Chapter 4

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(Olive ^ )


"Perkins! Sanders! McDonald! Four hundred meter runs with two minutes rest in between. You know the drill," coach Wheeler yells at me, Evan, and Ian after warm-ups. "And take Mister Wilson and Miss Ramirez with you," he indicates two sophomores to us. We're the only middle-distance runners in the school, so we sometimes train longer sprints by ourselves with coach keeping an eye on us while also watching the sprinters, who're doing hundred meter sprints today.

"Come on, you two," I tell the two timid looking sophomores. I know they did track and field last year, as well, but they've only just discovered their strength in the middle-distances. "You have stopwatches?"

They both nod and show me their wrists.

"Good. Count two minutes from the moment you've run the lap and then set out again, okay?"

They both nod again and the four of us step to the line and set off at the whistle. We're not supposed to run all out, so I keep my pace in check.

Evan is some way before me and Ian is neck by neck with me. He's a junior and I have more experience and skill in the four hundred than him, so I reach the finish line a step before him. Rosa and Anthony trail us far behind.

We run the lap ten times, after which Evan and I wait for the others to get finished before we do a few six hundred meter repeats at fifty percent speed before joining the others at cooling down.

"Nice form" Evan comes from behind me to jog next to me, winking at me ridiculously.

I fight the urge to roll my eyes and just give him a look that says it all. He chuckles and speeds up a little to reach Tyler, who's a little ahead of us.

"Since when have you and Evan been friendly?" Olive asks me, raising a well-defined brow.

"Since I hung out with him yesterday," I answer, thinking back to how cute he was with Bella. "He's really not an ass. At least not all the time."

"Huh," she looks surprised. "I guess you learn something new every day."

I grin back in response.

"So, how's the project going?"

"Uh, not well. We have absolutely nothing."

"So what did you do yesterday?" she looks at me questioningly.

"Just played around," I shrug.

"Mhm, " she wiggles her eyebrows. "Are you sure that's all?"

"Olive!" I look at her shocked. "I am not interested in Evan Perkins."

"Sure you're not," she smirks knowingly.

"Wipe that expression off your face because you couldn't be more wrong," I warn her. "We're just... friends, I guess?" I'm not really sure if we're that, even, but at least I don't hate his guts anymore. Progress.

"So you wouldn't mind me going after him, then?" she licks her lips as she gazes at Evan's broad back. "He's yummy."

"Go for it," I snort. "But you know he's a player. So just be careful."

"I know," she grins. "But I'm not exactly looking for a boyfriend, if you know what I mean," she giggles.

"You're so bad," I tell her jokingly.

She smirks, "I know."

---

After we've showered and re-applied our make up, Olive, Michelle, Lexie, Jordyn and I meet the twins at the parking lot. They're varsity cheerleaders and their practice runs the same time as ours, which is really convenient.

We divide into three cars and drive to the mall. We shop for four hours, each carrying a bunch of bags at the end.

"Well, that was therapeutic" Lindsey says as we sit down at a cafe, our feet aching.

"Tell me about it," Lexie sips at her cappuccino.

"I'm so ready to go to bed," Michelle rests her head on her hand.

"Weak" Olive teases. She could shop for days without growing tired.

"Hey, isn't that Madison?" Audrey points behind me. I turn to look and spot my sister standing in front of a store with Elliot and Hunter. Huh, I though she'd be at home today.

I stand up and wave, trying to get her attention. Elliot notices me first and he nudges her sleeve. The tree of them walk over to us.

"How did you get here?" I ask them.

"The bus," my sister answers. Ugh, I hate the bus. I was so glad when I finally got my driver's license and didn't have to succumb myself to that anymore. Geez, I've become such a snotty rich bitch.

"Need a ride back home?"

"Sure," she accepts, her friends nodding happily. "We were just about to leave, anyway."

"See you tomorrow," I tell my friends and take my frappino to go, my bags hanging on the crook of my arm.

"What were you doing at my house yesterday?" Elliot asks as he climbs in the back of my car. It must have been weird seeing me there, considering Evan and I have never been friends.

Mads' eyebrows shoot up at the information. She knows I don't especially like Evan.

"Your brother and I were paired together for a music project," I explain and pull off the huge parking lot.

"Oh," understanding fills his face, "well that explains it."

"What did you think it was?" I ask suspiciously.

He meets my eyes in the rear view mirror and then quickly looks away, blushing a little, "Nothing."

"Uh-uh," I don't believe him, but don't push it, having a good idea where his mind wandered. "So, Hunter," I address the quiet blue-eyed boy, "how have you been?"

"Good," he answers and gives me a small smile. He's always been quite shy and quiet, and I don't get much anything out of him for the rest of the ride. I drop him off first, then Elliot and lastly I park in our empty garage. Mom left today to Sacramento for a few days. It's not unusual for me and Mads to have the house for ourselves, so we're used to it.

"Want me to fix some late dinner?" I ask her as we take off our jackets.

"Nah, I'm good, thanks," she smiles. "We ate at the mall." Then she disappears upstairs to her room, and I sit down at the kitchen table, thinking about the load of homework I have for tomorrow. Sigh.

---

"So when are you coming over again?" Evan asks me the moment I sit down next to him in music class. Today we're deciding which song we're doing our a capella cover of. It's not easy, considering there's many different tastes in music between the eight of us.

"I don't know," I sigh. "I think it's pretty pointless until we figure out what we want our piece to be about."

"Oh baby, being with me is never pointless," he grins suggestively and I slap his chest.

"Be serious for one second, please."

"I was being serious," he winks.

I give him a tired look. "No, you weren't."

"Someone's in a grumpy mood."

"I'm just tired," I yawn. I slept really restlessly the whole night, waking up as tired as I was when I went to bed.

"Late night?"

"No, just couldn't sleep." I don't even know why I'm telling him this.

"Next time call me and I'll come cuddle you to sleep," he smirks and I can't help but roll my eyes. "I'm a terrific cuddle buddy."

I groan. "You're hopeless."

"Perkins, Sanders, " Mr. Tanner calls us, "less flirting, more working."

I open my mouth to tell him we're not flirting, at least I'm not, but Evan puts his hand over my mouth to silence me.

"Sure thing, sir," he calls back, grinning like an idiot.

"What about 'Hallelujah'?" Helen suggest, her clear voice rising over the others. "It fits well into a capella."

"Not a bad idea, actually" Matt nods his head, thinking it over.

Anna pulls out her phone and types in something. "And it has five verses, so we can have five people leading, which means no fighting about parts."

"Yeah, we can just harmonize" Julie points at her and Lorraine. They play violin and cello, respectively, and although they can sing, as can everybody in this class, they prefer to be in the background.

We eventually decide on me, Evan, Matt, Cory, and Helen singing the leads. We don't really have time to start coming up with the harmonies, though, since we took almost the whole period to think of a song.

I walk to AP history with Evan, who just doesn't leave me alone. We meet Tyler half-way and Evan and Tyler do the hug-and-slap-on-the-back thing guys do to greet each other, the latter giving me a glare as I walk beside them.

"Who pissed in you cereals?" I ask him, pushing past him to the class. He ignores me, which doesn't surprise me. The guys sit behind me again, and I just hope they'll leave me alone today. I actually need to learn this stuff to keep up my GPA.

Thankfully they sit quiet the whole period — a miracle — and the class goes by quickly, as does precalculus after it, even though I can almost feel Tyler sulking at the back of the class. I don't have the energy to try to figure out what his problem is, so I just try to ignore his presence the best I can.

---

"Finally, food!" I sigh happily as I pull into Taco Bell's drive-thru with Olive and the twins.

"Tough morning?" Olive grins. She knows me too well.

"Just tired. Need to get my energy up," I order two burritos and then wait as the others place their orders as well. I just hope we get our food quickly.

"Is that drool I detect?" Lindsey points at my mouth, grinning.

I hastily wipe my mouth on the back of my hand, which comes up dry.

"Just kidding," she laughs and I roll forward to pay. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if there was a big pool of drool dripping down."

"Hey!" I object, but forget the rest when the cashier gives me the receipt and a big steaming brown bag. Yay!

I pull off the drive-thru and drive back to the school's parking lot, where we spend the rest of lunch period before heading up to plan the yearbook. We have a lot of pictures to go through and decide which goes where. A never-ending job, it seems like.

"This is a cute pic of us" Audrey shows me a photo of our friend group sitting at the cafeteria this past fall, laughing at something someone said. Probably taken by Mia without our noticing.

"That is good," I smile. "It's definitely going in."

The yearbook is going to have sections of all school clubs and sports and their members, as well as sections of all four year-classes, the seniors getting extra space. I have yet no idea what text I'm going to have under my senior picture, since I want it to be something good. We're also doing just nice photos of the students at events and around the school.

"Mia, remember there's a varsity home game next week" Audrey tells our photographer. "We need some more pics of the basketball team," she leafs through the unfinished section, pursing her lips.

"The one this Friday is an away game?" Michelle asks, going through a thick stack of photos.

"Yeah" Lexie nods. "Which means I'm not going. It's like two hours away. But I'll go support my baes in the next one," she winks at the twins. "As will we all, right?"

"Totes."

I scrunch my nose but nod along. I only go to the games to support my friends and just to have fun with them, I have no interest in watching Zane play.

"Okay," Audrey writes something down, "I think we're done for the day," she checks the clock. "Yup. See you guys tomorrow," she says just as the bell rings and we disperse.

AP physics goes by in a blur and soon enough I'm outside on the track, doing speed drills with the rest of the team.

"I. Hate. These." Olive whines beside me as we move on to A-skips.

"Oh c'mon, it's not that bad," I say and concentrate on the movement. I started track when I was nine, so I'm very familiar with the numerous drills.

"Having fun yet?" Evan appears next to me. Gosh, he's everywhere nowadays.

"Duh," I tell him, "I love all the practices. I mean, what's not to like?"

"Hey, Tyler!" Evan yells at his friend, who is some way behind us. Tyler looks up and frowns at the sight of us together. "I found something you and Sanders have in common. You can bond over your love for track and stop being assholes to each other." He's wearing a wolfish grin when he says it.

Tyler narrows his eyes at Evan and flips him off.

Evan rolls his eyes and gives me an apologetic look. "I guess he's not into the idea."

I scoff. "If Tyler and I could become friends again just by having one thing in common, we wouldn't still hate each other."

"It's a thin line between love and hate," he sings merrily, wiggling his brows at me.

I gag. "Yeah no. It's a very, very, thick line. A wall, more like it. With barbed wire on top."

He rolls his eyes humorously. "And here I thought we could all be best friends."

I know he's joking, but frown anyway. "Keep dreaming."

"Of you, every night," he smirks and slows down to wait for Tyler.

"And you say there's nothing going on between you two?" Olive raises her brows at me when he's gone.

"There's not," I say truthfully. Sure, he likes flirting, but I just know he's not really interested in me like that. It's just fun and games. "It's just who he is. He's like that with pretty much everybody with boobs."

"Not me," she scrunches her face in thought.

"Maybe because you always get uncharacteristically quiet around him?" I guess.

"I can't help it," she groans. "He's just so hot!"

"Keep it down!" I warn her hastily. The guys aren't that far away.

"Upsie," she grins sheepishly.

---

I push the shopping cart to the yogurt section and scan the shelves, trying to decide what flavor to take. So many options.

"Nora!" a familiar child's voice yells from behind me.

I turn around and see Bella running toward me, her brown eyes shining.

"Hey Bella," I smile at her as she skids to a stop before me. "Who are you here with?" I look around trying to spot an adult she belongs to.

"Ty-Ty," she beams at me and points to where Tyler is hurrying to us with a filled-to-the-brim cart, an annoyed look on his face.

"I've told you millions of times to not run away like that," he scolds her when he reaches us.

"But Ty-y-y!" she whines, "I saw Nora."

He spares me a brief look before looking down at the girl again. "I don't care if it's the Easter bunny you see, you stay where I can see you."

"Okay," she grumbles. "But now that I'm already here..." she turns to me again, the pout disappearing. "When can you sing with me again?"

"Uh," I look from her to Tyler, "I don't know." I'm not really a friend of your brother's or a babysitter, I want to tell her.

"She's busy, let's go Bells," Tyler tells her and turns to leave, but she keeps her ground.

"No, she's not," she frowns, looking between us, a frown etched on her face. "Are you?"

"Not really," I can't help but smile at her. I can almost hear Tyler's inward groan. Jerk.

"Can she come over sometime, Ty?" she looks up at her brother hopefully. "Please-e-e-e-e!"

"Uh," he looks really uncomfortable, "I don't think so."

"But why?" Bella looks confused. "She's my friend. Aren't you?" She directs the last part to me and I nod and smile.

"Sure."

"Yeah but, she's not a babysitter" Tyler tries to explain to her. "And I'm sure she has a lot of other things taking her time."

Bella looks disappointed and I immediately want to make her feel better.

"But maybe you can come around sometime to Evan's when I'm there," I offer her, giving a quick look to Tyler, afraid I'm overstepping, but he just gives a tiny nod. "I'm going to be spending a lot of time with him."

Tyler scowls at that. Jeez, it's not like I'm stealing his best friend! It's for school, for heaven's sake.

"Yay," she claps. "Maybe you can sing us something again. She's such a good singer, Ty," she tells him matter-of-factly, and I blush a little.

"I know," he says under his breath, looking like he wants to be anywhere else. Well then.

"Well, I have to continue with my shopping so I can get dinner started," I tell them and crouch down to her. "But I'll be seeing you soon," I tap her nose and she giggles.

"Bye Nora!" she yells cheerily after me and I can't help but grin as I finish my shopping and head home to cook.

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