Let's Hear It for America's Pastime

[title credits go to Honorable Mention by Fall Out Boy (before andy. Haha.)

I must say, being surrounded by girls isn’t a nightmare. Not even close. Especially when they’re pretty and remotely sane. In fact, you could say I was actually enjoying myself.

Hell, who am I kidding? I was having a full out BLAST.

Let me introduce you to my new girlfriends. The ones who’ll be going on in this stupid show.

Aja shook hands with Kristine, then turned to another girl who’s name was James. I think. They seemed to recognize each other.

“James?!” Aja exclaimed, her small smile growing more and more. James, a small girl with gorgeous brown sugar skin, jumped up from her seat and embraced Aja in a tight hug. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in Seattle!”

James laughed. “I was. And now I’m here on a stupid reality TV show,” she explained, rolling her eyes. The two girls walked away, but not before Aja turned to me and told me she’d catch up with me later. I nodded, looking back at the girls.

“I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten some of your names,” I apologized, cringing mentally at how stupid I sounded. The girls didn’t seem to mind, though, as some of them giggled. Yeah, giggled.

“Well, I’m Ray,” a girl with long auburn hair said. She smiled kindly and gave me a short wave from her spot at the table. I smiled back at her before pulling up a chair to sit down.

“Hello, Ray. Like I said, I’m really sorry for forgetting some of your names. My memory is awful tonight,” I said. The girls laughed a little again.

“I’m Michelle, but if I catch you calling me that I’ll kill you. Call me Mitch…” another girl said. She had pretty blue eyes and skin paler than mine (which is hard, thank you very much). Her grin was a little sarcastic mixed with excitement, and I definitely couldn’t help but smile back.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Mitch,” I reassured her.

The last girl at the table was slouching just a little, her expression shy. I automatically remembered meeting her. Isla, pronounced eye-lah (which was probably the prettiest name I’d ever heard) had endless dark blue eyes and a polite smile.

“You’re Isla, right?” I asked. She smiled a little bigger and blushed, nodding. “That’s a lovely name… how do you spell it?”

“I-S-L-A,” she told me. I could see she was starting to feel a little more comfortable, which made me happy. Just then, James and Aja came back to the table, James sitting in the seat she was at before and Aja pulling up a chair beside her.

“Sorry for leaving, Patrick. I haven’t seen Aja since we were in high school,” James said.

“That’s perfectly fine. I’m glad I found you girls. I thought I was going to go insane with all of the craziness going on inside,” I laughed. I checked my watch and groaned.

“Patrick?” Mitch asked. I looked up at the girls apologetically.

“I’ve got about five minutes to get to know all of these girls. I’m really sorry, but I have to go,” I said. The girls looked sad, but let me go with a wave.

Very, very reluctantly, I led the camera’s inside (I was afraid I would loose my hair if I tried talking to the girls by the pool) and made my way over to the athletic girls. By now, two of them were on the floor having some sort of a contest to see who could do the most crunches. I felt kind of lazy just watching them.

“Uhm… hi girls!” I said loudly, with just a little bit too much enthusiasm. I was sure one of them could see right through me, her dark eyes staring at me skeptically. I ignored her.

“Patrick!” the girl closest to me squealed, automatically latching onto my arm.

Ugh. This was going to be the longest five minutes of my entire life.