Finding the Unexpected

Chapter 4

                “Umm, thanks, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.  You’re not my type.”  Which he definitely isn’t my type, I actually like guys with manners and that don’t treat me like his personal pleasure tool.  He probably fucks himself more than he gets laid. 

                Camden introduces me to a few other guys.  I think there are like ten of them all together, but I don’t remember most of them.  Troy was the only one of them that actually seemed genuine and nice.  All the others kept looking at my body much too frequently for my liking.  We start hitting the ball around and warming up.  Thankfully, I am not too bad at volleyball even though I got forced into this thing.

                I am hitting the ball with Troy and Braden, but I start to hear the annoying sound of girl’s voices.  Shit, my favorite.  Braden laughs when he sees my face.  He leans down to my ear and whispers, “Just smile and it will be over soon.  They are gonna be jealous as hell no matter what because of how much hotter you are than all of them, so it doesn’t really matter.”  I am not one to ever need compliments to feel good about myself, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that hearing that from him made me smile a little brighter. 

                The girls all look me over and put annoying fake smiles on their faces.  I can tell that they have all decided to pretend to be friends with me.  I am so not putting up with their shit.  They might think I am a bitch, but I learned a long time ago that playing games and being fake is not my way of doing things.

                Luckily, there are only four of them here.  I am sure that they are the top of the social ladder at school, but they are at the bottom of my wanting to be friends lists.   Three of them are blonde, but it looks like only one of them is actually naturally blonde.  The other is brunette.  The natural blonde and the prettiest of them seems to be the leader.  She decides it’s time to talk to me.  “Hi, I’m Nicole.  This is Angela (one of the fake blondes), Charlotte (brunette chick), and Shelby (the other fake blonde).”  They all nod and half smile when she introduces them. 

                I attempt to smile back, but I think they can tell it is forced.  “Hey, I am Harley.  It’s nice to meet you guys.”  I start to walk back to Troy and Braden to keep warming up when I hear one of them talk to me.

                “You’re actually gonna play volleyball with them? Normally, we just sit and watch and lay out,” says Shelby.  I can tell she is disgusted by the fact that I am gonna play, but I am sure as hell not gonna just sit here and chat with these bitches. 

                “Yeah, I like to play volleyball, and I already laid out for like three hours before everyone got here. “  I grin and walk away.  Let’s hope that I play decently well cause I could enjoy showing off for their benefit.  Thankfully, the way teams work out, I am on a team with Braden and Troy.  The other guys seem alright.  Camden and his three friends that annoyed me are on the other team. 

                The first game goes pretty quickly, and we win by two points.  I did pretty good and got all my serves in, so I am pretty happy.  Troy smiles and says, “Damn Harley, you are actually really good at volleyball.  Glad you were on our team.” 

                “Thanks.  It’s been a while since I last played, but we used to play a lot of beach volleyball if we finished the photo shoots early.  All of us liked to keep in pretty good shape, and we all hated just chilling in the hotel rooms.  I forgot how much I loved to play.”  I really did enjoy playing that game, and all the guys on our team were pretty encouraging and nice when we did something wrong.  Camden’s team was pretty sore about losing though.  They already wanted a rematch. 

                After another close game which we barely won, the other team was pissed off enough to not want to play anymore.  They all ran and jumped into the pool.  Even some of the girls had been convinced to go swimming with them.  I was getting ready to head inside when Troy came walking to me with a girl that I am assuming is Izzy.  She looked pretty cool.  Her style was different than most; she seemed to have a funky way of putting colors and patterns together.  She pulled it off really well though.  Troy and Izzy definitely seemed to have an awesome relationship.  They were joking around and laughing at something she had said.  Braden ran up behind her and picked her up and started swinging her around.  Troy just laughed even more, so I am guessing this was a pretty usual thing.  They all looked pretty close.

                They all got to me, and I smiled at Izzy.  “Hey Izzy, I’m Harley.  It’s really nice to meet you.” 

                “Hi Harley.  It’s nice to meet you too.  Sorry it took me a while to get here, but I was taking some photos for the school paper.  Not that I am sorry about missing volleyball, even though I heard that you guys kicked some ass.”  Wow.  I already like her. 

“Oh it’s no problem.  I had fun playing.  What kind of photos were you taking?  I love photography and was thinking about seeing if there was a photography club at school cause I haven’t gotten a chance to use my new camera.”  I was really excited to see if she was as into photos as I was.  After being in the pictures all the time, I had gotten interested in learning about the other side of the process.  Luckily, I had been dating one of the photographers that did a lot of my shoots.  He even bought me this crazy awesome camera as a going away gift.  Now, I just needed to find a reason to use it and maybe how to actually use it.

Me and Izzy talked for a while about photography, and I learned about the photography club at school that she was in.  Apparently they partnered with the school paper, so if I was in it, I would be taking pictures for that too.  It all sounded really cool.  She even said that the guy in charge of both the photography club and the school paper was really awesome and would be excited that someone else wanted to join. 

I knew that Izzy was someone who would become a good friend.  We had a lot in common, and she didn’t care how I looked or about a bunch of shallow things.  She was real, and she was only gonna be herself.  Troy was dating an awesome girl.  They had both headed out cause they had some stuff to do, and I used that as my excuse to head inside, but I wanted to thank Braden for everything he had done today.

At the moment, Nicole looked to be trying pretty hard to get his attention, but he was doing a pretty good job of ignoring her even though she kept touching him with her hand to get his attention.  I figured I would help him out.  “Hey Braden, I need your help!” I yelled.  The relief on his face was pretty humorous. 

He quickly left and came over.  “What can I do for ya?”

I laughed and said, “Nothing, I just did not want to have to watch you suffer any longer.  You looked like you wanted to be anywhere but there.  Plus, I really wanted to thank you for introducing me to Izzy and just being so helpful today with all of this.  I know you went out of your way to make sure I was comfortable, and I really appreciate it.  I definitely had the wrong impression of you last night, and I have been completely proven wrong today.”  He smiled because of what I said, and I was reminded of how attractive he really is.  No wonder Nicole was trying to get his attention.

“Thanks Harley.  I was attempting to figure out a way to get rid of Nicole, but Troy normally is my excuse and he already left.  I had fun today, and I am glad you and Izzy got along so well.  She is one of the sweetest and real people I know.  You definitely can’t do any better when it comes to friends than her.  I still have no idea how Troy got her to go out with him.  He asked her out like fifty times before she finally said yes.  It was hilarious.”

“That sounds funny.  I guess she wanted to make sure he was really interested.  Anyway I am gonna head in now, but I just felt like saying thanks.  Have fun!” 

I have officially met several of my future classmates.  Most of them kind of sucked, but at least Troy and Izzy were pretty awesome.  Braden is awesome too, and I can’t help but be impressed that he has hung around all those people without turning out like them.  Monday will be my first day of high school, but at least I skipped the first two years.  Only two more to go.