I woke up the next morning feeling someone's hand stroking my cheek.

"You are still here with me," I whispered without even opening my eyes knowing that it was Eric. I felt his lips press against my forehead.

"I told you, I'll always be."

"Eric," I said finally opening my eyes. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

Before I could get out what I wanted to say the door opened. I was so scared. I wasn't going to kiss Eric, but I was definitely planning on telling him how I felt.

"Dude, I can't believe we're only finishing up the party now," I heard someone say. More feet were shuffling into the room. Oh Lord we weren't alone anymore. Eric quietly showed me the time on his phone. It was 5:45.

"Eric, you should have came." That was Peter.

"Yeah, don't tell me you stayed in here all night," said Aidan. Great. How was I going to explain my presence in Eric's bed?

Eric pulled me closer and whispered 'sh' in my ear. He was probably wondering how he was going to explain this to Aidan as well.

"Eric, you still sleeping," asked Uriah. Out of all the people? He would probably tease us the most. Slowly I pushed Eric's chest, letting him know I was going to take whatever was going to happen next, but I totally forgot about what crucial thing that happened last night.

When Eric sat up, Zeke was the first to say something.

"Oh, you had company? I swear I saw you with Alex after we got b.." just before he finished his statement, Eric had moved enough to reveal that Eric was still with me. "ALEX," Zeke practically screamed. Just then Eric was yanked off the bed by Aidan.

I started to laugh nervously. "Morning Aidan." Aidan's jaw dropped. Uriah, Peter, and Edward started to laugh. Zeke and Four however looked like they were posed to hold Aidan back. From what? I wasn't sure. Until I saw Aidan's eyes lower on me. I looked down too. SHIT. How did I forget that I was only in my bra? Aidan turned around and launched himself at Eric.

"Aidan," I screamed. Before any punch could happen, Zeke and Four were there to yank him off.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." Aidan said pushing them away. "Everybody out!" I reached down for my shirt, threw it on and got ready to walk out with everyone else. "Not you," Aidan said pulling me back. I knew he wasn't talking about me, but I was hoping to leave so I wouldn't need to explain anything.

"Had fun last night, didn't you Eric," teased Uriah.

"Don't kill one of our best defensive players, Aidan. It looks like your sister had fun too," added Zeke.

"Hey, don't kill your sister either. I don't think Lauren or Shauna would want to replace Alex on the team or the squad," laughed Peter.

Once the guys had exited and the door was shut, Aidan crossed his arms and looked at both of us. I don't know what he was expecting, but I was not about to cave. I straightened out and crossed my arms too.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing," I replied. "Will was coming over and you said I could come up here..."

"I wasn't talking about that. I'm talking about the two of you. I was promised," he said looking at Eric. "That if someone had feelings for my sister, I would be told. I was also promised," he said turning back to me. "That someone would tell me where my roommate was for two nights the other week?"

Eric stood up and opened his mouth to say something, but I stopped him. He looked at me surprised.

"For the love of Christ, Eric and I are friends," I sort of yelled. Eric looked away disappointed. Wait, did he like me? "That's it, Aidan," I said looking down. "When is everyone just going to get that we're friends! We're friends." Eric went to sit back down on the bed. Did I just ruin something?

"Yes, Eric slept over those two nights. I asked him to. Christina was going to be with Will, since Uriah was gone and I didn't want to be by myself. So I asked for a friend to stay with me." I looked up at Aidan who seemed to consider something. He started to open his mouth to say something.

"I answered your two questions, can I go now?"

Aidan looked at Eric, then back to me and nodded his head. I quickly grabbed my duffle and walked out, feeling so stupid. Not because the guys saw me and Eric in bed together. I mean Christina and Will already did, Four, Tris, and Myra knew. But what did do it for me was that I was going to tell Eric I liked him, but I basically just pushed it aside. And for what? I guess because I wanted to admit how I felt for him, to only him, not to Aidan as well. And from the looks of things, Eric looked crushed that I just put us in the friend zone. Why in the world did I do that?

"Hello, Alex," said Lynn waving her hand in front of my face.

"I'm sorry, did somebody ask me something?" The girls at the table started to laugh. I guess I was zoning out again. There was only one reason why. After that morning, Eric and I didn't talk. We would walk to class in silence and when we finally were in classes, we only talked about class. We would both end up staring at each other for long periods of time and it was killing me. During practice for both cheer and volleyball, I couldn't stop thinking about what I did. It was like this for the past four days. And now Thursday night during dinner, I wasn't paying attention to anything or anyone.

"Are you okay," whispered Shauna as she put her hand on my shoulder. Concern dripping all over her face.

"I know I've been off lately, I'm sorry," I replied patting her hand. She moved it and then continued on in their conversation. About what? I don't know. I lifted my head towards the other end of the table to see Eric staring at me. I couldn't read his expression anymore, couldn't tell if he was mad, irritated, or even bitter about what happened that morning.

"I'm going to head back up to my room," I said unable to take anymore.

"Did you want someone to follow you," said Myra standing up.

"Thanks Myra, but I'll be okay. I think I just need some air." Myra nodded and sat back down. She was the only one I told about that morning, although I'm pretty sure Tris, Shauna, and Lauren probably found out from their boyfriends. But the only thing that they knew was that they found me in bed with Eric. Myra knew about the conversation with Aidan.

"Hey, Alex," called out Four. Four! Out of all the people that followed me out of the cafeteria. He looked so serious. Oh no, did the guys start to hate me all over again?

"I didn't really get a chance to talk about that morning," he started.

"What about it," I said looking away.

"You and Eric need to talk about it." I turned back to look at Four. There was no sign of humor on his face. "I'm not saying this as a friend, probably because I'm not the closest of friends with either Eric or you." Uh duh! One reason why I'm wondering why you're out here. "But think of it as something a brother might say. Eric, is my teammate and after last year, I view him as a brother, too. He's been acting weird lately and I know it has something to do with that morning. Tris said the same thing about you. With that being said, I think you two should talk it out."

"I don't think it'll fix it," I said as the cafeteria building door opened. Uriah and Peter came out. "The night before, it was perfect. We hung out and just talked. But the next morning, Aidan asked us something and I totally just disregarded Eric."

"I swear you two just need to get it on already," teased Uriah. "There's just too much sexual tension between the two of you." Tension, because we were both waiting to kiss each other and it still never happened. As I looked at Uriah, I couldn't help but think that he was one of those reasons why.

"Don't just talk it out for your folks own sanity," said Peter seriously. Then a smile appeared on his face. "Do it for the team," he teased. I rolled my eyes. "I'm serious Alex. We're 4-0. We've been doing really good this year. Four, Zeke, Dominic, and Will have already gotten colleges coming down. There's been a couple calls for your brother, Eric, Roman, Uriah, me," he said going back to serious now. "I hate to say it, but we worked so hard to get to where we're at, especially after last year, and I'm not going to have some pretty girl think she can play with Eric all over again and mess that up."

"Peter," Four reprimanded. Peter immediately shut down and so did Uriah. Four said with so much authority and kept his presence so intimidating, I highly doubt Peter was going to say anything else. It looked like he almost shit his pants.

"Just talk to him, not for the team," Four said sternly towards Peter. Then he turned back to me. "But also for both of your sake."

I nodded and with that Uriah and Peter followed Four back into the cafeteria.

The next day, nothing changed. When Saturday rolled around, things were even more tense. Both volleyball and football were playing the same school. The volleyball game was just as hard as last week, but this wasn't the #1 team. This school had the worst record for the past six years and we were going into a fifth set again.

"Alex," said Lauren before we walked out onto the court to start the fifth set. "I know you're a little off about the whole Eric and you situation, but you need to focus right now, okay?"

"Don't worry, my head is here now." And for the first time all week, I was finally able to concentrate on what was going on. We ended up winning the match with the fifth set score being 15-4. We actually finished in time to catch the second half of the football game. Lauren rushed me out the lockers in our cheer uniform and over to the football field.

Everything was lacking for them too. They were barely holding on. The coach called a timeout and I positioned myself to where someone could see me. Edward spotted me first and then gave me a slight smile. He turned his head and snapped his fingers in front of Eric. Eric looked my way and I smiled at him. Surprisingly, he smiled back. Things weren't better, but in that moment, it seemed like it was okay.

After the game was done, I ran onto the field looking for Aidan. He kept the ball during the last play and was only supposed to run out of the bounds to stop the clock, but instead was able to run the ball 62 yards for a touchdown and the win.

I turned hearing someone call my name. It took a while for me to process that it was Eric and not Aidan. I don't know why, but before I could say anything, my body ran forward into him. He caught me in his arms and squeezed me into a hug.

"I'm so sorry, I've been so stupid," I told him while we were still in the hug.

"No," he replied squeezing me tighter. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let this gone on as long as it did."

I pulled back and looked at him. "I told you I would always be with you."

"So did I," he said softly as he stroked my cheek. Throughout all the chaos of everyone cheering, it seemed like in that moment time had stopped just for us. He pulled me into another hug. Past him I saw Aidan making his way over. I pulled back a little and showed Eric that Aidan was coming over. Eric and Aidan started screaming along with the crowd and did some sort of shoulder bump in the air. When they were finally done celebrating, I hugged Aidan.

"Who knew you could run?"

"It's called being talented," he said pulling out of the hug. "How did your game go?"

"The same as yours," I said punching his shoulder. "We had to pull a last minute win out the bag. But I have to say this by far was the most exciting game for you folks," I said looking around as others were coming to congratulate Aidan. "You did really good Aidan." We both smiled and then I turned to walk off. I congratulated Trick, Uriah, Edward, Zeke, Dominic, and surprisingly Four.

Will and Christina had already started making out on the sideline, until Al and Peter ran past with the cooler of water and dumped half of it on them. Suddenly I stopped dead where I was. It was as if a light bulb came on in my head.

"What's going on," asked Myra. Edward looked ahead and pointed out Will and Christina. Christina was fuming. Either she was

I turned to Myra and smiled. For some reason all these ideas came to me when I was with Myra. I looked behind me and then back at Al and Peter.

"Hey," I called out to them. I ran up to the two. "Can I have whatever is in here?" They both looked at me crazy and then handed it to me. Just then Eric came by and asked what I was doing. "Help me carry this over there," I motioned to the middle of the field. He saw where I wanted to go and helped me carry it, which wasn't hard for him. He could have probably carried this himself.

The second we found Aidan, Eric took the whole cooler and dumped the remaining ice water on Aidan. Aidan turned around and I kissed his cheek.

"I love you so much my dear wet brother!" I yelled and ran before you could grab me and get me wet also.

That night the party was in the cafeteria. How Uriah and Zeke were able to pull this off, I have no idea.

Tonight, for some reason I found myself dancing with other guys besides the football team. I was dancing with Grant, our student body president, and Landon who was the baseball captain. I met him before and cheer tryouts, but after dancing with Al, Al brought me to dance with Landon. He seemed like a decent guy. After a couple songs, we sat down and talked about me trying out for softball later on. Apparently the school wasn't big on baseball or softball, but the players were really enthusiastic and talented.

"Al is a way better baseball player than football," teased Landon. I started to laugh. "Al is good at football, but I think because baseball is less physical contact, that he puts the extra effort into it."

"I heard that Edward plays too."

"Yeah, he's actually really great at both sports. Edward just excels in almost anything. I guess because they've put so much education into that brain of his back in Erudite, that he's really a quick learner and very adaptable. He's kind of like Eric." Landon said looking at me. "Speaking about Eric, are you two dating?"

I started to laugh. "No, we're not dating."

"But you like each other?"

"I won't even talk about this to the guys, let alone my brother, what makes you think that you're going to get it out of me," I teased. He started to chuckle.

"I just want to make sure I'm not going to get in between the two of you," he said softly. I looked at him and it seemed like at the moment, he was trying to say that he liked me. Is that why Al pulled us together? I looked away, shaking my head, and quickly changed the subject.

We started to laugh about other things and then Edward stopped in front of us.

"I think you should hurry up and get out of here, Alex," Edward said smiling.

"Why, what's going on," I asked. Even though he was smiling, I knew something bad was going to happen. To prove my point, Myra, Tris, and Shauna ran my way.

"Hurry up Alex," shouted Tris as they ran out. In the back of the cafeteria, someone screamed. Slowly one by one, the fire sprinklers in the cafeteria were going off.

"Bye Alex," said Landon as he leaned in and kissed my cheek. It was a weird feeling. Not like how I felt with Eric's lips on mine. It didn't even feel anywhere near as good as Edward's kiss. I smiled at him. What else could I do? Edward threw me a questioning look. I shook my head, hugged Edward thanking him for warning me, and ran after Myra, Tris, and Shauna just as the last sprinkler turned on.