Chapter One

BOOM!

A large thud could be heard as the two bodies collided. Falling to a heap, one of the victims groaned, while the other seemed to be bleeding heavily.

Okay, so this wasn’t a dramatic life story. Just an average sixteen year-old girl playing football with five guys.

Scratch that.

Five really hot guys.

Okay so it’s not right for me to think like that. Especially not about my brothers best friends, who I’ve known since we were in diapers.

But give me a little credit. I mean here I was, with five hot guys, playing football on an equally hot Saturday morning. Not every girl gets to do that.

The funniest thing is that my brother wasn’t even there. I mean, here are his best friends (mostly from the football team, but you can never be sure, because he’s on practically every living athletic team our high school offers), playing football with me, and he’s not even here, grunting, or tackling, or talking about hot girls with them.

I must have done something wonderful to deserve this.

Suddenly, one of the guys, Jared, a tall, lean, seventeen year old, went over and helped the guys up. Just like him.

Back when I was in grade three, my brother Taylor, and his friends pushed me into the pool at Jenny Keagen’s eighth birthday party. They laughed and snickered, but Jared came back and helped me out.

As soon as the guys got up, they grunted and slapped shoulders.

“Awesome tackle man! All the blood rushed to my head.”

“I know, man. Only “the Dave” can tackle like dat. Do I rock or do I rock?”

They started barking and ended with a chest bump and their handshake. I rolled my eyes.

“Hey hey hey, Carrie, don’t be hatin’ on us playas just because you ain’t ever gonna be that good,” said Dave, the second one. He was tall, dark, and handsome. He was the kind of guy who girls would die for, just because he doesn’t want them. I had a crush on him in grade six, but unlike the other girls, I didn’t chase after him. My crush passed a long time ago. I guess I realized that one guy wasn’t worth all the trouble.

“Trust me, if I wanted to tackle you I could wipe the wind out your ears,” I said.

“Are you offering?” He asked, and smirked. Just like Dave, always flirting.

“I’m offering to play a real game, not some sissy tea party,” I shot back.

“Oh no she did not just challenge us,” said George, in a mocking girly voice. George was the biggest jerk in the world. He could be nice, but whenever he was, we threatened to call the mental hospital if he wasn’t joking.

“Consider it a challenge. Me and Dave, captains. Our pick.” I thought this was only fair, since the challenge was between us.

“Fine,” Dave said. He was backed by all the other guys, who nodded.

The guys lined up in a line, as though they were in the army. Four choices.

There was Brian, the guy who had been tackled earlier. He was so perverted, but he was the fastest guy in the whole school, maybe even the whole city or state.

Then there was George. Normal athletic status, normal clothes, everything normal other than his level of jerkiness. That went beyond the sky.

Jared wouldn’t be a good choice. He’s really great in sports, but he’s too worried if he tackles anyone, they’ll get hurt.

My last choice was Kyle. Kyle was the best-looking of all. He is buff, but in the right way, not the creepy wrestler way. All his muscles are tan and he has piercing green eyes. He’s super nice to me. Well, as long as it’s not in front of my brother, or his friends. Everyone thought that he liked July back in Grade Eight. July as in July my older sister the snot head.

I swear, if she doesn’t deflate her head, in two years it’s gonna get stuck in the doorway. She’s not that bad, but all the guys like her and she acts like she’s queen because of it. You’d think her twin brother, Taylor, would help her get back on Earth, but he just minds his own business, like its not his problem if his sister is gonna do something stupid. There are nice moments when she gets all sisterly-love with me, but as soon as that is over, she acts like her royal subjects are calling her again.

And worst of all, she’s dating Andy. Andy is the last of my brother’s crew. He’s tallest, with muscles just like Kyle’s except his are a bit bigger. Trust me, when he sweats you have to turn on the air conditioning because it looks so hot. Especially if he’s shirtless. The AC couldn’t go high enough to cool that off.

Plus, he’s super sweet. At his eighth grade graduation, he danced once with me because none of my brothers’ friends would. Well, other than Jared. But Jared danced with every girl who didn’t classify as having a “date”. The funny thing is they don’t bug Jared if he does that, but they would bug any other guy.

Anyways, I decided to choose Kyle and Brian. We needed Brian’s speed.

“Hurry up, Carrie! Who you gonna choose?” Dave asked impatiently.

“I choose Kyle.” All the guys whistled, and Kyle blushed. He’s terrible with girls. He’s so bad that one time in Grade 9, he went to George and Brian for advice. All they can teach you is how to spitball to hit the nipple. If you put perv and jerk together, you can only get a lot of trouble.

Anyways, Dave went ahead and chose Brian. Which left me with a problem. I could choose Jared, who wouldn’t tackle anybody, or I could choose George, who would try to hit me in the head with a football. I don’t wanna spend three days in the hospital, so I went with the obvious choice.

“I choose Jared.”

“Alright, then I get George. Let’s start this game.”

“Wait,” said Kyle. “Don’t we need to chose shirts and skins?” Every guy laughed. Really. Like I was going to take off my shirt for them. I wouldn’t do it even if they paid me.

“Alright, Carrie’s team gets to play shirts. We’re skins,” Dave said.

“Ha ha, very funny. You aren’t getting to see anything.”

“Right, cause we know you’d only show Andy.” Dave’s the only guy who knows about Andy. Not even Taylor found out about it yet. Dave only knows because of how upset I was when Andy asked July out. I didn’t even tell July, which is harsh, considering she’s my sister and I’ve told her everything about my crushes. But amazingly, Dave didn’t freakishly overreact when he found out. I can still remember the moment. All my brothers’ friends already knew, but nobody bothered to tell me, not even July. I still won’t forgive her for that today, although I don’t show it. The funny thing is, Andy asked just two weeks after she dumped Brian (the alleged story is that she thought Brian was too mentally developed, which meant he had shown her the spitball technique). That caused some rockiness for a couple of weeks, but Brian got over it quickly. And then, one day, when I went to my brothers classroom to get him (him and July drove to and from school with me via bicycle/scooter) I saw July practically having you-know-what with Andy. I ran off, but not before Dave saw me and came after me. We had a nice chat, and he let my cry it out. But what surprised me most is that he promised not to tell anybody. Of course, he mentions it, but only when Andy isn’t there, and always as a joke (he’s never actually said I like Andy, he’s just said things like I would lift up my shirt, or I would kiss him, or I would give him a Valentine, and none of the guys take it seriously because they all know that Andy is the best looking of the group).

I gave Dave a stern glare, our usual routine when he said something like this. And then, my comeback, “Just like you’d only moon Clarisse.” Clarisse is this super hot senior exchange student from France. She’s tan and has model legs, and all the guys worship her (except Andy). But she doesn’t understand English, so Dave (amazingly the only French speaker of the class) has to translate. They have these tutoring sessions, and one time I walked in on them having an “intimate moment” in my kitchen. Sometimes I think that my brother’s friends don’t have their own houses, because they’re always at our place. I swear. One time I woke up and Brian was sitting in the TV room, eating ice cream and watching Sex and the City. No surprise there.

Whenever I bring up this diss, all the guys do that “ooh” thing that only men are capable of doing. So I was stuck listening to comments about how “Davey wikes Cwarrisse’s weggies, doesn’t he? He thinks she is vewy spicy, yes he does!” After sixteen years, it gets boring.

When I decided it was enough, I carried out my intervention. “Come on, are we going to play football or what?!”

We got into our huddles. Having Kyle and Jared’s arms around me doesn’t make me sweat at all. “Okay, guys, you ready? Kyle, you be quarterback. I’ll stay on defense, Jared, in the end zone. Kyle, we’ll go like this: I start with ball, pass to you while making it look like I’m going to give it to Jared, who’ll be halfway from end to middle. Then, you pass to Jared. Jared, run until that big oak tree, then pass back to Kyle. In the meantime, stay on Dave, make sure he doesn’t try to block Kyle. Kyle, run just before touchdown, then swerve and start in the other direction to confuse them, pass to Jared, back to Kyle, boom, touchdown! Got it?” They nodded. “All right, one, two, three, break!” We jogged to position. Since I was the only girl, we got first ball. I passed to Kyle, and we carried out the plan perfectly up until the oak tree. When Jared did a quick pass, he tripped over his shoes and fell down. I ran to his spot, because Kyle hadn’t noticed he fell (he was too busy being blocked by Brian) so he threw. I caught the ball, and threw it back to Kyle, but things got worse, because at that moment Dave ran up from behind and wiped the wind out of me.

He tackled me so hard I fell with a crack! in the muddy ground. I could taste dirt mixed with blood, but luckily it was only my arm (the exact thing that had made the cracking sound). Tears stung at me eyes. I wasn’t going to cry, but this was my general reaction when I got an injury. I could feel Dave on top of me, and could vaguely hear Kyle shouting “Foul!” The idiots were busy fighting, not even bothering to help us. Suddenly, I heard a car horn honk, and I knew it was my worst nightmare. July was back from the mall with Taylor and Andy, and I couldn’t let her see Dave on top of me.

This is where I get a disadvantage. See, I have a smaller build. I’m skinny, and I’m about four inches shorter than most senior boys, not to mention that they weight thirty pounds more than me (when you live in the physical world I live in, where you play football every week with pubescent seventeen- and eighteen-year old seniors, being ninety-eight pounds is not a good thing). So there was no way I could possibly pick myself up with Dave on top of me. I could hear July’s clic-clac sound – apparently she had bought new shoes, and they were nearing their destination, me.

“Oh my gosh Carrie, no. You are so not doing that.” She basically kicked Dave aside and pulled me up by the arm, then whispered “Are you trying to be a slut?! My god, at least don’t do it on the street, where everyone else can see.”

I could have slapped her right then and there. See, her whispers weren’t exactly whispers, and she hadn’t even pulled me away from the group, so all the guys heard.

I pretended to ignore this fact and I rubbed at my bleeding arm, which was now even more in pain from the grabbing of July’s forty-dollar perfect pink manicured nails. This was the most awkward moment. Taylor made it a little bit better.

“Carr, you should probably put some ice on that. Come on, lets all go inside.”

Everybody kept giving Dave and me weird looks, especially when he offered to help me with ice. I thought it was genuinely nice and sweet, until we were in the kitchen and he said, “It was two-one Carrie. We won.”

“No it wasn’t! We both know that was unfair. You can’t tackle me after I pass the ball! That game should have been ours.”

“Au contraire, can’t people tackle you whenever? Oh wait, that’s only Andy!”

“Shut up Dave!” I lowered my voice. “He’s right out there! Our kitchen walls aren’t soundproof, you know.”

He handed me the ice, and we headed back to the living room. Everyone was focused on some infomercial, so the funny stares were gone. But I could feel that eyes kept drifting to us, especially July’s suspicious glare when Dave leaned down and whispered in my ear, “We won. Two-one, baby. Looks like you’re the loser.”

Okay, totally new story. I wrote this like a year ago, so I apologize because it's quite bad. This is supposed to be one of those cliche but not cliche stories. Now, please tell me who Carrie's romantic interest should be, because I have no freaking idea...

Here are your choices:

1) Dave - flirty, dark, tall, handsome, everything a girl wants

2) Andy - she likes him

3) Kyle - he's supposed to be hot, plus he's somewhat sweet and shy around girls

I'm not sure, because I don't want it to be a total cliche, and I really just wrote this when I was bored, without any plotline or future in mind...

The second chapter is somewhat done, but I'm having writer's block near the ending of it... More characters will be introduced, plus the antagonist(s) (because although July is a bad sister, she's not really the antagonist).

Plus, I can't promise any updates with this, because I've got other stories to work on, and I wanna finsih those first. Just posted this cause I found it while going through my USB.

Please review and tell me if you like it.