Jacob's POV
After an unfortunate event that is to be never spoken of, I lost my confidence when it comes to girls. I feel I have moved on from it but the scars are still there. That's why even with Sunshine, it is hard for me to believe she actually likes me enough to not leave me high and dry.
Memories try to flood my brain but I push them back and concentrate on the task in hand and the beautiful girl in front of me. She has her eyebrows scrunched up and her soft heart shaped lips are in form of a slight pout. One of her hands is deep inside her silky auburn hair and with the other hand she is spinning her pen. She is staring at the textbook in front of her as if it is an alien. I am trying so hard to not laugh at her expression. Time to do some damage control before she burns holes though her textbook by glaring or literally burns it.
"When I can't even see them, why the hell do I have to learn about them?" She exclaims before I could open my mouth. We are studying about atoms, since that is the topic coming in her test.
Noah and Drake start snickering so I shut them up with a look. No need to rile her up even more. I rack my brain for an idea and being the smart person I am, I get one immediately.
"Do you see that table over there?" I ask her.
"Of course I do, I am not blind." She answers dryly. I ignore her harshness because I know she becomes rude whenever she is angry or frustrated and doesn't mean it.
"That is made up of a lot of atoms which are held together by the force in between them. So technically you are seeing a bunch of atoms." I say, trying to calm her down.
"It's no use whining to you. You always have an answer to all my points." She huffs.
"You are the first tutor who actually bothers to answer the rhetorical questions she uses to get out of studying." Asher says. He must have seen the confused look on my face. Sunshine glares at him most probably because he ratted out her secret.
"I don't want to study." She looks at me pleadingly.
Stay strong Jacob. I tell myself.
"We only have a topic left for your test. We can study other topics some other time." I relent.
"You mean to say that you were going to teach me more than what is coming in the test?" She asks incredulously.
"Yes?" I say, but it comes out more like a question.
"Let's just get this over with." She says, shaking her head.
"You want to study all the topics?" I ask confused. She was whining like a minute ago.
"No!" She shouts, then adds taking a deep breath "Only the one left for the test," I look over to see that no one is studying, instead they are laughing their asses off.
"You are like the best tutor for this one." Chris says between his laughs.
"Yes, we have been searching for one since more than four years." Rose says giggling. I don't even know if I should thank them...
"We should study now! We have to save time for hanging out later, right?" Sunshine exclaims.
Everyone stifles a laugh but gets back to what they were doing anyway.
So where were we? Oh right, atoms...
*****
"Bowling first!"
"No laser tag!"
"Gaming arena!"
"I am hungry, can we eat first?"
We all turn to look at Noah. When we finally reached the city center, everyone started fighting again.
"We ate pizza one hour ago." Asher says astonished.
"Yes, we did. Your point? Noah asks making me chuckle. I think the rest of them are used to him by now.
"We can all go for bowling. There are concession stands outside." I offer.
"Sounds cool," Katie shrugs and everyone else finally relents. Sunshine lays her head on shoulder leaning into me so I put an arm around her shoulder.
"Thank god! I thought they would never come to a conclusion." She mutters burying her head against my side.
"Why are you thanking god when I did all the work?" I ask, faking an offended look.
"He did give you that brain right?" She retorts.
"You do have a point." We take two lanes so that everyone gets more chances. Chris, Dylan, Noah, Sunshine and I take a lane and the rest head towards the other one. Noah quickly takes his turn getting a spare and then runs off to the concession stands.
"I will go next." Dylan says, picking up the ball. He bends down to aim a shot but I don't he needs to bend that low. I feel Sunshine elbowing me, when I turn she points towards Chris. He stares at Dylan's ass, gets embarrassed, looks everywhere except at Dylan then repeats the process again and again.
"You can shoot; this is not a professional game." Noah says, making his way towards us while munching on a pretzel. Dylan gets a bit embarrassed as Sunshine and I hold back our laughter. He aims a ball for real this time and gets a strike. At least now he can say he was really aiming a shot.
Chris takes the ball next and even if he is not trying, Dylan is shamelessly staring at his ass. But oblivious to his stare he takes a shot scoring six points. By the time the ball comes back he notices Dylan staring. When he takes his second shot he fumbles with the ball getting only two points this time. He starts cussing under his breath that he could have gotten a spare if it was not the fault of a certain someone. Noah is frowning at his now empty pretzel bag shaking it upside down. This is going to be a long day...
"I will go next!" Sunshine takes the ball and passes it between her hands. I think she is examining its weight. She just bends down at the line and then stares at the ball and the pins. Suddenly she takes a swing getting a strike. When I look over at her, she just has a satisfied smile. I am taking that she has played this game a lot...
You need to get a strike!
Why?
If you don't, then you will be a looser in her eyes and she will leave you like...
Shut up!
My inner thoughts bring out a rage within me and I take my anger out on the ball. I don't even look back but the noise of the pins blowing and music of strike reach my ear.
"That was cool but you don't have to destroy the pins." Noah says, taking the ball but I ignore him. I focus on calming myself down.
"We will be right back." Sunshine says, grabbing my hand and then drags me out of the arena. When she turned to look at me, I expected confusion or even anger but not concern in her eyes.
"What happened?" She asks softly.
"Nothing," I say, looking away from her. She puts a hand on my face gently and turns it towards herself.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to but you know you can tell me anything right?" She asks. I just nod not being able to think of something to say.
"Good, now what about some French fries?" She asks smiling making a small smile break out on my face as well.
"Do you need to ask?" I retort and we make our way to the concession stand laughing.
*****
"How much longer?" Noah whines. We are sitting outside tag waiting for the group that went before us to come out. Dylan and I tied for the first position and were closely followed by Sunshine, Noah and Chris. It was a really close game that's why the spare that Chris lost in the starting bit him in the ass, pun intended.
"Shut up Noah," Drake says angrily. There was a lot of tension when their group joined us after bowling. I wonder what happened but they did not tell us anything.
"But I am bored!" He says whining again.
"I swear..." Justin begins when the group which was playing starts coming out.
"Finally," Dylan groans. We decided to keep the same teams since we did not want to go through the whole process again. The other group decided to be the red team and went inside first.
"Anne you have good reflexes so take someone with you and cover the open area." Chris says the moment the others are out of ear shot. Sunshine looks at me and I shrug, I have at least okay reflexes as well.
"Jake will go with me. Noah will stand at one end of the tunnel. You two will enter the tunnel through the other end." Anne says and we agree. A notification comes so I switch on my phone. It is a message from Soph, I had messaged her to ask about Dasher.
Sophia: He is a bit better now. He just slept after finishing his soup.
Jacob: That's great, but take care of yourself as well and don't get infected.
Sophia: Okay Dad.
Her reply makes me let out a laugh.
"Why are you laughing?" Sunshine asks confused.
"I was just laughing at something Soph sent." I answer.
"Is dumbass number two okay?" Dylan asks.
"Yes he is better." I answer rolling my eyes at him.
"Who is number one?" Noah asks.
"You really need to ask? Of course it is Jake." Dylan scoffs. Noah shakes his head like how could he even ask such an absurd question.
"I am really offended." I say narrowing my eyes.
"No one cares," Dylan says waving me off.
"Don't worry, I care." Sunshine whispers squeezing my hand. It takes everything in me to not grin like an idiot.
"You all can go in."
Sunshine and I enter first slowly. I scan the whole area carefully so that if someone is foolish enough to not hide properly I can shoot them. When we reach the center, we keep our back to each other and slowly walk in a circle.
From the corner of my eye I see a beam of light coming towards me. I duck quickly and shoot the person twice. The tone of someone getting out rings but I don't get any time to enjoy. Immediately we are bombarded with beams of light.
Sunshine and I get back to back and start shooting in the directions someone is shooting us. Sounds of people getting out come from time to time but I don't get any time to look who got eliminated. But since the attacks on us are reducing, I guess some people from the other team are out.
I see that someone aimed a shot at sunshine and she did not see it. I pull at her waist, duck us both down and then shoot in the same direction. The sound of someone getting eliminated comes.
"Blue team won." The operator's voice echoes from the speaker. I feel a pair of arms wrapping around my neck pushing me into the ground.
"We won!" Sunshine exclaims. When I go to get up two more bodies jump on me. Dylan and Noah start yelling in excitement on top me. I look over to see Chris standing beside us shaking his head.
"Why are you standing there? Join us," I say pushing myself up a bit. He hesitates a bit obviously seeing my state but soon enough we all are group hugging or rather are a pile of entangled bodies.
"You all are crazy." Justin says making his way towards us.
"Don't you know crazy is the new normal?" Noah retorts.
That's true, normal is overrated anyway.
*****
Author's Note
Hello everyone! How are you all?
I am really sorry for the late update but my interest in writing went a bit down and I did not want to write a crappy chapter. Then my college started so I did not write at all and just read some books to increase my interest again which worked by the way.
As I said that my college has started by which I mean online classes, the updates are going to get a bit slow. I am really sad but I have to concentrate on my studies as well.
As for the chapter what did you think of the group hangout?
Is Jake a good tutor?
And we got a glimpse of Jake's past. What do you think happened?
Most importantly do you agree that crazy is the new normal? Come on we all are a bit crazy and being crazy is fun but don't get too crazy.
Anyways I hope you all like the chapter and have a great day ahead!