"'HEY SETH, ARE you free tomorrow afternoon?' Does that sound okay? It kind of makes me sound desperate, doesn't it?" Nicole asked as she was pacing across her room, her phone in hand. "Come on Cecelia, help me."
Cecelia sat on her bed, Nastya, the family dog laying with her there and Vivian, Nicole's six year old sister, was petting her. "I don't get why you're so nervous. It's not like you're texting the president, just send this message, even if you would spell his name wrong, he wouldn't notice because he's gonna be too happy at the prospect of meeting up with you outside of school."
Nicole threw herself on her desk chair, "I don't even know it myself, maybe I don't want to make a fool out of myself."
"Come on, give me your phone," Cecelia said as she stood up and leaned on the desk. When she got the phone, she started typing, "Okay, we'll just write, 'Hi, are you free tomorrow?' and then we'll think of what to do next. How does that sound?"
"Good," Nicole and Vivian responded at the same time. The older one of the two looked at her younger sister, "What are you even doing here? Go outside and play with Maya."
Huffing, Vivan crossed her arms over her chest, "No, I don't want to. I want to know more about your boyfriend."
Giving up, Nicole laid her head on her desk, why has her life become so stressful? "He's not my boyfriend, Vivi."
Vivian just looked at her older sister in disbelief and continued petting Nastya, still listening in on the conversation.
"He responded," Cecelia said, "Damn, that was quick."
"What did he write?" Nicole asked, her head shooting up, looking at her best friend and Vivian petted her dog slower, concentrating on Cecelia's words.
Cecelia read over the response in silence and furrowed her brows. "'I have a game at three but other than that I have nothing to do.' That's good right?"
Nicole nodded her head, "Yes that's good. Now what should we write next?"
"How about you just ask him to do whatever you wanted to do with him," Cecelia suggested, giving the phone back to Nicole.
There was a silence as the tall girl looked at her phone. "Don't tell me you haven't thought about what you two could do?"
"Uhm, I just wanted to meet up with him. I have no idea where or what we could do. What do you do when you meet up with a boy?" Nicole asked, her eyes wide as she looked at her best friend and then over to her sister, for whatever reason.
Suddenly the door opened and Nicole's twin sisters entered the room. "We heard everything. Let us help, Nikki."
Maya, the older one went over and snatched the phone out of Nicole's hand. Meanwhile Olivia sat down on the carpet, crossing her legs over.
"What? No! Get out, you two are thirteen. What do you know about dates?" Nicole asked, being a bit fed up with her younger sisters who always found a way to meddle in her life.
Olivia looked at her sister with a dead expression, "I had more boyfriends up until now than you'll ever have in your life, so I'd say I know a few things."
Cecelia and Nicole exchanged a look, not entirely sure if that should be considered a good thing.
"Maya, give me the phone please," Olivia instructed her twin. "Okay, good. You want to meet up tomorrow and he has a game. We can work with that."
The twins began whispering among each other, ignoring everyone else in the room. Cecelia leaned over to Nicole, "Are you sure we should let them have your phone?"
Nicole just shrugged, "Maybe they'll actually help me once."
The whispering between the twins continued for five minutes until they adjusted their positions and cleared their throats. "We have made a decision."
Nicole looked at them skeptically, they were enjoying this way too much, "Then do tell us."
"Okay, so you can suggest going to the beach with him, the weather tomorrow is actually okay and then you can just spend a bit of time with each other, that'd be pretty cute actually. And if he turns out to be a serial killer, we know where to look for your body when you go missing." Olivia tells all of them with a satisfied smile on her face as she finishes.
"We already texted him, so you'll just have to wait for his response," Maya continued with a mischievous smile.
Nicole jumped up, "You did what? What did you write? Please don't tell me you wrote something embarrassing."
Olivia handed her the phone, "We're not retarded and we actually want you to finally get a boyfriend."
Cecelia leaned over Nicole's shoulder and read the text with her, "Honestly, we wouldn't have written it better."
Nicole nodded her head, amazed by how mature her sisters could be from time to time. Her phone dinged and showed Seth's new text. "He texted back."
The text wasn't all that exciting, which none of Seth's texts were because he was kind of a dry texter but that didn't matter, Nicole preferred calls over text anyway so she herself was also a dry texter. He just suggested that she could come watch his game and then afterwards, they could go get takeout and eat it at the beach.
"Aww, that's a cute idea," Maya cooed as she heard what he had written. "Now you just need the right outfit."
Nicole nodded and turned to Cecelia, "You go browse through my closet and I'll throw out my sisters." Turning back to her sisters, Nicole first picked up Vivian and put her in front of the door. Vivian, who had gotten bored by the whole boy thing, just went off to play something in her room. "Olivia, Maya get out of my room, please."
"But we want to help you with your outfit," Olivia protested, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Both of you don't have any kind of fashion sense. You get all of Cecelia's and my old clothes so get out and help mum or something," Nicole told her sisters, trying to be as kind as she could. While she loved her sisters, she knew that they couldn't be of any help concerning something like this and even the text they had sent Seth wasn't all that helpful, they just asked him to go to the beach using as few words as possible.
Her sisters finally gave in, and went out of the room, though Maya didn't miss out on the opportunity to say a last thing, "The youth nowaday, so ungrateful."
"You're so right Maya, they can't even show gratitude for the help of the wiser people," Olivia agreed as she went after her sister and intentionally left the door open.
Nicole went over and closed the door, leaning against it as she looked at Cecelia, "I can't believe it. I have a date tomorrow."
Cecelia stuck her head out from the closet, "Me neither. But now let's talk about what you're going to wear."
For the next half hour or so the two went through all of Nicole's clothes. There weren't that many to begin with but it was enough for them to combine the perfect outfit.
"Okay, so we have here either this gray sweater or the red one with a bit of cleavage, where you could wear like a white lace top underneath,"Cecelia explained as she held up the two options. "You're gonna wear your lucky jeans and the cowboy boots, I think both would work with it."
"We have to think practical. The gray sweater makes me look a bit pale, right? And it doesn't match the brown of my boots." Nicole considered, looking at the two tops. "I think I'll just wear the red one but then I'll have to borrow my mum's raincoat because red and yellow don't really match."
Cecelia nodded, but then gasped loudly as she thought of something better, "Okay, but how about you just pretend to have forgotten your rain jacket. He then would have to lend you his, that would be amazing!"
"I'm not really sure, I mean I've been living here forever, no one would ever be dumb enough to forget their rain jacket," Nicole responded, unsure of herself. "Wouldn't this just make me look like an idiot? And I don't want him to get sick."
"That's true, okay then forget about it and just borrow your mum's," Cecelia gave in. "Now we have everything planned out. Can I go home now?"
"No," Nicole shook her head quickly, "Where am I going to sit during the game? I don't know anyone at our school except for you and Seth. Won't it look weird if I just sit there alone?"
Her best friend considered her words for a second. "Nah, I don't think so. And even if, you like soccer, don't you? You can just go and have fun by yourself. I don't think that's all that bad. I mean, you also go to Vivians guitar concerts on your own."
"I don't think that that's the same thing. But okay, you might be right." Nicole finally agreed, however she was still unsure of herself, she didn't really like going places alone. "Do you want to stay over for dinner?"
"No, it's alright. Mum's making fish and chips, I can't miss out on that," Cecelia declined as she got up and began gathering her things.
As Cecelia was about to leave, Nicole pulled her into a hug and whispered in her ear, "Thank you so much for helping me. I don't know what I would've done without you."
Cecelia squeezed Nicole a bit tighter before she let go and responded with a smile on her face, "You would have asked your sisters for help. And I don't know if that would have ended on a good note. Anyways, after you get home tomorrow you have to call me immediately and tell me every little detail, so don't you dare forget anything."
Nicole put out her pinky and interlocked it with Cecelia's. "I promise."
"Okay, I'm really leaving now. Have fun tomorrow, it's not often that you take a day off of work, after all, and good luck!"
Nicole waved at her best friend, "Bye and thank you again!"
Wrapped tightly in her mum's raincoat, Nicole sat down on one of the many empty seats in the grandstand. There were only a few people around, mostly older people who, Nicole assumed, were parents and a few people from school were also around but not many took the trouble to come to a soccer game on such a cold day. So much for the good weather her sisters had predicted.
As there were still a few minutes left until the game began, Nicole checked her hair once again on her phone camera. Her mother had offered herself to braid her hair so it wouldn't get messed up in the wind. Evelyn had put her daughter's hair in two ponytails and then braided the hair into three separate braids.
Everything was still in place, so she sat up straight and looked over all of the players, trying to find Seth. Finally she had found him and waved in his direction and thanks to a wonder, he noticed her and waved back, very enthusiastically, both of his hands wildly flailing around in the air. He almost even hit David who was standing next to him with a smirk on his face as he looked between the two.
Nicole was so focused on the boy on the field, that she hadn't even noticed someone sit down beside her. When the older man accidentally shoved her a bit, did she notice him and smiled as he immediately began apologizing. "Oh, I'm sorry, I was so focused on my son down there that I accidentally shoved you."
Nicole quickly shook her head and responded, "Nothing happened, so it doesn't matter."
The man nodded and sat down in the seat next to her, eyeing her, "Aren't you a bit cold in only your raincoat and a sweater?"
Looking down at her outfit, Nicole shrugged, "No, I'm fine. It's my first time going to a game, so I didn't really think that it would get that cold. Next time I think I'll bring a blanket," she joked.
The man laughed, the edges of his eyes wrinkling as he turned over to his bag and took out a blanket. "I went to most of last year's games, so I learned one or two things. Here, take this blanket, I have a second one." And he really pulled out another blanket from his bag.
Nicole's brown eyes widened in admiration, this man was her savior. "Thank you so much. My name's Nicole Coberly, by the way."
"It's nothing," the man responded, "I'm Harry Clearwater, maybe you know my son, Seth, he's playing today." With a proud expression on his face Harry turned to the field and pointed at Seth. Said boy was looking up at the two of them sitting together, his mind going blank as he had totally forgotten that his dad would come to watch the game and that there was a possibility of him meeting Nicole.
"Oh, yes Seth and I are friends, you must be pretty proud of him. He told me he's the only sophomore who's a regular player," Nicole said as she looked at Harry.
"Of course I am proud of my son, but don't tell him that. It would go straight to his head," Harry laughed lowly. "Seth never told me that he had a girlfriend and such a pretty one at that."
Nicole's cheeks turned a bright red at his words and she quickly sputtered something out about them only being friends and nothing more. Harry only nodded at that and turned his attention to the game that was starting now.
For the next 45 minutes the two of them sat together and talked about soccer and Harry told Nicole a few embarrassing stories about his son's childhood, like that one time, when he wanted to have a dog so badly, that he kidnapped his neighbor's but then the dog wasn't happy and Seth began crying and returned him not even an hour after his kidnapping.
Nicole loved listening to Harry's voice, he had a way of articulating his words that would make everyone listen to him. When it was half time, the two got up and walked around for a bit to warm their bodies. Nicole even went back to her scooter and got out the thermos flask her mother had forced her to take with her.
The game started again and now Harry and Nicole were sitting together, drinking tea and eating cookies as they cheered on their team.
Finally, after having talked badly about the seemingly blind referee, the game was over with a 1-1, which was neither good nor bad, though Nicole was just happy that they hadn't lost. She didn't want Seth to have to go somewhere with her when he felt bad about losing his game.
Nicole helped Harry fold the blankets and put them back in his bag, and then the two of them walked away from the field, waiting near the changing rooms for Seth to come out. Said boy hurried in showering and putting his clothes back on, quickly threw everything into his bag and bid his team goodbye as he almost ran out of the changing rooms.
He didn't want his father to get any more time to tell Nicole embarrassing stories about his childhood and he also didn't want to keep Nicole waiting.
"Hi Nicole, dad," Seth greeted them happily as he walked up to them. "What a coincidence that you two met here."
"Hi Seth, you played really well out there," Nicole said to the boy with a smile on her face.
Harry nodded in agreement, "But that referee needs some glasses. I haven't seen such a bad referee in a long time."
"You would have to come to a volleyball game then," Nicole told the older man, "For some of the referees even glasses wouldn't help."
Harry laughed at that and patted Seth on the shoulder. "I really like her, treat her well."
Seth, who looked from one to the other, turned red at that, though he smiled widely at the fact that they got along so well. "Come on dad, I'll go to the car and give you my bag, Nicole and I are going somewhere now."
Harry smirked as he went ahead, the two teenagers following behind him. "I hope my dad didn't say anything embarrassing to you," Seth said to Nicole, who just shrugged with a smile on her face.
"I really like him. Without your dad I would've probably frozen to death," she joked.
The boy's eyes grew wide, as he was running the whole time, he hadn't even noticed how cold it was. "I have another sweater in the car, I'll give you that."
Nicole waved her hands wildly, "You don't have to, really. You just sweated a lot, I don't want you to get sick."
"No objection," Seth denied her and as they got to Harry's car, he took out a hoodie and gave it to her. "Take it, or we won't go anywhere."
"But-" Nicole wanted to refute once again, though at the determined look on Seth's face, she silently took the hoodie and put it on. She really felt a bit warmer now and the hoodie smelled like Seth, which was definitely a plus.
"Okay you two, have fun on your date, I have to go back home," Harry said, as he got into the driver's seat, smiling kindly at the pair. "I hope to see you again at the next game Nicole."
The girl nodded at that with a grin, "Yeah, and next time I'll be better prepared."
With a wave, Harry then drove off and left the pair alone in the parking lot.
"Your dad's so sweet, I can't wait to meet the rest of your family," Nicole told Seth as they made their way over to her scooter, with which they would then drive over to the beach. As her own words registered, she blushed wildly, sputtering something out and then choosing to shut up.
Seth smiled at her, "I don't really know if you want to meet my sister though, she's the definition of the word cynical."
"Come on, she can't be that bad. You'll first have to meet my sisters, they are some very . . . interesting characters. But we'll leave that for later, because I think after that you would want to stop talking to me after having met them," Nicole responded, handing him a helmet.
"If they're anything like you I think I'll be grateful for having the opportunity to talk to them," Seth said and smiled cheekily at her.
Nicole turned red again, which she really began hating and it always happened around Seth. "Shut up, and here you have to put your feet here and just hold me on my shoulders. If you don't want to fall off, please don't let go of me."
Seth nodded at that, a bit nervous now that he was really about to drive on something like a scooter and with the girl he liked at that. His knees were starting to become weak. "So first we'll stop by the grocery store and get something to eat and then we'll go to the beach," he told Nicole as they got on the white scooter.
"Sounds like a plan to me," Nicole told him before suddenly speeding off, forcing Seth to hold on tightly to her.
Meanwhile, Harry Clearwater got home and was met by his wife and daughter sitting at the kitchen table with Leah's phone in between the two. The man was happy that the two of them began to get along again.
After Sam had broken up with Leah and got together with Emily, the mother-daughter relationship became a bit strained as Sue had told Leah to go and find someone better. But for Leah, Sam was the only right thing, she didn't want to start a new relationship with someone entirely new.
"Honey, you're home," Sue exclaimed as she noticed him standing in the door frame. With a wave of her hand she signaled for him to come over and sit down next to the two. "Come over, Leah was just showing me a picture of Seth's girlfriend."
Harry laughed at that and went over to them, "I told you to come to the game with me. I met her there."
Both women turned to him, their mouths hanging open as they waited for him to tell them more. "I won't say anything. Seth will have to tell you about her on his own."
"You're not getting anything to eat today,"Sue said as she turned back to Leah. Her daughter told her about how she had to help Seth pick an outfit for the beach date he had with the girl. Harry, who knew that his wife would still give him something to eat if he helped her cook, smiled at how excited the two were and turned to read the newspaper.
HOPE:
and the story goes on
how are you liking it so far?
and y'all have to know, while watching soccer, nicole had to hold herself back cuz when she watches sith her das she turns into a whole other person
h