Sweet Like Honey

Afternoon beach soccer!

That’s his idea of hanging out and I am so glad! I don’t want to brag or anything but I was kind of a soccer super star back in the day. If my trophies and medals could talk they would cheer me on every time. Well every time with the exception of . . .

“Goal!” screams the other team. Zack runs up to me and starts to do a victory dance with a few other members from his team. The burning feeling in the pit of my stomach makes me wish a giant hand made of sand would come up from the ground and drag him under.

I push him out of my way as the ball makes its way to the middle of our pretend field. There’s no way I would let Zack and his team win. No flippin’ way! The moment one of my team mates passes the ball to me I zoom off past everyone and even slip past Zack. And of course I score.

“Oooooooooh!!! Ohhhhhhhhhh!” I yell continuously while I dance circles around Zack and his three dance buddies. They laugh at me but I know on the inside they are dying of shame. I mean I would be to if I just got my butt kicked by me.

The game starts up again and Zack is on my butt the entire time so I can’t score and no one can pass it to me. “Get away,” I say trying to run past him. He continues to trail close behind me, making sure I don’t get the ball. The moment his team has it they pass it to him and he flies past me and scores.

Where is that giant hand made of sand when I need it? Of course he doesn’t miss the opportunity to gloat and dance circles around me, making me even angrier. Ok so I admit that I started this whole dance gloat thing. I can’t help that I am super competitive when it comes to sports, but still they weren’t supposed to do it back!

Last goal wins the game and Zack gets the ball again. By the look on his face I can tell he is about to pull another cool move and score. I don’t care how cool he looks right now I am not letting him score again. So I do the only thing that comes to mind.
I tackle him.

Or so I try but it fails because he sees it coming and dodges it. I roll around the sand and twist just about every part of my body. I can hear the other team score and I stare up at the sky when I finally stop tumbling around.

“I lost,” I mumble to myself.

“You’re not as sweet as I thought,” says Zack kneeling down next to me and offering me his hand.
I glare at him and get up by myself. There’s no way I am going to accept his help, not after I lost to him. He just laughs at me for some reason and I kick sand into his shoes. I try to ignore him and just push past him but the expression on his face makes me forget how angry I am right now. He smiles like there is not a care in the world and it makes me realize how silly I am being.

“I’m such a sore loser,” I say with a chuckle and brush the sand off my clothes.

The two teams rush over to us and start to thank us for joining their game of beach soccer. Most of them are Zack and Harvey’s friends. Not that I’m surprised, they are very friendly guys. I’m starting to think Harvey decided to leave me with Zack so that he and Ryan could go on a date. Everyone keeps asking me where Harvey is when they find out that I’m his new roommate. If he’s usually here, but isn’t today he must be up to no good!

Yuck.

“She needs to play with us more often,” says Rena a girl from my team and she puts her arm around me. A gesture which I do not mind for some reason. “You’re good,” she adds and walks over to Zack. She puts her arm around him and fake punches him in the stomach.

“Where’s Eric?” he asks and her calm expression turns into a very cold one.

“I don’t know. I’m not his keeper.” She walks off to where everyone is gathering and trying to start a fire. Poor guy, I’d hate to be on Rena’s bad side. Unlike me, she successfully managed to tackle Zack down when he took the ball from her. It was a cheap shot, but still she managed to bring him down and we were just playing a game.

“Come on let’s eat,” she yells in her usual calm tone. Zack and I join her and when the fire gets going I go crazy with the s’mores. “Wow for such a small girl you eat a lot,” says Rena as I bite into my seventh s’more.

“I don’t eat sweets back home.” I have a hard time saying this because my mouth is full of sticky marshmallowy goodness.

“Why not?” The questions comes from Zack as he steals the s’more I’m about to gobble down. I glare at him but he doesn’t acknowledge my annoyance.

“I have crazy parents.” I stop myself before I say anymore because I realize how dumb I must sound. I’m twenty three years old and I am still doing what my parents want. Well Ranger Abby you can subtract 23 cool points now.

“I know what you mean. My parents still hassle me about the smallest things and I don’t even live near them anymore,” says Rena. Congratulations Rena, you now get 23 cool points in my book of awesome! She gets it, which is surprising because Rena comes off as the kind of girl that doesn’t let anyone tell her what to do. Earlier today the other team wanted to start off with the ball, but Rena wouldn’t let them. It was like she turned into a giant fire breathing Cyclops that scares the village people into sacrificing their best goats.

“Hey Eric,” says Zack as a tall blonde and hot (if I might add) guy walks up to us. They bro hug and I think Zack introduces me to him because Eric holds his hand out and shakes mine. I wonder if I should tell him my name, but maybe Zack already did that. I’m just so distracted by him. It’s like staring at one of those Abercrombie and Fitch models except fully clothed and in person.

“Don’t let Rena catch you swooning. She might get jealous,” he says with a smirk and looks over at her.

“Shut up Eric.” She rolls her eyes and tries to walk away, but he grabs her hand and stops her. She remains pissed off, but for some reason she doesn’t let go of his hand.

“I brought you something.” He hands her something square wrapped in newspaper. His face takes on a more relaxed look and he smiles at her. Well this is awkward. It’s like Zack and I aren’t even here. There’s too much sexual tension going on and I refuse to be stuck in the middle of it.

Cringe.

Luckily, Zack and I manage to slip away unnoticed while those two continue their yucky love fest. “I thought prince charming was supposed to slay the Cyclops not woo her.” Crap. I just said that out loud. Sometimes I forget I’m supposed to act normal. That’s minus one bazillion points, which means I am unfit to play the cool game and am disqualified.

“The Cyclops isn’t easily wooed. Prince charming will probably end up with broken limbs by the end of the night.” Maybe I’m not as uncool as I think I am, or maybe Zack’s secretly a weirdo too.

“I know you’re from the east coast but where exactly?” Ah crap that question again.

“I’m from a place north of Crazyburg. The place where everyone eats small portions of vegetables and chocolate is banned. There’s not much to do there, but buy shoes with sharp claws and pour acid on hair.”

“I could have sworn you were from Candy Land.”

“I wish! But I wouldn’t last very long there. I’d eat my house to the ground and then when winter comes along I’d freeze. Unless the snow there is really coconut flakes, in which case I’d overdose on snow within the first few hours. Hmm maybe it’s a good thing I’m not from Candy Land because it would be the death of me.”

“Hey, Abby what’s your number? We should hang out more often.” Rena and Eric rejoin us and this time Rena has a monstrosity of an agenda. Is that what Eric gave her?

I can’t stand those things mostly because I’m convinced they were put on earth to torture pudding queens like me. I even went as far as burning my mom’s leather bound agenda once. I made it look like an accident, but I knew what I was doing. I swear that thing was evil because it followed me everywhere and it had my life trapped inside its sticky pages!

“It’s going to be so nice having another girl around,” I say as she writes down my contact information.

“Definitely! I’m getting tired of slobs.” She looks at Eric and emphasizes the word slob. Eric smirks and says, “I love you too Rena.”

Somehow she manages to knock him down and twists his arm while he’s face down in the sand. Very unexpected, but pretty damn cool! That’s 27 more points for Rena.

“Told you,” says Zack when Rena turns into a crazy Cyclopes again.

“What the hell are you doing?” Eric asks.

“That was for burning my old agenda,” she says. He did what the what?

“It was an accident,” he responds.

“Yeah right!” Rena finally lets him go and starts having a conversation with me again. We bond over our love of baking and she invites me to her house next week so that we can bake and decorate a cake. It doesn’t seem like we have anything else in common other that our sweet tooth’s and crazy parents.

Yet I really like her.

Strangely enough, it turns out that Eric and I have more in common than Rena and I do. Normally I’d be freaked out by him since he is an unknown, and very attractive, male but I found out he has old superhero comics left over from his teenage years. Well it just so happen that I also have several comics left over from my teenage years. I had to bring them with me because they would be in danger if I left them at home alone. I never told Harvey that I brought them because he’s not a true fan he would never understand, but Eric does! We’re swapping comics next week.

After we spend an hour hanging around Rena and Eric, we decide to call it a night. On the way home I start arguing with Zack about the best soccer team in the world. He thinks it’s Spain, but he’s wrong everyone knows it’s Brazil.

“South America is where it’s at,” I argue

“We’ll see about that, when the world cup rolls around.”

After a long, yet not awkward, silence Zack says, “Still think I’m some kind of psychopathic murderer?”

“How did you know I thought that about you?”

“You looked scared and worried on the way here.”

“Oh.” So much for trying to be sneaky.

“So are you still afraid of me?”

I smile and say “No, not anymore.”