Kayla's P.O.V.
“Wait a minute. Jake Mitchells as in starting runningback, drop dead gorgeous, Jake Mitchells?” Paige was waving her pizza around like a maniac later thantnight after I told her who my new doubles partner was.
“Yeah. How many Jake Mitchells do you know?”
“That’s beside the point. So what’s he like?” Clearly Paige was more interested in hearing about my practice with Jake that day than watching Grease. We had seen it dozens of times and knew almost all the words, but it was tradition, pizza and that movie were kind of our thing, always had been.
“Surprisingly normal. I was expecting him to be cocky and arrogant. I mean a guy who looks like that has to know he looks like that, but he doesn’t seem like he does. Anyway it doesn’t really matter. It’s not like we’re friends, he’s just my partner. And he better take this seriously and not screw this up for me. I need that scholarship prize money for college next year.”
“Kayla Kayla Kayla. Why must you always take everything so seriously? I know you need to win the prize money, but that doesn’t mean you can’t flirt with Jake and get him to fall madly in love with you along the way. I’m so jealous” She glared at me with her mouth full of pizza.
Paige was constantly trying to convince me to “be spontaneous” and “live in the moment” and “stop planning every move”, but in my mind planning made sure nothing messed with my main goal: Columbia. We were a single income family and I was going to have to pay for college mostly on my own. I had been babysitting since I was twelve and had been waitressing at a restaurant in town for the past two years, but all that barely made a dent in what I needed for tuition. The $5,000 scholarship given to the winners of the summer league tournament would help, a lot.
“I don’t want him falling in love with me, not that he would anyway, feelings complicate things. Volleyball should not be complicated. Feelings are distracting and mess with the plan. Besides he’s not my type.” For a second I couldn’t tell who I was trying to convince, Paige or myself.
“There you go with your whole “plan” speech again. And besides Jake Mitchells is every girl’s type. He’s hot. How is hot not your type. And for the whole feelings thing you need to quit being afraid of that. What about Danny? I thought you really liked him and he liked you back. He was nice, smart, athletic, and he was cute, but after three dates when he wanted to make things official you shut the whole thing down. Kay you can’t keep doing this.” Paige squeezed my knee empathetically.
Paige had already had two serious relationships sophomore and junior year, whereas I haven’t had any. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get guys, but I always freaked out when things started to smell slightly serious and backed out with some lame excuse. “I had to focus on my family” or “We were just too different” or my favorite “it wasn’t the right time” the truth was it was never the “right time”.
In my mind the best way to deal with feelings and relationships was to avoid them like the plague. I mean what do you do with a boyfriend? Do you have to feed it? Walk it? That seems like a lot of effort and responsibility.
***
“Char let’s go we’re going to miss the bus if you don’t get your butt down here in the next thirty seconds” I shouted upstairs as I filled my water bottle and shoved it in my volleyball bag.
“I can’t find matching socks” Charlotte shouted back. I made a mental note to do laundry after practice.
“Just grab any socks. Not matching socks are the new thing. All the kids are doing it” I tried to stifle a laugh when Charlotte came down the stairs wearing one pink sock and one orange sock. Six year olds were so gullible sometimes. I handed her a bagel and tweaked her pig tail before pushing her out the door. As I turned around after locking the front door I was shocked to see a black pickup in my drive way. Charlotte ran over and climbed in.
“Jake you really don’t have to do this. We can take the bus it’s no problem” I wasn’t used to the idea of relying on other people. I hated being late and what if Jake was one of those people that’s constantly late?
“It’s no biggie. Really. Besides I’m not doing it for you, I’m doing it for my new best friend Char” Jake winked at me before exchanging fist bumps with Charlotte. He made us listen to the country station all the way to the Y and then all the way to the beach. Even when I tried to turn it off he proceeded to sing all the words, very off key.
Jake's P.O.V.
Our drives before and after practices proceeded in a similar fashion for the rest of the week. I continued to pick Kayla and Charlotte up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday before practice and then dropped Kayla off at work every day after, even though she continuously insisted she was perfectly capable of getting to and from practice “just fine on her own” and the public bus system was “sufficient enough”. I still didn’t understand why she was so stubborn and always insisted on doing things on her own.
It’s like the very idea that she might need help made her seem weak in her mind. But despite her arguing she let me drive her and we spent most of our time in the car fighting over the radio station and answering my stupid “Would You Rather” questions, her words not mine. My “Would You Rather” questions were fantastic, she just needed to loosen up and realize eating bugs is way better than licking monkey feet.
We never really talked about our friends or school gossip or whatever. We ran in different circles and didn’t have many mutual friends or much in common. We joked around and made small talk in the car, but during practice Kayla was all business.
***
As soon as she climbed into my pickup on Saturday, the morning of our first game, Kayla burst out laughing. Each team has a color, we were blue. The student section t-shirts for Ridgemont from the previous year were blue so we planned to wear the shirts and black shorts, spandex for Kayla and thankfully basketball shorts for me even though I had joked about wearing spandex. What had shocked her was the blue facepaint all over my face and arms, exactly the reaction I expected. I had attempted to do stripes, but none of the lines were close to straight.
“Are you auditioning for blue man group?” Kayla couldn’t resist.
“Haha. Laugh all you want, but you’re wearing it too” I dug a tube of blue paint out of my pocket and threw it at her.
“We’re going to a volleyball game not a pep rally. No way I am wearing this”
“Oh lighten up would you” I poked her, before starting the car and heading toward the beach.
We checked in and started warming up. Our competition was two guys and just by their entrance you could tell they were arrogant. When we stepped up to do the coin toss they blew off everything the refs said and proceeded to give Kayla weird looks like little perverts. When the taller and clearly more arrogant of the two went to shake her hand he flipped his hair and smirked at Kayla then patted her head and walked away laughing. The other guy shook my hand, said “Good luck you’re gonna need it with that team you’ve got there”, and walked away.
“Uggghhhh I’m gonna kill those guys. How dare they? They don’t even know me and they walk in here and talk to me like a little kid. It’s because I’m a girl isn’t it? Don’t even answer that I already know the answer. It’s because I’m a girl” Kayla was pacing back and forth now, “I’ll show them. They’ll see and then they won’t be so arrogant anymore. Ugh they’re not even that attractive, so they really shouldn’t have egos that big”
“Kayla, calm down. Take a breath” I grabbed her shoulders and spun her around to face me. I tried to ignore the fact that we were barely an inch apart. She was still seething and wouldn’t look me in the eye. I put my hand under her chin and gently tilted her head up so she was looking at me.
“They’re idiots. Prove them wrong on the court. Don’t let them see that they got to you. That’s what they want. So let’s go kick some butt and you can throw sand in their face after we win. Deal?” She fist bumped me and we headed out on to the court. We had won the coin toss and had the first serve, Kayla was up first.
“Hey babe, you can serve underhand if you need to” Hair flip guy shouted and winked at Kayla from the other side of the court.
“Aww thanks for the offer babe, but I’m good. Thanks for the concern” She smirked, took a breath, and jump served. The top spin was perfect and it flew over the net and dropped perfectly right in front of hair flip guy. After he got over the initial shock he flung the ball back over the net with a scowl. I jumped up and caught the ball with ease
“Thatta girl” I tossed her the ball and she waved at the idiots on the other side of the net. You know one of those ridiculous stereotypical "girly" waves that no normal girl actually does.
About 45 minutes later, in the second game, the score was 20-18 and we were winning. Kayla and I had only been playing together for a week, but things were going surprisingly smoothly. I hated to admit it but the cocky hair flipping jerks we were playing were good. Really good. And maybe, just maybe, I would have respected them as athletes if they weren’t rude and condescending after every single play.
“Alright hair flip idiot number 2 is serving again. The unoriginal jerk can only hit zone one so lets shift over” Kayla insisted as I tied my shoe.
“Nice nicknames, they suit them perfectly” I laughed.
“Thanks, I’m pretty proud. Now let’s beat these idiots” She set back up in her spot. It was hot out, and we were both sweating so much the blue paint was starting to run, but I didn’t care. I felt great.
Idiot number two went back to serve and just as Kayla predicted it came over to zone one, and she was ready. She passed it up to me and I set her to the outside, she swung, but idiot number two got around the ball just in time and got it up. Once idiot number one set him up and there she was, right there with the block. “Little” Kayla 5’ 8” blocked a 6’2” idiot, and the look on his face was priceless. She turned around to give me a high five, but she must have been shocked when I picked her up in a bear hug and spun her around.
Kayla's P.O.V.
“Jake what are you doing? We have to finish the game” I was confused why he was so excited over one point.
“Kayla we won! Remember beach is only to 21 points, not 25. We won!” He spun me around again. I finally realized how close we were. Now that I wasn’t so much shorter than him, I finally noticed Jake’s eyes and how the light caught the golden flecks in his chocolate brown eyes so perfectly and…what was I doing?
I wiggled out of his grasp and avoided his gaze as I went up to the net to shake the other team’s hands like we were supposed to. Now my mom always told me to take the high road, but sometimes sassy Kayla sneaks out and no one, not even I can hold her back.
“Don’t let it get to your pretty little head babe, you got lucky” idiot number one wouldn’t even shake my hand, he brushed past me and shook Jake’s hand. “Your partner hits like a girl” he mumbled as if I couldn’t hear him.
“I am a girl you imbecile, what’s your excuse?” I snapped. Jake bent over with his hands on his knees he was laughing so hard. Idiot number one stomped away with a scowl on his face mumbling something incoherent about “damn coed leagues” and how “hot girls with attitudes are a pain in the ass”. I smirked and turned to look at idiot number two.
“I thought about tapping that ass, but you are way too much of a handful, brat” idiot number two snapped and for a second I was hurt and had a momentary flashback to a similar insult, but I brushed it off and tried to come up with a comeback, but Jake beat me to it.
“Listen bud, maybe if you pulled your head out from where the sun don't shine for two seconds you’d realize how out of your league she is, and how badly you need to beg to make it on the middle school team because there is no way you ever have or ever will make a high school team. So congratulations on starting your season with a loss and you can watch her ass and my fine ass win that trophy and scholarship money at the end of the season” Jake grabbed my hand and pulled me away. As soon as we were far enough away, I pulled my hand out of Jake’s and spun around to face him.
“Okay let’s get one thing straight. I can fight my own battles, and I can definitely handle some cocky guys on my own, but that was pretty great so, thank you” I couldn’t hold my laughter in any longer. I fell down on the sand and laughed harder than I had in weeks. Jake seemed shocked by my outburst then freaked out by my laughter. I did the only reasonable thing any sensible person would do. I kicked his legs out from under him so he fell down next to me.
“You are one weird girl Kayla Ryans” Jake laughed.
Alright here is chapter two. Hopefully this gave you a chance to see a little bit of the Kayla- Jake dynamic. What do you think of these two individually and together?
What about Kayla and Paige? Every girl needs a crazy pizza loving best friend.
Don't forget to vote and comment! Thanks for the reads!