Disclaimer: As always, I don't own anything recognizable in this story. Please don't sue.

Maslover: Thank you so much, I'm glad you're enjoying it! And I'm definitely going to continue writing it :) Thank you for your review!

Guest#1:

Katie probably should have punched Devon, but the only person Katie likes to physically attack is James ;) Thank you for taking the time to review!

Guest#2:

I'm sorry for the wait! But I'm glad you're enjoying this story! And thank you for taking the time to read and review :)

Guest#3: I'm updating, I promise ;P Thank you for your review! :)

And as always, thank you for all the reviews, alerts, and just simply for taking the time to read this story! It means the world to me :)

A/N: So, first of all, I'm sorry for the two month wait. I got busy and overwhelmed with work and school, and when that happens I either just spend all my time writing, or I just set it aside. In this case, it was the latter. So I'm sorry, but I'm trying to get back on track with everything.

On another note, I have something else to bring up to you guys: Jatieluv and I have our own Facebook page, as of last night, dedicated to our fanfiction writing. It's titled JatieFantasy, and we'll both be posting on it. Since I spend a lot more time on Facebook than on Twitter, it should be updated pretty regularly. And feel free to post stuff on it or ask questions or just anything, if you want to talk :) The link is up on our JatieFantasy FFN profile page, and on my FFN profile page as well.

Anyway, I think that's about it for the author's note :)

Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter Nine – Talking and Movies

Katie's POV

By Friday morning, the rumors about James and Devon, while still strong, weren't quite as prevalent as they had been the day before. It was actually possible to walk into a classroom not hear people discussing James' and Devon's sex lives.

Thank goodness. If I had to hear a blow-by-blow account one more time, I wasn't going to stop throwing up until next year.

"So," Camille appeared at my locker after lunch as I dug my biology textbook out. "I was just talking to Steph and the guys."

"That sounds like a dangerous combination. Do you want me to rush you to the hospital to get radiation treatment or something?"

"No. We're doing a movie night tonight."

"We? Who's we?"

"Stephanie, Jo, you, me, Logan, Carlos, your brother, and James. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

I groaned in response.

She grinned. "That's just the enthusiastic response I was looking for."

"You're insane, you know that? This is going to be such a complete and utter disaster. The last time we did something friendly with the boys we ended up in a battle of the sexes war with them."

"I mostly blame that on you and James."

"Gee, thanks."

"Anyway, we're planning on hitting up that action movie you've been saying you want to go to." She quirked an eyebrow at me. "So you have no excuse for not going."

"I have homework and I won't have time tomorrow, what with the first game and Stephanie's party."

"So, do it on Sunday."

I gaped at her. "I can't do it on Sunday!"

"Sure you can. Besides, what is it, just a bunch of reading and some work sheets?"

"Something like that…"

"Piece of cake. Come on, please go with us. You'll have fun, I promise."

"This was your idea, wasn't it? Anything to get in a dark room with Logan, huh?"

She smirked at me. "Anything to take James down on the ice, huh? I mean, that's how we ended up in this battle of the sexes, right? You two want each other so badly and you both refuse to admit it. Which is exactly why you guys got a little…violent…last Saturday."

I sputtered in indignation.

"That's what I thought. Although, again, you two will never admit that that's the reason."

"It's not the reason! The boys were being jerks – "

"You and James used Saturday as a way to shove each other around. I'd hate to see how wrecked you'd be after a night with him. You wouldn't be able to walk."

I yanked my biology textbook down and stuffed it in my messenger bag. "If I agree to go tonight, will you stop talking about what would happen if James and I slept together?"

"Wait, what would happen if we slept together?"

I spun around to find James coming up on my other side to get to his own locker. "None of your business," I replied, forcing as much snippiness into my voice as I possibly could. We had been a little more civil towards each other in the past twenty-four hours, but we were still bickering and bantering, and he was still a complete pain in my ass.

"You two would be completely wrecked afterwards," Camille answered him. "Seriously, sex between you two would be so violent and kinky that you would put 50 Shades of Grey to shame."

"Don't you have a class you need to be in?" I demanded.

She smirked. "Don't you two have a class you need to be in? Biology, right? Learning about reproduction?"

I slammed my locker shut. "Nothing's going on between me and James!" And with that I stormed off towards the biology classroom. I plunked myself down at the lab table, slamming my messenger bag down on it so hard I thought I heard one of my pencils snap. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. Camille had clearly been talking to Kyle, because now she was hopping aboard the Katie-Has-A-Huge-Fucking-Crush-On-James train. Fucking insane.

James sauntered calmly in a few minutes later and placed a bottle of water in front of me.

"Did you spit in it?" I immediately asked, eyeing it.

"No. I thought you might need it to cool down. Seems like you got a little overheated out there."

I decided that was as nice a gesture as I could expect from James. I uncapped it and took a long sip.

"Anyway," James said quietly, sitting down in his usual spot beside me, "no one said anything about something going on between you and me."

It was very lucky I had just swallowed my mouthful of water because otherwise I definitely would have choked. And the last thing I needed was to have to be given the Heimlich Maneuver by James Fucking Diamond.

"Camille did, by talking about us…you know…"

"Fucking? Doing the dirty?" He grabbed my water bottle and took a long sip. "Both seem like accurate terms."

"Because you fuck people over and dirty everything you touch?" I eyed my water bottle. Great. Now it was contaminated by James-cooties.

"Because it would be hard and rough."

"You can't be serious."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "This is all hypothetical, of course. But given our relationship – or lack thereof – it stands to reason that if things ever exploded and we ended up sleeping together, it wouldn't be nice or polite or gentle."

"You have a point," I admitted.

He nodded. "The way I've got it figured, you'd be trying to give me a concussion while screaming my name in ecstasy."

"You think very highly of your sexual prowess, don't you?"

"Hey, according to Devon I'm a beast, and she ought to know."

"Considering she's slept with about half the guys in this school, I would certainly hope so."

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Why, Katie, do I detect a hint of bitterness in your voice?"

"If you hear any bitterness in my voice, it's from the lemon yogurt I ate at lunch today. It was extremely sour."

"Sure, Katie-Pie, sure. Whatever you say."

Luckily for him, at that moment Mr. Greenberg walked in and began the class, otherwise I might have strangled James.

Mr. Greenberg passed out worksheets on a frog's anatomy. "Remember," he said once the worksheets had all been distributed, "this is just a practice exercise. We'll be dissecting a frog next week."

I mentally gagged. I hated the idea of dissecting a poor creature that had been killed just so that it could be sliced into by a bunch of uncoordinated high school students. I was seriously considering skipping the day we had to dissect the frog. James could fend for himself. He would probably get higher marks without me trying not to throw up every five seconds.

James pulled the worksheet closer and opened his biology textbook, turning to the page Mr. Greenberg had written on the whiteboard. "So, think you'll be able to handle dissecting a frog?"

"I'm actually probably going to come down with a mysterious, temporary illness that day," I muttered, flipping to the designated page as well.

"Yeah? I never would have pegged you as someone with a weak stomach."

I shrugged and marked the location of the frog's heart. "It happens."

"Yeah, to Kendall. Not to you. You're the Knight sibling who can actually handle gory movies."

"But I know they're not real. But it's a poor frog. He could've been a little girl's pet. His name could have been Kermit."

James paused in mid pencil stroke, halfway through labeling the liver. "Kermit?"

"Yeah. As in Kermit the Frog? You know, the Muppets?"

"I know what the Muppets are. Thanks. Now I'm going to have to come down with a mysterious, temporary illness that day. I can't dissect Kermit the Frog!"

"So you see my problem."

James looked a little green now. "If you listen very closely, you can hear the sound of my childhood being flushed down the drain. Thank you so much."

"That's what you get for talking about us having sex."

He glared at me. "You are an evil, evil little girl. You are dark, twisted, sick – "

I batted my lashes at him. "Adorable as hell?"

"It's no coincidence you used the word hell, is it?"

I patted his arm.

"Anyway, it's not my fault that you're so easy to make uncomfortable. And after all the rumors that were going around yesterday, you probably thought about it."

"Thought about what?"

"What it'd be like."

"To do what? Suck your dick? I'd rather dissect the frog."

"Such denial." He clucked his tongue. "I'd return the favor, you know."

I flushed, my body heating up before I could tell it not to. It was obvious from the satisfied smirk on his face that he knew what kind of effect his words had had on me. And I didn't like it.

I yanked the worksheet out from under his hands. "Focus on the task at hand. Not on how wet or tight I'd be."

There was a sharp inhale and it was my turn to smirk. Bullseye.

"I mean," I continued on in a low murmur, labeling the different internal workings of the frog, "I can barely get a tampon in. Can you imagine how tight I would be? That'd probably feel amazing for you, huh?"

I was rewarded with a small gasp and my smirk widened. "What's the matter, Jamie-Bear? You can dish it out but you can't take it?"

He edged his chair a couple of inches closer to mine, letting his thigh brush up against mine. "I never knew you had it in you, baby girl. And here I thought you were totally square. Who knew you could be hot?"

I glared at him. "You did, the night of your hot tub party. You couldn't get enough of me in a bikini, remember?"

He blinked at me innocently. "Is that what happened? I thought you couldn't get enough of me shirtless."

"Well, you thought wrong."

"Try not to ogle me tomorrow at Stephanie's party. I'd hate to get the wrong impression again."

"Okay, you know what – " Before I could inform him that he was a total ass, a shadow fell across the table and I slowly titled my head up. Mr. Greenberg was standing over us, arms crossed.

Thirty seconds later, James and I were sitting outside the biology classroom. Mr. Greenberg had snapped that since our conversation was clearly so much more important than the class, we could finish talking out in the hall.

Just. Freaking. Great.

And of course, the second the classroom door had slammed shut behind us, James and I had fallen silent. We were currently focusing on our homework, not saying anything. It just figured.

And then James broke the silence.

"So," James said as he bent his head over his notebook. "We're all doing the movies tonight, huh?"

I nodded, staring down at my French homework and wondering if I had ever learned how to conjugate verbs in English, much less in French. "It should be fun."

James snorted. "Please. Hopefully there'll finally be some making out going on." When my head snapped up he rolled his eyes. "I meant between our friends. It's pretty obvious that our dear friends are into each other. Not like Carlos's reaction to Stephanie inviting him to her party was obvious or anything."

I relaxed somewhat, although a knot of disappointment seemed to tighten in my stomach. He hadn't meant us, even after we had spent half of biology class talking about sleeping together and trying to turn each other on. "Yeah, they're not exactly subtle. Anyway, I guess it'll just be you and me, the odd ones out. The third wheels, so to speak."

"I guess so. I mean, Devon and I broke up and you're dating Kyle, who won't even be there."

"Kyle's not my boyfriend," I said automatically.

"Sure he's not."

"He's not."

"Fine. So what is he? A friend with benefits? Someone to make out with when you're bored?"

"Neither of those things. He's just a friend."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Why?" I asked, surprised.

"Because boys and girls can't just be friends."

I gaped at him in disbelief. "Excuse me?"

"You're excused."

"Boys and girls can too be just friends!"

"They really can't, not without the guys wanting to fuck the girls. It's not like we can hang out with a hot girl without acknowledging she's hot or wanting to see her naked."

"Girls are like that too," I argued. "If our guy friend is hot, we'll admit it."

"But girls are more picky than guys."

"I'll say. You guys see a pair of tits and your jeans start getting tight."

James grinned. "I love when you talk dirty to me. You should do it more often."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Just like that. Serenade me with filth, baby girl, just like you were doing in biology."

"You're such a pig."

"Oh please. We both know you were checking me out at the hot tub party, just like you'll be doing tomorrow night."

"And you wanted to get my top off, and somehow I don't think it was to check to see if my boobs are real or fake."

"Well, I'm assuming your boobs are real, considering I couldn't help but notice that one side was a little larger than the other."

My face turned bright red and I raised my hand, whether to slap him or grab him by the collar and kiss him I didn't know. He must have thought I was going to slap him because he grabbed my wrist, fingers closing gently around it. "Didn't you listen to the start of semester assembly lecture?" James asked softly, eyes darting down to meet mine. "No violence on school property."

"I'm pretty sure students are supposed to keep their tongues to themselves on school property as well, but that didn't stop you and Devon from trying to shove your tongues down each other's throats."

His thumb began massaging the inside of my wrist, right where it was tender, and I couldn't stop the shiver that shuddered visibly through my body. He drove me crazy. Being so close to him in such close proximity when no one else was around was going to be the death of me, I just knew it. Why the biology teacher had to choose to send us out of the room for bantering was beyond me. Because as always, I couldn't decide whether I wanted to kill him or fuck him, punch him or kiss him. And on some instinct, through some sort of connection, I knew he felt the exact same way about me. Or maybe it was just because of what had gone down five minutes ago.

"You like that?" he murmured, clearly noticing my reaction to the wrist rub.

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.

He continued to move his thumb, caressing my wrist, rubbing in soft circles, so light it was like a feather brushing against my skin. But all it did was make me think about other parts of my body he could be massaging like that, preferably naked and on a pillow top bed –

And then the bell rang, shrill and piercing, and I was brought back to reality, where James and I were sitting in the hall outside our biology classroom and we were in a battle of the sexes against each other and we hated each other. And it didn't matter how hot he was because we hated each other and that was never going to change.

Doors began opening up and down the hall but James leaned forward, lips brushing my ear and my eyes fell closed as I tried desperately to break free of the hold he seemed to have over me. "Until this afternoon, Miss Knight." And then he pulled back, scooting away so that he was a respectable enough distance away from me, leaving me feeling cold and empty inside, like I had just experienced a major let down. And who knew? Maybe I had. All I knew was that getting to my feet so that I could head to my next period was almost as difficult as it was dragging myself out of bed that morning.

However, the second I got to hockey practice all thoughts of James escaped my mind – unless you count the ones where I shoved him repeatedly into the boards. With the game the next afternoon weighing heavily on our brains, practice was much more brutal and intense than usual. Coach Carter put us through our paces, and by the time we managed to drag ourselves into the locker room, I felt as if someone had taken a hammer to my body.

It was a relief to get home. I ended up in the bathtub, soaking in the hot water and letting my muscles relax. By the time I dried off and slipped into a fresh pair of jeans and a sweater, my body felt quite a bit better. I was hoping the soreness would wait a couple of days before it caught up with me. I didn't need to be stiff tomorrow during the game.

"So," Mom said as I came down into the kitchen after my bath, fully dressed with my hair down for once and makeup slathered on, "Kendall told me you two are going to the movies with a few other people."

"Cami, Steph, Jo, Logan, Carlos, and James," I confirmed.

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you and James hanging out again?"

"What? Of course not."

"Would it really be a bad thing if you were?"

"Yes."

"Why? You two were so close when you were younger. I don't understand what happened."

I sighed and opened the fridge. I dug out a bag of carrot sticks and a bottle of ranch dressing. I dumped the dressing in a small bowl and plopped down at the kitchen table, dipping a carrot stick and taking a bite. "It's a long story, Mom."

"So you've said. But I just don't get it. I mean, you had a huge crush on James when you were twelve – "

"It wasn't that huge."

" – You were really into him. And I'm sure he liked you too. At the very least, you two were practically best friends there for awhile."

"Sometimes friendships fall apart. James and I are two very different people. We grew in different directions. He likes making out with girls and I like – " I frowned. "I like hockey."

"But so does he. And he's every bit as passionate about it as you and Kendall. I don't think making out with girls actually takes away from his passion for hockey."

I shrugged. "Yeah, whatever you want to believe. All I know is that he changed."

"Maybe he thinks you changed," she suggested. "I mean, it seems like one day you two were the best of friends, and the next you guys weren't speaking at all. Or when you were, it was to throw an insult at the other."

"Look," I said, swirling a carrot stick around the bowl, trying to scoop up the remains of the salad dressing, "it really is a long story and not something I want to go into. It doesn't even matter now, anyway. James and I are – we're in competition. We're not going to become best friends. We're not going to become more than friends. It's just not going to happen."

She quirked an eyebrow at me. "So you want to become more than friends with him, huh?"

"What? No!" I yelped. "That's disgusting! I don't know where he's been! For all I know, I could wind up with an STD or – "

"Talking about me?" James asked, sliding into the kitchen.

"Why are you always here?" I demanded. "Don't you have your own house to stay at?"

"I do, but it's not nearly as much fun as hanging out here and annoying you." To prove his point, he snatched a handful of carrot sticks from the bag and bit into one of them. "Anyway," he said, his mouth full, "Kendall and I are car pooling to the movies."

"How sweet. You two are saving the environment, one asshole at a time."

"Language, Katherine," Mom said warningly.

James cackled. "I would ask you if you kiss your mother with that mouth, but clearly you do."

I responded very eloquently by flipping him my middle finger when Mom had her back turned.

Luckily, James and Kendall headed out soon after and I followed suit. The eight of us met up at the ticket window and we purchased our tickets before heading in. We got in line at the concession counter, talking excitedly about the movie.

We bought popcorn, nachos, candy, and sodas, and straggled into the theater with our food. We plopped down in the seats. James ended up at the end of the line, a few seats down from the aisle, and I somehow wound up between him and Camille, Logan seated on Camille's other side. Next to Logan was Carlos, then Stephanie, Jo, and Kendall. We were all paired up – figuratively speaking, of course. James and I weren't a pair. We weren't a couple. We weren't anything, no matter what Kyle, Camille, and my mother all thought.

I took a handful of popcorn and stuffed it in my mouth as the previews began to flash across the screen. On my left I could hear Camille and Logan whispering to each other, heads close to each other. Great. With my luck they would end up sucking face for most of the movie. Which meant I would be stuck between James and those two making out. Which in turn meant that I would either have to sit there quietly, get James to trade places with me, or sit in his lap so that I could get away from them. I preferred the option where he traded places with me, but that probably wasn't going to happen.

On my right, James munched on his own popcorn and slurped up his Cherry Coke. He had shrugged out of his jacket, leaving him in a dark green sweater, the sleeves pushed messily up to his forearms. In the soft glow of the ceiling lights, his eyes appeared to be more green than hazel, with gold flecks and a bright glow. I constantly overheard girls sighing over how pretty his eyes were, how they seemed to stare straight into your soul, but I doubted those girls would even be able to speak if they could see the way his eyes seemed to shine. Maybe it was just the sweater or maybe it was the lighting or maybe it was both, but whatever it was, I was pretty sure I had never seen eyes more beautiful than his.

And I really needed to stop this train of thought, because all it was doing was proving how crazy James was driving me.

James glanced at me. "You okay? You look a little out of it."

"What?" I jerked back to earth. "Oh, yeah, just trying to tune out Camille and Logan."

He lifted his head so that he could glance over at them before smirking. "Yeah, they look like they're off in their own world. Gotta love young love and all that crap."

I laughed in spite of myself. "More like young lust," I replied, keeping my voice low so that they wouldn't hear. "Seriously, it's a good thing they're not in the back of the theater, otherwise they'd be going at it already."

"More than likely." He tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. "But then again, I think the same could be true for all our friends. Stephanie is practically in Carlos' lap, and Kendall and Jo are doing that whole polite-flirting thing that Kendall and Jo do."

"What polite-flirting thing?" I asked, confused.

"Like this." He laid his hand gently on my arm and fixed me with his stare, deep, intense, and soulful. "It's so insane that we both like ice cream. I mean, who would have thought it'd be possible? Maybe sometime we could get ice cream together. Not like a date or anything, it'd be totally innocent, but I might try to hold your hand."

I reached over, placing my hand over the one resting on his leg. "But you wouldn't try to kiss me, right? I mean, that would be horrible. We might actually like it. We might even end up together if that happened."

"I promise, I won't try to kiss you. We'll wait until marriage for that. And of course, let's not even mention the S-E-X word."

"We should probably wait until we've been married for a couple of years before even thinking about that," I said mock-seriously. "We wouldn't want to rush into anything, after all."

"So after this, can I buy you a milkshake?"

"Nah, better make it a glass of milk, a milkshake might be too crazy."

"We wouldn't want that."

"Not at all."

There was a long moment of silence, and then we both busted out laughing. Everyone in the immediate vicinity, including our friends, all turned to stare at us, and a couple of people – including Logan – shushed us. James and I blinked back at them innocently, as if we hadn't just been making fun of Kendall and Jo. And then I started laughing again when I saw that Kendall had had his hand on Jo's arm, just like James had had his hand on mine, and heard Jo agree to grab a milkshake with him sometime.

James grinned at me and I found myself grinning back. We fist bumped and leaned back in our seats, already thoroughly entertained.

The opening credits burst across the screen and I found myself sucked into the storyline, the explosions, the chase scenes, and the incredible chemistry between the male and female leads. In fact, it took me almost an hour into the movie before I became aware of Camille doing her utmost best to choke Logan by way of shoving her tongue down his throat.

For heaven's sake…

"We can't take them anywhere, can we?" James whispered, lips way too close to my ear for comfort. "You'd think they were fucking rabbits."

"I'm pretty sure they think they're fucking rabbits," I responded, my breath a little hitched at the close contact. I could feel his shoulder pressed against the back of my shoulder, his chest against my back, his cheek against my hair. My body was tingling the alarm – James was touching me! James Fucking Diamond was touching me! – but I couldn't bring myself to move. All I wanted to do was lean back against him, feel his solid weight pressing against me. This had to do with the whole slight-sexual-attraction thing, even though there was nothing sexual about the idea of him holding me while we watched a movie together.

And I had just completely disproved my theory. I was my own worst enemy.

"Think we should interrupt them?" James wanted to know, winding his arm around my waist so that he could steal a handful of popcorn.

"What good would that do? Look at them, they're not going to stop."

"You're such a pessimist. Psst!" he hissed at them. "Logan! Logie-Bear!"

Logan and Camille studiously ignored him.

"Rude!" he gasped, before flicking a couple pieces of popcorn at them. "Hey!"

Logan pulled back from Camille and glared at James. "What?!"

"You are aware you were just making out with Camille in a movie theater in front of other people, right?"

"Do I look like a give a shit?" And with that he went back to kissing Camille.

James looked a little shocked. "Logan just said the S-word. I never would have believed it of him…I'm kind of impressed."

I glanced at the two lovebirds again. "I don't know about you, but I can't concentrate on the movie with those two making out six inches away from me."

"I can't either. Let's head out to the lobby," he suggested, and we got to our feet. I glanced over at Carlos and Stephanie, who looked like they were talking instead of watching the movie, and Kendall and Jo, who were sitting as close as possible without actually being on top of each other.

James and I grabbed our food, drinks, and coats, and headed out, down the stairs, out the door into the hall, and into the lobby. We plopped down on a bench and set our stuff around us.

There was silence between us for a moment, and then James asked, "Do you remember that time when we were eleven and I slept over at yours and Kendall's house?"

"Uh, you did that a lot. Which time are you talking about?"

"The time your parents spent most of the night in their room because they'd spent the day helping your neighbors build a fence around their house, and they were exhausted. And Kendall conked out at, like, nine, because he had helped them and was even more tired."

"Oh yeah," I said, a slow grin spreading across my face. "Yeah, I remember that. That was so much fun."

"And none of us were allowed to watch a PG13 movie without our parents there, but you snuck Ferris Bueller's Day Off out of your parents' movie cabinet and we huddled up in your room and watched the movie. We were probably too young for it and we didn't entirely get the humor, but we still had a lot of fun."

I nodded. "We were always doing stuff like that. Oh my gosh, remember the time when we were twelve and your mom caught us messing around on your trampoline?"

"And we were just wrestling, but she freaked out anyway. And she dragged us into the house and yelled at us until she was hoarse. What was really annoying was that neither of us had even kissed anyone yet, so we were being yelled at for something we hadn't even gotten to do."

"Yeah, you were so pissed after that."

"She always thought something was going on between us," he said quietly.

"But we were only twelve."

"So? She thought maybe we were dating or something."

"That seems to be the theme when it comes to us," I groaned. "Everyone always thinks something's going on between us."

"Yeah, it…it sucks." He pursed his lips. "Although…would it be bad if there was something going on?"

I snapped my head around to look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Are you telling me that you honestly think that nothing is going on between us? Even after today in biology? After the thing in the hot tub?"

I gaped at him. "I – I hadn't really – thought – "

"Bullshit. You have your deer-in-the-headlights look. I've only seen you look like that once, remember? You've thought about it. You know as well as I do that there's something going on between us."

"It's just teenage hormones. It's not a big deal."

"Really? So do you tell Carlos or Logan how tight you are?"

"The topic has never come up. Anyway, Logan and Camille – they're getting to you. Fucking Camille…anything to get Logan into a dark room." I shook my head.

"You're in denial."

"I'm not. I just…we're playing against each other tomorrow. Whatever Logan and Camille have tonight could change so easily tomorrow after the game. And whatever's going on with us…it feels complicated."

"But does it have to be?" James argued.

"You're on the rebound, you're still hurt over what Devon did to you."

"You're totally in denial."

"I'm not in denial, I just don't want to think about making out with you when I have to play against you tomorrow!" There was a long pause, and then realization hit me with the force of a freight train. "You asshole! You're doing this just to psyche me out! This is all one huge mind game to you, so that you can win tomorrow!"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" James glared at me. "Do you really think I would go out of my way to manipulate you like that? I'm trying to beat you on even grounds here, not after your mind's been fucked with. If anyone's fucking with anyone's minds it's Logan and Camille!"

I thought about that for a moment. "Fine. You have a point. But we're not talking about this tonight. We'll continue this conversation tomorrow, probably at the party. I'm sure the others will be pairing off again."

"Fine with me."

At that moment, the others walked out into the lobby, chatting away happily, Logan and Camille holding hands. We threw our trash away and made our way out to our cars, bidding each other goodbye.

As I climbed into my car, my stomach began to twist and turn like it was being shaped into a pretzel. Tomorrow was the game. And I had no idea what was going to happen.

There you guys go - another cliffhanger. I hope you don't mind too much...but look at it this way, the next chapter should be super interesting! So, here's my question: What do you guys think is going to happen with the game? I've heard a couple of theories, but I'm always interested in hearing more :)

Anyway, as always, thank you for reading :) And if you feel like dropping a review or a PM or stopping by the JatieFantasy FaceBook page, I won't mind! :)