Hunter
I've never really seen the appeal of playing chess.
It's too calm and quiet. You're not allowed to talk, and you have to do a lot of thinking. For some reason, it is frowned upon to make special sound effects and have your pieces wrestle the other person's pieces when you're taking them off the board. Oh, and it is so not on to have chase scenes between your knight and the other guy's pieces. Don't even get me started on what happens when your knight kidnaps the opponent's queen.
I'm not allowed to play for the school team anymore...
My dad still plays with me. He doesn't mind me talking and making sounds and patiently waits, looking a little confused while I let my queen have a bit of sexy time with one of the rooks. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but when I was a kid, my dad bought me this really cool set to trick me into thinking it was a fun game. All the pieces look like real knights, horses, ladies and things. The rooks are these gnarly look-out towers with hunky swordsmen guarding them, and I see the way that frisky queen is always looking at them.
The only thing worse than playing chess for a team where you need to shut up and play the game is watching serious matches... where you need to shut up and watch the game. I think it is the shutting-up part that gets to me the most. Right now, my old chess set is being used on the coffee table in our living room, and I'm totally enjoying watching the potent match being played between Jake and Ronja.
It is fraught with tension, and this time, it is not the queen flirting with the rooks causing that tension. I really thought that Ronja was a shy, quiet girl, but I guess I just met her at a rough time in her life. The fact that we were strangers also played a part, and then there is the language barrier.
Right now, there's nothing shy or quiet about her, and all barriers have been demolished. She'd just taken Jake's knight off the board, using one of her bishops, and while she was doing it, she made the kind of sounds I often hear in the Star Wars movies. I'm totally going to buy myself a Star Wars chess set and invite her over to play with me so we can make those sounds all the time.
It's going to be seriously fun!
Jake is giving her that condescending look he always used to give me when he was still willing to play chess with me, but unlike me, Ronja doesn't just grin and tell him to lighten up because he's going to develop premature baldness due to high blood pressure. No, she is lowering those thick lashes of hers, peeking seductively at him and... she just blew the dude a kiss!
I'm dying!
Paisley is chuckling happily, clearly enjoying this match (the third in a row) as much as I am. Ronja won the first game (we are all still vibrating with shock) and offered Jake a re-match, which he won, and this is a re-match of their re-match. I don't think Jake just let Ronja win the first one. It's not in his weird-ass set of ethics to ever let anyone win anything against him; they have to work for it. He is not allowed to play any games against Emmy anymore.
The tribe has spoken!
I smile at Paisley, where she's snuggling with Ash on one of the beanbags. It's good to see them both bright-eyed and happy for a change, but it will take some getting used to since they're not usually this open about how they feel about each other.
Still, I like it.
Except that it's making it hard for me to be near Willow without trying to take her hand and stuff like that, which is why I'm snuggling with Dex right now. Well, snuggle might not be the right word. We're lounging on opposite ends of the couch, our game controllers lying forgotten next to us. The sexy chess match distracted us, and our avatars have died and spawned a million times on the TV screen, but neither of us cares all that much at the moment. Our online teammates probably care...
"Check," Ronja says, winking at Jake and from the shade of red creeping up the dude's neck, I think he is very close to having a stroke or something. He picks up his glass of juice and, trying to calm down, takes a sip of the bright berry and orange concoction Tanner made.
"Is little king ready to submit to sexy queen?" Ronja asks in that sassy accent of hers, causing a ripple of laughter and chaos... again. I glance at Willow and am not surprised to see her blushing. I am, however, surprised to see her gasp in shock and jump to her feet. Up until this moment, she'd been sitting quietly on a chair, watching the game, avoiding eye contact with the rest of us.
The cause of her shock is Jake, who, startled or excited (not sure) by Ronja's words, spat out a mouthful of juice, spraying the girl's top with bright colour.
"S-sorry," he gasps, grabbing a bunch of tissues from the box near the board. He is wiping his mouth and chin with some and handing a few to Ronja.
"You are painful loser, Jake Davenport!" Ronja snaps, her cheeks flushed with anger. She is really pretty right now, and the way she pronounced his name would definitely be tying Jake's guts in knots. It sounded really hot.
"It was an accident..."
Ronja is not listening; she picks up her glass and gives it a brisk shake, splashing some of her own rainbow juice at Jake. It hits him in the face and chest and splatters all over the chessboard.
"I said it was a friggin' accident!" Jake bellows, grabbing his glass and splashing her too. Jake is the calmest person I know. I've seen the guy serenely grab snacks from the air and pop them into his mouth in the middle of a food fight, not even losing his place in the book he was reading at the time. This kind of behaviour is expected of Tanner, Paisley and me, not of Jake.
"Whoa, Boyo!" Dex gasps, rolling off the couch and launching himself to his feet to stop the two chess players, who seem ready to have a full-on brawl now. Willow is also at the coffee table, trying to clean Ronja with tissues.
"Come," she says, taking the angry girl's arm. "Let's get you cleaned up." I can see that Missy is really shocked and not sure how to handle the situation, but I can also hear sweet giggles escaping from her when she fails to keep them suppressed.
I would help, but I'm too busy falling off the couch, unable to control my muscles because I'm laughing so hard. Ash was trying to get Paisley off his lap so that he could save his best friend from the blond warrior, but he'd given up now, trapped under the laughing girl.
"Come on, Jakes, let's get you a clean shirt," I chuckle, finally making it to my feet. Willow takes Ronja into her room, and I take Jake into mine, but I think the two of us are forgetting one very important thing: it's a shared bathroom.
Jake went in there to get cleaned up while I find him a shirt, and I can hear some disturbing splashing sounds coming from there now. I don't think the dude is just violently cleaning himself.
Well, at least they're in the bathroom, and their ammunition is now just water, so it's probably all good... unless they drown each other.
I pull a top from the neat stack in my wardrobe and grab some sweatpants, too, since I'm not sure of the state of Jake's jeans. I arrive at the bathroom door, ready to offer the clothes to Jake in exchange for him closing the taps and stopping splashing his chess opponent with water.
My words die on my lips when I see Willow standing at the opposite door, clutching a pretty pink knitted sweater in her hand. Her mouth is hanging open, and I follow the direction of her eyes with my own to see Jake and Ronja standing at the counter containing the two wash basins. There are water splashes against the mirror, on the counter and on the floor and probably on both of them as well.
I cannot verify that because Jake has hold of Ronja's wrist as if to ward off another attack. She is pressed up against the counter, and Jake is... well... pressed up against her, and they are now attacking each other in a much more fun way, which is making me choke up a little.
I step into the bathroom and close the tap of the nearest basin, placing the clean clothes on a small dry patch close to the door. Retreating, I cock my head at Willow, who is still gaping at the kissing pair as if her brain is refusing to make sense of what she's seeing.
She hurries to close the tap at her basin, drops the top on the counter and runs from the bathroom, through her bedroom and into the hallway outside, where I meet her.
"What the hell was that?" I gasp, blinking at Willow. We're standing side by side between our bedroom doors, our backs pressed tightly against the wall as if we're in hiding. I have never seen Jake do something like that in the decade I've known him. Did Willow's kiss melt the microchips in his veins? Exactly what did she do to my friend last night?
"Well, she did call him Beautiful Boy..." she mutters and looking at her wide eyes and astonished expression, I double up with laughter. The sound of Missy's warm giggles washes over me in the kind of waves that could get me carried away in the same kind of river currently drowning my buddy in the bathroom.
♫
Jake
"Uhm," I say when Ronja and I finally come up for air. That is about as eloquent as I can possibly be right now.
This is insane!
One minute I was luring her into trapping my king with her bishop while I got ready to hit her with a stealthy move from my rook and a pawn I had perfectly lined up, and the next, we're in a juice shower and now...
Now I'm standing breathless in the bathroom. My hair is wet, my shirt and jeans are wet, and I feel as if I've just barely survived one of Coach's more creative endurance training sessions. No, I'm not in pain; I'm just breathing loudly, and my legs are quaking.
Ronja's eyes are two black pools trapped in icy blue, gazing into mine. Her lips are redder than I remember them, and her cheeks are the gentle pink shades of a peach. She is beautiful, and I am lost.
What the hell just happened?
I came in here, put my glasses on the counter, washed my face and tried to do something about the spreading stains on my shirt. I think Ronja came in here for the same purpose. At first, that was exactly what we were doing, standing side by side, each using a basin to clean up. When I tried again to tell her that spraying her with juice was an accident, she either accidentally or on purpose shoved her fingers into the running tap, causing a wave of water to hit me.
After debating some of Einstein's theories with her in the study earlier, I think she has enough knowledge of physics to have planned that surprise shower perfectly... Also, it was my tap. So, I used my fingers and her tap to do the same to her.
Things really started to get out of control in here, but I did not care. I usually care when things become too chaotic, but... I was having fun. Okay, I'll admit it! Helping Ronja to turn Hunter and Willow's bathroom into a flood scene was seriously fun.
I'm not exactly sure when and how the kissing started. I just remember grabbing her wrist to stop her from taking the tube of toothpaste lying on the counter, and then...
I smile at her and decide it best to put on my glasses and not look at her so much anymore. I'm having the longest brain fart in history.
"I'm sorry about your top," I say and pull off my wet t-shirt to exchange it for the one Hunter left me. When did he put it there? I'm sure it wasn't on the counter when I just came in here, so he must've brought it. Pulling the dark green Foo Fighters t-shirt over my stomach, I'm startled to find Ronja watching me with a cheeky grin, clearly enjoying the show.
"Oj," she says, running her eyes over me in a way that would put Tanner's saucy looks to shame. "Apology accepted."
I'm blushing! Seriously! I'm blushing! Me!
Changing my top was a reflex in reaction to the cold, wet material of my shirt against my skin. I am not thinking clearly. Besides, I don't normally hang out with girls other than Paisley... and definitely not in a bathroom.
"I am no longer sorry," Ronja shrugs, smiling sweetly. She picks up a fluffy sweater that has also spawned on the counter, and for a second, I think the girl is going to make me explode by changing her top in front of me, but she doesn't... and now I'm disappointed.
Who the hell am I?!
"Will you please walk me home after I put this on?" she asks, peeking up at me in an almost shy way. "And cleaned bathroom..."
"You're leaving?"
"Have... uhm... curvy hour?"
"Curfew?"
"Yes, word makes no sense to me. I have that."
"Sure, I'll walk you home," I smile, once again amused by the entertaining things she is constantly saying in that rather cute accent of hers. I am a bit surprised that she's asking me to walk her home. Wouldn't she rather put some distance between us since I've clearly lost my mind?
Apparently not, because she's smiling at me rather sweetly, and man, I want to kiss her again!
"We have to walk down street over there with bus stop and around to park... I live over there."
She is indicating an entire circle route, first taking us in the opposite direction from where she just said she lived. We'll be walking around a rather large block to the park before we get to her house.
"I don't want Papa to see me walking with boy," she explains, and I narrow my eyes, feeling a bit uneasy now.
"Oh, he'll see us if we just go straight down the road and around the corner?"
"No," she shrugs, peering at me from under her lashes in the same way that caused me to lose that first chess game against her... probably... "It's shorter."
♪♫♪