[A/N]: Okay guys, it seems like most of you haven't been catching up with my updates and that's alright, because we're in different timezones and such and I can't alert all of you. I'm going to keep posting the chapters and until I'm finished, I'll make a huge shout out and give the link so you can read the whole thing.
And I hope the part about the 'charity' project makes sense. It's like, you raise money and then it goes to a cause or you raise money for something like, say, banquet. [banquet is like a prom kind of thing at my school]
This is my favorite chapter so far. I love Damon and Helen's relationship.
Saturday afternoon, one week after the first merged art-drama class, I had the whole house to myself. It was unusually quiet and I was glad for that. It was probably due to my parents’ shopping trip, and Damon disappearing into the city with one of his high school friends. They weren’t that much people living in the house, but with all the four of us together, it was too loud to concentrate on anything but the meaningless conversations that were exchanged back and forth.
I was hunched over the kitchen table with pens, markers, and colored pencils spread out all around the table, focusing intently on the poster in front of me. I’d outlined ‘Bake Sale’ and ‘Lemonade Stand’ which was the only thing that we juniors came up with to earn money for our ‘charity’. We decided that these events should probably take place during our first soccer game where people would be bound to buy things; especially tired soccer players.
I dropped my pen and tilted my head to study the poster better. ‘Bake Sale!’ jumped out at me in huge, striking block letters. It ought to catch anyone’s attention even from far away, and with the added colors I was planning to use, I was pretty sure no one would miss it.
Pleased with my work, I reached for a blood-red marker and filled in the B, exchanged it for a cerulean blue, and continued in this pattern, using bright, flashy markers to do so until I’d colored in all of the letters, including the small ‘from the Eastwood juniors for our charity project’.
I started drawing a cartoon picture of a girl holding a platter of goodies, and a tired player leaning over a wooden stand with a glass of lemonade, when my curly-headed cousin poked his head in, his face flushed from the heat outside. Well, probably not, it was a pretty cool temperature outside, so maybe he was running around or something.
“Hey, kiddo. I’m driving you to practice,” Damon panted, sliding into one of the seats next to me. I nodded at him and he watched me work in the quiet room, his loud breathing the only noise breaking the silence. His clothes were rumpled from his hangout session; his long legs fitted into jeans, his slim figure covered with a green shirt of a band strumming their electric guitars, and his curly hair messy-looking and even more ruffled than usual. He could really fool anyone with the serious look he’d adopted right now. Damon watched me shade the girl’s hair; looking so solemn that an outsider would probably be surprised at the mischievous grin he would flash out of nowhere.
“Another charity project?” he finally asked, breaking the silence. “Man, the school sure hasn’t changed since I left.”
“It’s quite enjoyable,” I replied, coloring in the little purple ribbon. “And you’re actually helping people with it too.” I finished coloring the little soccer player and shoved my materials into a bag. “What time is it?”
“Twenty minutes before three. Better hurry up, kid. Practice is going to start soon.”
“Don’t I know it,” I mumbled, packing my things up in a slight frenzy. Soccer practice wasn’t that exciting, but if I was late, I would be humiliated in front of my team and would have to run three extra laps around the field. As if being the only girl player wasn’t enough.
I stashed my poster and pencil case away in an unused cupboard and hurriedly filled my water bottle, while Damon watched lazily. “So, how has the team been treating you?”
“With more respect than I would have gotten if they hadn’t known I was related to you.” I threw a grin over my shoulder.
He grinned back, amusement twinkling in his eyes. “So pretty well, I suppose?”
“Well, it could be better, but I guess I’m lucky enough to get this much respect.” I twisted the lid shut on my bottle and pulled my hair tie out of my hair. My long, dark curls tumbled over my shoulders and I frantically gathered it into a bun.
“I’ll be keeping watch today to see if any of the guys bother you.”
“You’ll be watching me practice?” I squawked.
“Sure. I want to see you in action among the guys.” He gave me another one of his lopsided grins that I ignored; too busy fretting over my appearance to say much.
Damon looked me over and wrinkled his nose. “Might want to change out of that shirt,” he said with obvious distaste.
I tugged my t-shirt down irritably. It was paint splattered with many colors – something I’d purposely done, and it was one of my favorite shirts I wore to chill in, but he, along with many others, didn’t approve of it. Meh.
“I thought you’d say that,” I said, crossing the kitchen to grab my water bottle and patted my bun in place. “I like this shirt. Too bad.”
“You wanted an opinion, you got one, and you didn’t go with it. Ungrateful child.” He shook his head and brushed past me out of the kitchen, jingling his car keys.
I followed in suit, slipping into my old sneakers and grabbing my duffel bag, before bounding down the steps behind him. I hopped into the passenger seat and buckled up as he started the engine. The old hand-me-down truck of his rumbled to life, backed onto the road, and started towards the field.
I settled fully onto the worn leathery seat as Damon twisted the dial, his eyes fixed on the road. I loved his truck despite the fact that it was old. It smelled like home, felt like home, and it was in here that we’d had so many adventures; when my lanky cousin was back in high school and we would go bird-watching or canoeing over the weekends. We would spend hours exchanging stories as we ate sandwiches my mom packed, teasing and taunting one another, singing – ahem, shrieking – along to the radio, and one time we climbed into his truck, covered in honey we’d tried to steal.
I stroked the seat adoringly and Damon caught me doing so and chuckled. “Are you mad?”
“I miss your truck, you dope,” I muttered.
“You mean you miss the time you spent with me,” he corrected, settling on instrumental music that was playing. He settled back into his seat and his gaze flicked to my slumped figure a few times.
“You got me.” I let out a loud sigh, blowing away strands of stray hair in the process.
“This is the first time in months you’ve fully admitted that you missed me.” He reached over to pat my head while I rolled my eyes, although a smile crept up to my lips. “I miss you too, baby cuz.”
“I’m never going to go anywhere in this truck anymore, but meaningless soccer practices.”
He snickered at my sour comment. “Don’t be such a pessimist, Helen. We will spend time together like back in the good ol’ days, except it’ll be reduced to once a month or something now.”
“Well, that’s better than nothing. But are you going to expect me to stay in the house all the time?”
Damon shrugged, turning into the parking lot. “Get out with your best friend. Get a boyfriend or something.”
“Nora’s pretty busy,” I muttered. “And I’m not exactly ‘girlfriend-material’ or am I looking for a guy.”
“Well, I pity the guy who has to date you,” he scoffed, turning off the engine.
I slugged him on the shoulder and turned the handle, leaping out of the truck and slamming the door shut behind me. I slung the duffel bag over my shoulders and darted into the locker room and stashed it in a separate stall.
By the time I got back out, I had only five minutes left and Damon had a huddle of people around him. What he was doing, I didn’t know. I jogged to the center of the field and hung around the back of the group. My cousin was greeting the team members, grinning at a guy I’d noticed as Nick.
The blue-eyed boy caught my eye and nodded my way, which caught Damon’s eye. “Helen!” he called and they immediately turned to me, some of them making way for me to move forward. I came up to him, smiling awkwardly.
“This is my cousin, you’ve heard.”
“So she wasn’t lying,” Tyler said, impressed.
“My Helen’s far too innocent to lie.”
I slapped Damon’s hand away, glaring at him. A few chuckles erupted among my teammates, a few smiles were shared, and the remaining others either had amused expressions, bemused ones, or raised eyebrows.
I saw Nick with a mixture of all the reactions; one eyebrow raised, his eyes shining with amusement along with bewilderment and one corner of his lips lifting into a half-smile; as if he didn’t know whether to laugh at our exchange or keep his face expressionless.
He saw me looking, and his eyebrow dropped, the other corner of his lips tugging into a small smile as a result sent my way. I smiled back at him; happy that he was finally dropping the cold act that usually prevented so much people from really getting to know him. I guess a week of my talking and greetings during soccer practice, in the halls, during art/drama, and our class’s meeting for the charity had helped him to loosen up. Whenever I talked, I always saw that glint of amusement in his blue-gray eyes and something else that I couldn’t identify.
A week of talking to Nick had also helped me learn about his character. He was really something; sometimes he was sarcastic and blunt; sometimes he would tease me with the arrogant smirk those popular boys usually had in store; and sometimes he was a gentleman and just listened to me ramble. He was a mystery that I still hadn’t figured out.
“In your places, everyone!” Tyler bellowed. Damon was walking off the field and we all scrambled into our respective lines that he had put us in [I was behind the guy I’d talked to the first time I was here. I learned that his name was Claudius Howell.]
Tyler led us in stretching and I stretched my quadriceps, listening, but not really listening to the buzz of conversations all around me.
“SWITCH!” the eighteen year old coach yelled and reached down to touch his toes; all of us following him. After holding it for ten seconds, he clapped his hands and hollered out his usual command to run three laps around the field.
I tried not to roll my eyes even though it was in the routine for practice and jogged lazily behind the guys who were speeding through the first half of the lap, only to slow down later, I was sure. I jogged steadily in a rhythmic pattern and later caught up to Nick, who didn’t care to join in with the others. He tilted his head in acknowledgment and hazel and blue eyes clashed in the sunlight.
“You look like him,” he spoke first, surprising me. Nick was staring at me as if he hadn’t seen me before, his eyes scouring my face, my frame and then it came back to meet my confused eyes.
Feeling a little unsettled, I shrugged. “Um, we’re cousins.”
Someone raced past us, bits of grass and dirt flying up after him. We were still halfway through our first lap. I huffed and tried not to slow down. I wasn’t used to jogging or even really running after a week and a few days, so I was tired already. Everybody else didn’t seem to have that problem; they were either lazy, going at a steady pace, or show-offs.
“I couldn’t pick out the similarities when you first came.” He smiled ruefully and cast a glance at my cousin who was deep in a conversation with Tyler. “You guys are close, huh?” His eyebrow was knitted as he stared at me impassively with those eyes of his that looked bluer out in the sun. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, with that guarded expression and all.
I shrugged again, just as we finished the first lap. “Yeah, we’re pretty close, I guess. We used to do lots of things together,” I added, randomly remembering a few minutes ago when a wave of nostalgia had washed up on me in the truck.
Nick smiled at me, flashing a bit of his teeth, his eyes now falling way from that guarded appearance he kept, and instead they were dancing with amusement. “You guys are…cute.”
I giggled at his word-choice, and he seemed embarrassed at what he’d just blurted. “Not that way,” he snapped, and I laughed harder. Nick rolled his eyes and sped up a bit, muttering, “That’s incest.”
“I know,” I grinned at him, struggling to keep up with his smooth strides. “That was just…out of place.” I tried not to giggle again. It was unlike me for one, and he was obviously embarrassed because of the flush in his face, not from the heat, obviously. It was a cool afternoon.
That distracted me for a bit. Nick was blushing, albeit slightly, but he was blushing all the same, his face tinged with red. He’s adorable, I thought with a jolt. He was looking anywhere but me, his strides lengthening, the back of his dark hair glistening with sweat and flopping in his face as he ran. I felt my insides warm at my previous thought.
Slowly, as we jogged in the shade of the trees for our final lap, he turned his now gray eyes to meet mine, smiling slightly. “Are you ogling me, Varga?”
I started, tearing my eyes away from him and promptly ignored him and my beet-red face. “I was doing no such thing!”
“Did you really?” He cocked his head to one side, grinning slightly. A chill passed through me when I met his laughing blue eyes again. They weren’t exactly the eyes I’d imagined a guy I liked to have, not that I liked Nick that way. It was too early to determine, but who knows?
My stomach churned and I cursed inwardly. I had to give it to him; he had startling blue-gray eyes that I’d first noticed upon arrival, in contrast to the dreamy chocolate eyes mixed to perfection that I’d sometimes dream about on my soul mate. I had nothing against blue or gray eyes; I just thought that blue was too cliché and gray was too cold for anything. Nick’s eyes had obviously proven me wrong. True; they had that icy look when I first met him, but when he laughed, his eyes warmed and I noticed the shades of blue and gray mixed evenly together, with a few added flecks here and there. I realized how overwhelming they were and incredibly easy to get lost in them.
By the time I was pulled away from my thought procession, Nick was already in the center of the field along with a few other guys. I stopped running and slowed down to take a swig of water.
Practice passed by. It was the usual; Tyler still wouldn’t let us play games yet. He insisted on dribbling the ball around cones and passing to one another and other maneuvers that most of the team thought was a waste of time.
I was grateful for them, since I still had trouble to dribble a soccer ball properly. At the end of practice, the sweaty, tired players headed for the locker room and I was at the head of the group; hurrying to take a quick shower, change into fresh clothes and avoid half naked boys in their shorts milling around the shower room.
It also didn’t help that Nick was there and I’d once caught him shirtless on accident. He didn’t know, thankfully. Let me just say, that an image of a certain dark-haired boy kept popping into my mind and making me blush at the wrong times and at the wrong places.
Fifteen minutes later, I was suffocating from the steam of my shower stall. I swung my bag over my shoulders, gathered my damp hair into a tighter bun and stepped out.
Mist swirled off of me and I picked up my sneakers and padded bare-foot across the room, keeping my eyes low, so I wouldn’t have to witness anything too traumatizing.
I’d just made it out of the locker room and into the halls, when I bumped into Nick, in a gray shirt and jeans. His hair was still damp from the shower, soaking part of his shirt. “Hi,” he smiled and brushed past me into the locker room before I could give him a proper answer.
I met Damon outside, jingling his car keys and nodding at me. “You’re not too bad.”
“No, of course not. I was raised to be a natural,” I fluttered my eyelashes at him and he mimed sticking a finger in his throat and gagging. Pretty soon, we were cracking up as we walked towards the truck.
Damon finally caught his breath and rolled his eyes, climbing into the driver seat and I clambered into the passenger one. “We’re going on one of our escapades next weekend, by the way.”
I nodded and folded my arms, staring out the window, while Damon picked out some rock station on the radio. I could make out Nick’s tall, slim figure leaning against a tree, talking with someone I didn’t know. A girl, by the looks of it. I couldn’t make out her features from this far, but she had blond curls and was a foot shorter than him.
I didn’t know who she was, but I felt a twinge of annoyance when he laughed. I’d never heard him laugh before; not directly in front of me, at least. It was a deep, husky sound that sent chills down my spine.
The truck rumbled away and he was gone from my sight in an instant.
