ALEXIS MAXWELL
"Thank you, keep the change," I tell the girl standing behind the counter as I grab the two boxes of Chinese food for me and Andrew. I have another sports project and decided to just do basketball because it's hard to find someone else with a sport for this.
"Well, well, well. Look who needs my help." Andrew smirks at me as he opens the door to let me into his apartment. "What? Your dorm has a mini kitchen? This is so not fair. My dorm is a bed, desk, and a chair." I tell him.
"A lot of the dorms that I've been to here in this building have little miniature kitchens in them. You're missing out." He says with a chuckle at the end. I just roll my eyes at his antics and say "Anyway, we should start on my project."
"Yeah, so what is this project exactly?" He asks me, picking up the paper that has the grading rubric on it.
"There's three, sections to it. I have to pick three and do them. There's a video interview, written interview, or an interview in the form of an essay." I tell him, looking at the paper to see my options.
"Is it okay if I film you for the video interview?" I ask him. He says that would be okay so I take out the consent form so that he can sign it.
"I just need you to sign this consent form because our teacher is strict about how if we video someone they need to sign this form," I explain to him.
He put the paper on a notebook he was holding and then signed it before handing it back to me. "Okay, let me just pull up the questions, and then we can get started," I say, going to the google doc for the questions about basketball.
1. How long have you been playing?
2. What state are you from?
3. Do you need to be tall to play basketball?
4. Best game so far this year?
5. Worst game so far this year?
6. If it's your senior year are you going pro?
7. If it were your senior year in high school would you still play?
After setting up the tripod I'm filming on we sit across from each other on his bed.
"Alright, Mr. Davis have you signed the consent form before attending this interview?" I ask him in my professional voice.
"Yes, I have." He says, sounding a little bit confused. "Great, to start this interview about your basketball career I need to know how long have you been playing for, how old were you when you started?" I ask him, continuing with my professional voice.
"Of course, so this is my 14th season playing basketball, my first year was on a pee-wee team when I was only seven years old." He answers my question in a stern voice. "Talking about you, why don't you tell me a little bit about you, like where are you from and your family life," I request from him.
"Sure. I'm from right here in San Diego. I only live about 20 minutes away from campus. As a child I lived with my two parents, and my 6 brothers. They are all older and moved out right now." He says, talking about family like I asked him to.
"Thank you for that, now moving on to your actual basketball skills. Why don't you talk about some of your games this year? Tell me about your worst and beat game so far this year." I request from him.
"Of course. My personal best game was this year against Harvard. I made 38 shots and had 14 assists to someone else on the team. The entire team played excellent that day and it was a great day to be an Aztec.
One of the worst games so far this year was against Southern California state university. The team as a whole seemed pretty distracted that day and it just was pretty bad. I made 4 points which is my lowest record for a single game in years. We still won, but it was not a good team. The score was only 34-12 which is horrible for us." He talks about his games for so far this year.
—
"Alright, are you coming to game night?" Andrew asks me. Once a week Xavier, Amelia, Ariana, and Oliver have a game night. I've gone every once in a while and Andrew goes every once in a while, but we've never actually gone on the same night to one.
"Yeah, I guess I can. Let me just download the file for the interview and turn it in." I tell him, pulling the sd card out of the camera and inserting it into the side of my laptop.
"Yeah, I meant to ask before, but you said how you love basketball and it is your life, but since you have a business to run you won't be able to go pro even though you have the offers. Would you go pro if you didn't have the business?" I ask him, curiously.
"No, probably not. I didn't lie. I love basketball and is most definitely is my life, but the business is something I plan on doing forever, while basketball is more of just a hobby for me. Not exactly but kind of like how you don't want to dance forever, you only want to do it for a few years before doing something else." He clarifies with me.
"True" I shrug standing up to stretch my legs. "Want to head over to Oliver's?" He asks me, I suppose that is where game night is going to be held tonight.
"Yeah, Lia told me to be there by 7:30 and it's already 7:15," I say, tapping my phone to check the exact time.
"Alright, you can leave your stuff and grab it on the way back to your dorm later." He tells me, opening his door and walking into the hallway.
"Okay, that makes sense, plus I don't feel like going upstairs right now," I say, putting all of my stuff into one bag.
Walking into Xavier and Lia's apartment I probably looked so confused. It was majorly decorated for Christmas.
"Why- just why?" I ask the two of them who are laying with each other on the couch.
"What? We did it late this year. Usually, we do it the day after Halloween." Xavier says, talking about all of the decorations that are up.
It's true though, last year the day after Halloween all of the decorations were already up. "Anyways," I say, still looking around at all of them.
"Who's ready to lose?" Ariana asks as she and Oliver come walking into the apartment.
"What game do you guys want to play?" Amelia asks. "Before we start how about a little twisted truth or truth?" Ariana asks with a smirk. Usually, when she's smirking there's something strange going on in her mind.
"So, here are these boards, they all have a yes or no on them so we are going to wear blindfolds and someone is going to make an automated voice ask questions me all of us have to flip the Board to whatever side applies." Ariana finishes explaining the game.
ARIANA KAISER
Giving Alexis and Andrew the blindfolds the other four of us just hold ours and wait for them to put theirs on.
"Okay, does everyone have their blindfolds on?" I ask, making it sound like we all have them on.
"Question one: are you in a current relationship or liking someone enough to be in a relationship?" The automated voice from the app asked. Andrew and Alexis both flipped the board to say yes.
I made the app malfunction and then said "It looks like the app isn't working, let's just get into all of the other games." Before Alexis and Andrew could pull their blindfolds off at just looked at Amelia, Xavier, and Oliver and put my finger to my mouth in a 'shhh' motion.
ALEXIS MAXWELL
I don't know what happened exactly, but I know that Ariana had something to do with it. "What did you do?" I ask her with my eyes narrowed in her direction.
"Me? Nothing." She says with a shrug of her shoulders. "Fine. Amelia, what did you do?" I ask her. "Nothing?" She squeaks out. "Wow, Lex, that's messed up, targeting the weakest links first." Says Andrew while shaking his head and chuckling.
"She may or may not have-" Amelia starts to nod her head at Ariana, but stops when Xavier covers her mouth with his hand. I turned to Andrew and raised an eyebrow at him and asked him "anything you would like to say?"
"What? I was wearing a blindfold just like you were." He says shrugging his shoulders.
"I'm watching you, Ariana," I say with narrowed eyes.
ANDREW DAVIS
After leaving game night I ended up going back to my parent's house my mom is starting to plan since thanksgiving is in around two weeks.
After a lot of planning, I head up to my childhood room to go to bed. After checking all my notifications and starting to feel myself nod off, I fall asleep.
Waking up in the morning I hop in the shower before getting dressed and doing my hair for the day. I need to head back to campus for classes, unfortunately. I graduate in May of this year so unfortunately I still have another semester.
Before heading to my first class I luckily have a little spare time so I decided to go on my laptop and look into how the company is doing. Right now I'm not exactly the owner because my dad and brother have been taking care of it until I finish school.
Seeing that all the money that's should be there is I sign out grabbing my bag and keys and head out. My first class is entrepreneurship. This is one that my parents made me take it I wouldn't inherit the business. It's of course good stuff to know, but it's not practical since I didn't even create the business.
Walking into my entrepreneurship class I see that most of the seats are empty so I take a seat at a random one since I'm not necessarily friends with anyone in any of these classes.
"Raise your hand if you're interested in starting your own business, started your own business, or got a business passed down to you." The professor says into his little microphone. I raised my hand as I have already inherited a business.
"Miss. Craig, which of the three options are you?" He asks a random girl sitting on the other side of the auditorium from me. "I started a small business, sir." She says with a shaky voice.
"That's great. What about you-" The professor starts talking and turns around and looks at me, and continues with "Mr. Davis?"
"I inherited a company," I say, respectfully. "What kind of company is this?" He asked me.
"Davis inc. tech, sir" I say. "You, Mr. Johnston what about you?" He asks a random guy sitting in around the third row.
"Alright, you guys can all head out now. Keep in mind the homework is due in two classes, whenever that may be." Professor finishes. He has a habit of canceling classes very last minute and just sending us lessons be assignments through email.
Walking out I see Ariana, Amelia, and Alexis walking together. They're probably on their way to the cafe that is over here. I probably look like a creep just staring at the three of them walking. Shaking my head I go back to my dorm room for a quick break before my other two classes for today.
Looking at the homework we just have to give local examples for different types of businesses.
Andrew Davis - Small businesses homework
Entrepreneurship
11/9
Corporation- Aptera
Small business- Bird rock coffee roasters
Partnership- American Red Cross
Cooperative- Seabreeze organic farms
Nonprofit organization-Invisible children inc.
Listing off all of the answers to my homework I start putting it with the stuff that I always bring for that class when I hear a knock on the door. I open it and see Alexis standing there. "Hi?" I asked her, confused on why she was here right now.
"I never came back last night, I headed straight home and I left my bag here." She says, reminding me that I put her backpack that has her laptop in it.
"Sorry, I completely forgot about your bag. It's over here." I say walking over and grabbing it and picking it up. I guess one of the zippers was open or something because a bunch of papers and pens fell out when I lifted it.
"Oh god, I forgot to close the front zipper." She says and walks over picking up the papers and pens before I even have the chance to do it. "You're backpack has a bit of a mess there, huh?" I asked her, jokingly.
"Just a little." She says sarcastically, with a cute blush. Picking up the stuff she puts it neatly back in her bag. "How bad was your hangover this morning?" I ask her, knowing that Ariana got her extremely drunk last night.
"I'm going to murder Ariana. Friend or not." She says with a roll of her eyes. "This happens every game night, This is how Ariana has just a high tolerance to alcohol because she's constantly drinking." She says with a light chuckle.
"Here, do you want a cup, you look like your about to fall over," I say, talking about a cup of coffee. "Yes, that would be fucking fantastic." She groans rubbing her temples.
"Can I please have your dorm? I'm in love." She says after I have her sit down on the small couch. "No thanks, I'd rather not have yours with us for the size of a hamster," I tell her, sarcastically. I'm honestly lucky that I didn't get one like hers. Most people have to share but she got lucky.
"So how have you been?" I ask her, talking about how she is after her dad and step-mom's accident.
"I've been better." She says sarcastically and I just give her a look.
"Fine." She groans, exaggerating the end of the word. "I've been better, not just avoiding the topic all of the time and sleeping all day. I'm not like over it, but I'm getting there." She says.
"That's good. Have you talked to anyone about it?" I ask her.
"Nope- well unless you count?" She asks me. "No, I do not count." I roll my eyes at her sarcasm. "It was hard but trust me I am getting better." She says emphasizing the word am. "I'll be right back, can I just use your bathroom?" She asks me.
"Of course" I laugh at her question. "It's that door right there," I say pointing to the door that leads to the bathroom.
She left her phone out on my bed and I hear it go off.
iMessage (text from Damon Alvarez)
iMessage (text from Damon Alvarez)
Who is Damon?
Alexis comes out of the bathroom with her hair in a ponytail instead of it flowing down her back like it usually is.
"Hey, are you okay?" She asks me looking a little concerned. "Yeah I'm good, you have a few notifications," I tell her, trying to sound normal.
"Okay, thanks," She says and picks up her phone before frowning and putting it down.
"That's just this guy that I did an assignment with last week and he's asked me out a few times but I don't want to so he's been annoying me about it. " She explains to me while rolling her eyes.
Good.
"Anyways I should probably head out. I was just gonna grab this and head to the cafeteria to grab dinner." She says getting ready to leave.
"I'm kinda hungry anyway, mind if I come with?" I ask her. "You can, but I'm not eating there. I'm grabbing it and then heading back up to my dorm to work on another essay." She says swinging her bag over her shoulder. "You can come up with me if you want to though." She shrugs at me.
"Sure, I'm done with everything I need to do today anyway," I tell her. We walk down to the cafeteria making small talk until we get there. We go our separate ways and meet back up at the front door.
She comes holding a chicken and shrimp salad with iced tea for a drink while I have a cheeseburger with a side salad and a Gatorade to drink. "You better not just be eating a salad because you are in front of me." I tease her, we had just talked about food and people not eating in front of others.
"No, I love the shrimp and chicken salads that they sell here, but they rarely have them." She explains to me.
"So, what are you doing this weekend?" I ask her, just making small talk in the elevator on the way to her dorm.
"Nothing much. Saturday I'm going to the beach with one of my cousins who is coming here from Los Angeles." She says, sounding excited.
"It's a miracle, you are getting a day off from dealing with Ariana and Amelia," I say feigning shock. "It is." She says and giggles.
"What class are you writing an essay for?" I ask her.
"Dance history, that's the only class we have assignments in. The rest is actual dance." She explains and goes back down to writing her essay.
I text my mom one of the details about thanksgiving that she asked me for and when I look up I see Alexis already looking at me.
I turn my head towards where she is and see her blush knowing I caught her staring. Before either of us know what is happening our lips smash together.