?" Cam asks.

"I was on JV last year and Pateel just started a few months ago," I reply.

Pateel adds, "We had tryouts at the end of freshman year and we made it. Probably on JV though."

"That's cool," Adam replies.

I fish out my cell phone from my tennis bag and call Karen to pick Jason and me up now.

After I hang up the phone, I start listening into the conversation everybody is in. They're talking about the cool shots they made.

"That would have been a good shot if you didn't fall," Pateel says to Adam.

"Okay. I admit it. I got a bit excited," Adam says, his raised up like he's surrendering.

I laugh, "Yea, you tripped over your own two feet. Your laces weren't even untied."

"We should have videotaped that. And the look on your face when you fell…" Cam replied, breaking off the sentence because he was now laughing.

"That face you had was priceless," a guy, named Jacob, said.

Adam's face was now annoyed with the laughs from all of us and was about to retort something back when Taylor said, "Well, my ride's here. We should play again." And he gets up from where he was sitting. We all look towards the street to see two cars pulling up to pick up their sons. I get up from the grass, like everyone else, and pick up my tennis bag. We start walking on the grass, ignoring the paved pathway.

I see Jason walking with Taylor towards his car.

Pateel and I decide to walk towards the swing set, the opposite direction of where the street is.

"We should play tennis again," I say to Pateel.

"Yea, maybe next weekend with Lucia."

"Yea, and with Rachel so we can play doubles," I reply.

I'm looking straight ahead to see the sunset when from my peripherals I see Cam appear right next to me.

"Hey," he says.

"Oh…hey," I reply a bit surprised, I didn't even hear him walk up.

"Where's Jason?"

"Oh, he's up there," I turn around and point towards the car where Taylor and Jason are standing by, "With Taylor."

"Oh, are you walking back towards your house with Jason?"

"No, Jason's mom is picking us up."

"Oh."

"Cam! Hurry up or I'm leaving without you!" Taylor is yelling across the field of grass.

"Okay I'm coming!" Cam yells back.

"Bye," Cam says to me and waves bye even though we're about a good two feet away from each other.

"Bye," I wave awkwardly back and he starts to walk towards the street. I don't watch him walk back. I start walking towards the swing set again.

Pateel gives me a look and says, "He looked back."

"What?"

"When he walked off, I saw him look back to see you."

"He did?" I say with surprise in my voice. I turn around to find him walking towards the car; his back towards us. "Liar," I accuse, "He didn't look back."

"I swear." Then Pateel says in a sing-song voice, "Ooh. I think he likes you," with a smile on her face.

I snort.

"Aw…you're blushing!" Pateel gushes.

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are. I can see it," she says.

"Ugh. No I'm not," and I look away from her. Okay I have to admit, I can feel the heat on my face. But it's only because she said she thinks he likes me. And besides, I never thought of him that way…I just thought…I just never gave him a second thought about him since I met him yesterday…