"Welcome to Tennis Camp," the tennis club supervisor cheered as they arrived at the venue they would be staying at for a few days. As most of the group were under the age of 18, the college was required to send at least 1 teacher along with them to supervise. "I'll be around, but your club captain will be in charge of your activities, you'll also need to feed yourselves while you're here but we have stocked the fridge for you if you should get hungry." The teacher waved at them all as he headed into the building, his plan for this trip was to do as little as he could possibly do if it was going to hijack his weekend.
"Alright listen everyone" Steven called, gathering them into a group. "I have made a timetable that I expect everyone to follow. No one is to be late. No one is to sneak off and do other things either, we are here to play tennis!" Steven handed out the time tables to everyone but missed Harper out completely. He went over to his bag and pulled out a separate timesheet for her, "I made this one specially for you" he explained as he handed it to her.
"Wait, you want me to make dinner?" she questioned nervously, obviously Steven didn't know that she couldn't cook to save her life.
"That is correct" he responded, folding his arms smugly. "You have to make dinner for all 25 of us, it's pretty easy."
She looked back at the schedule, "25 people!" I won't have enough time to practice!"
"Well then you'll just have to skip the practices won't you."
"Hold on a minute!" Oliver called walking over to them, "we're supposed to be having a rematch at the end of this camp. How is it fair that you cut out all of her practice time?!"
"STOP NAGGING ME!" Steven shouted "I AM THE CLUB CAPTAIN AND JUST LIKE THE TEACHER SAID, I ORGANISE THE ACTIVITIES." He stormed off before either of them could get another word in.
"We're going to have practice after everyone's had dinner" Oliver told her, clearly frustrated by Stevens' attempts to sabotage them.
Harper shuffled inside to the kitchen to get a head start on dinner and was greeted by a mountain of vegetables and some other ingredients. Unfortunately, Harper had absolutely no idea where to start with the food, what was she supposed to make with this stuff? But just like that, Harper had a genius idea. She could just call Kunal to talk her through the cooking!
She called his number and he picked up almost immediately, sounding overjoyed that she had chosen to call him for help. She showed him all the ingredients that she had and he told her that she could probably make some sort of stew with that and she could easily feed 25 people with it. "Can you talk me through it please?" she begged, but she didn't need to beg Kunal for anything, he would do anything if it meant he could help her.
"Of course I will, now start chopping up those carrots!" he shouted, encouraging her through every step.
About 20 minutes later the door swung open and Oliver came charging in asking if she was nearly finished yet. She turned around to look at him as she slowly cut some onions up, she had tears in her eyes which was a mix of the onions and the fact that she hated this so much. Oliver noticed that there was a voice coming through the speaker on her phone and immediately recognised it as that moron she is always speaking to. Why did she go to him first for help with this? She knew Oliver could cook but instead she rang this loud idiot.
"Forget him, let me help you" he demanded, hanging up the phone on Kunal. Harper's phone immediately rang as Kunal assumed she had lost signal but they both ignored it. "This is ridiculous" Oliver muttered as he started speed chopping the vegetables and chucking them in the pan. "Grab the beef pieces and put them in the oven" he instructed Harper after sprinkling some seasoning on them. As he continued cooking he would periodically give instructions to her, knowing not to give her more than one task to focus on as that's when she starts to get flustered. "You cannot tell anyone that I made this, you understand" he explained, knowing that if Steven found out he would come up with some other reason that Harper couldn't train.
When the others came in for dinner, they sat down to dinner with very low expectations about the food. Thankfully, they were pleasantly surprised when they were presented with a delicious looking stew. "Wow Harper, this is a really good stew! How did you get the beef so tender?" one of the girls asked her from across the table.
"Oliver, why didn't you tell us this girl was a savant in the kitchen, I'm kind of jealous that you got to eat her cooking all the time, " one of the other guys joked as he shovelled the food into his mouth. Oliver just ignored them and ate his food quickly so he could get to teaching Harper how to play tennis ahead of their game. He stood up all of a sudden which caused everyone on the table to look at him, "Harper, let's go and practise" he told her heading outside. She waved sheepishly to everyone before following him out of the door.
Needless to say, Oliver's training was a hell of a lot stricter than Satanic Steves, and with a nickname like that, it really said a lot. "Watch the ball Harper! How can you expect to hit it with your eyes closed?!"
"Sorry" she cried back to him as she attempted the next fast ball.
"You're too slow, you will have no hope moving like that." Oliver shook his head, this was too stressful.
Harper slumped to the floor, completely exhausted, "this is gonna kill me" she cried when they finally finished for the day.
A couple of days and gruelling tennis practices later, she was back to cooking dinner and once again she had no idea what to do.
"Kunal, please you have to help me!" she cried down the phone "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with an aubergine."
Kunal appeared to be in tears as he explained to her that he was at work today so he couldn't help her. "I'm so sorry Harper! I really wish I could but…" she heard her Dad behind him telling him to get off the phone and start the entrees. "You can do this! Just do whatever you did yesterday."
She turned around and was met with Jenny who was eavesdropping on her phone call. "You two sound like a happy couple," she giggled. Harper shook her head furiously, explaining that Kunal was just a close friend. "Well while you're stuck in here, I may as well take the opportunity to launch an attack on Oliver." Jenny winked at her and then departed from the kitchen.
This time Oliver was unable to help her with the dinner as Steven had made sure he was out on the courts during practice and gave him no opportunity to vanish. Harper was well and truly out of her depth.
When everyone came in for dinner they were stunned to find that their dinner was overcooked chicken and burnt broccoli pieces.
"Wow Harper… What happened?" the same girl who praised her the other day asked. Now slightly less impressed.
"I'm sorry! I wasn't the one who cooked the other day, it was Oliver" she confessed, burying her head against the table. Embarrassed, Oliver got up from the table and started to walk off, this caused Jenny to get up with him and follow him out the door.
"Harper" Satanic Steve called over to her, "can I have a word with you outside?" he requested. Currently he was being nice Steve so she wasn't too scared of him. When they got outside, Steve was acting like they were on some sort of reconnaissance mission and started crawling through the bushes. She heard the sound of Oliver and Jenny talking and realised that if they caught her sneaking around now, it would look really bad so she hurried into the bushes and hid next to the captain.
"What did you wanna talk to me about?" Oliver asked her as they stopped just in front of Harper and Steven. Jenny did her signature laugh and then turned around so that she was not facing him.
"What do you think I wanted to talk about?" she questioned, employing the famous "I'll say it if you can guess" tactic.
Just then, the reason they were hiding in the bushes clicked in Harper's brain. "Steven? Are you in love with Jenny?" she asked.
"Ssssshhhhh, don't say that out loud!" he commanded, putting his hand over her mouth. Oliver played the clueless card and told her that he had no idea what she wanted and suggested they get back as he needed to practise with Harper. Jenny clearly didn't like his comment as she turned around and got right up close to him. "Oliver, I've been having these feelings for you. The truth is…"
Suddenly, the captain suddenly got a bad leg cramp and yelped before falling over. Right on top of Harper. Oliver and Jenny heard this and came over to see who was making the sound, only to find Steven and Harper alone in the bushes with the captain on top of her.
"Ah Jenny! It's not what you think!" he cried, "I was just…." his voice trailed off. He couldn't think of an explanation that didn't make him look bad.
Oliver grabbed him by the collar, almost launching him off Harper and pulled her up quickly. "You should be practising!" he shouted before dragging her away from the scene. "I need to see you working really hard, this is the last day before the competition." he explained as they started their practice. It soon got dark and despite her trying Harper was unable to hit any of the balls and the lights in the court suddenly went out.
"Never mind," Oliver sighed, "we'll just have to hope for the best tomorrow."
As the next morning arrived, Harper tried to psyche herself up ready for the match. Despite the circumstances, Oliver actually seemed a bit calmer this morning. Well at least towards her. When it came to Satanic Steve he seemed even more pissed off with him than normal. "Don't let our training go to waste, keep your eyes open and look at the ball." he put his hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes. "You're not alone. When I'm around, you don't have to be afraid." She nodded and smiled as her anxiety suddenly faded from her body.
Once Steven picked up his racquet, you could see him turn into his Satanic Steve persona and screamed for them to get ready before he served. Oliver managed to smack a few of them back, but when they came to Harper's side, despite her effort most of them slipped by her. As the game progressed, she managed to hit some of them back but they didn't land in the court on the other side. "You need to hit the ball back into the opponent's area," Oliver told her. "Eyes open. Watch the ball". She nodded and took a deep breath.
"DON'T THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME RIVERS! GET READY FOR MY FAST SERVE!" he screamed as he prepared to launch an assault.
"They're still losing," Jenny told him, "you can calm down."
"No Jenny, I won't calm down! This is about my pride! I'm so angry right now!"
Steven threw the ball into the air and hit it with all of his might over to Harper's side. "Harper!" Oliver shouted as the ball approached her.
She nodded and watched the ball coming towards her. It was fast, but not as fast as the balls that Oliver was hitting to her the other day and finally she managed to hit the ball back over to their side. Time seemed to slow down as the ball skimmed past Steven's head and landed at the back of the court. The umpire confirmed that they had gained a point and the crowd erupted in applause. She looked over at Oliver who smiled and nodded and she felt a wave of joy throughout her whole body and she jumped into the air. Unfortunately, her feet betrayed her and she fell to the floor spraining her ankle as she landed. Oliver ran over to see what happened and noticed that her ankle was already swollen. "We forfeit!" he shouted over to Steven. "We can't play anymore, she sprained her ankle!" Oliver kneeled down in front of her and instructed her to get on his back. She agreed, blushing slightly and he carried her out of the tennis court and back to the building. "I'm really sorry, we lost again" Harper whispered while he was carrying her back. "And you only came here to win that competition."
He chuckled slightly and turned his head away from her, "I had no intention of winning that competition."
The next day, they all headed home and Oliver offered to escort her from the bus stop and to her apartment as she was still struggling to walk on her foot. "Haven't we reached your flat yet?" Oliver asked her as they seemed to have walked around in circles multiple times already .
"We're nearly there, trust me that was the nearest bus stop" she explained. Oliver was regretting offering to carry all of her bags at this point as they were becoming unreasonably heavy.
"So the other night…" Harper started. She felt like she probably should explain the situation with Steven and maybe also ask him about what happened with Jenny.
"You seem pretty close to the club captain" Oliver commented, "are you two like a thing now?"
Harper shook her head violently as she tried to explain what happened, but it was hard to do that without making it look like she was creepily stalking him.
"Here we are!" she cheered as they reached the apartment building. "Thank god this place has a lift." Just as she called for the lift she turned her phone on and noticed that she had over 10 missed calls and texts from her Dad.
Harper, there has been a problem with the lease. Please come back to the River's house instead of the apartment.
She heard Oliver sigh as he read the text message over her shoulder. "Well that's annoying, we could have just got a taxi to my place instead of forcing me to carry your stuff everywhere?"
"I dunno, I guess I just forgot" Harper answered sheepishly rubbing the back of her head.
"Come on, I'll call a taxi."
It didn't take long for them to arrive at Oliver's house, but as they pulled into the driveway, Finley came running out of the house in floods of tears. "OLLIE! IT'S AWFUL. THE WORST POSSIBLE THING!"
"Welcome back you two!" Oliver's Mum stood in the doorway with a smug grin on her face.
"What's going on?" Oliver asked, clearly he had been completely blindsided by this.
"Well Harper and Ian are coming back to live with us, of course!" she replied bursting into fits of laughter. "Especially since things are going so well between the two of you."
"What are you talking about?!" Oliver looked like he was about to blow a fuse. "This needs to stop, there is nothing going on here!"
"Oh really?" she asked, "and yet you two have already kissed right?" The two of them were stunned to silence, Oliver looking down at Harper who he assumed had blabbed but she insisted that she didn't tell her.
"Ollie, that's not true is it?!" Finley cried, "you wouldn't kiss this stupid person would you?!" Harper looked down to him and questioned who he thought he was calling a "stupid person." When Oliver clearly had no intention of denying the accusation he backed away crying that he would never accept her becoming his sister and she must have somehow forced him to do it.
"Come on in you two! Harper we have so much to catch up on!". Harper laughed nervously and shrugged her shoulders while mouthing an apology. Whether it benefitted him or not, Oliver hated his mother meddling in his life.
