Absolutely

"What's your favorite color?"

"Red, white, and blue all the way!" I answered, laughing at my own answer.

"You're so American," Harry laughed, taking a sip of his water.

It was now almost 10 in the evening. Everyone that had been at the dinner had left, and it was just Harry and I sitting at a table set for 12. We didn't mind that we were left alone, we were completely fine enjoying each other's company. The mandatory game of 20 questions had begun, but we hadn't made it very far, seeing as we were only on question 2.

"What's one thing you do that you're really good at?" I asked.

He shrugged, "I dunno... I guess I'm a pretty decent cook. I used to work in a bakery, so I'm really good with pastries and... Stuff. "

"Seriously? I didn't dub you as the chef or baker type," I responded.

He nodded, grinning widely, "I'm a wonderful cook, actually. You'll have to taste it sometime," He grinned cheekily, which caused me to roll my eyes, "Next question... How tall are you? For a volleyball player, you're pretty short."

I playfully narrowed my eyes at him, "This isn't the first time I've gotten this question.. But I'm only 5'1". Not all of us volleyball players need to be Amazon woman who are 7 feet tall. My partner is is 6'2", so we balance each other out."

The questions kept coming and coming. We had to have been talking for another hour and a half before a worker came and asked us to leave, informing us that the restaurant was closing down.

"We should get going," Harry stated, standing up from his chair. He walked over and pulled my chair out for me like a perfect gentleman. I stood up and thanked him as he pushed the chair back in.

Harry linked our arms together and began to skip out of the restaurant. Not having a care in the world, I picked up my pace and began to skip as well. By the time we were out of the restaurant and down the street a block, we were both laughing uncontrollably. I wasn't entirely sure why were laughing as hard as we were, but I felt free.

"Thanks for staying and talking with me tonight. I'm a little girl in a big unfamiliar city, this was nice," I thanked him as we walked down the street towards the hotel I was staying in.

He grinned, "No problem at all. I enjoyed spending time with you, even though it feels like I am associating myself with the enemy.."

I rolled my eyes at him, "Just because I'm from the US does not mean I'm the enemy. I expect you to come out and see one of my matches soon."

Once we got to the hotel I was staying in, Harry and I stood outside and worked out some details to meet up again and have him possibly come see my next match. We stood outside for a little while longer before parting ways, not before we exchanged phone numbers. The entire walk to my room on the fifth floor, I felt like I was floating on Cloud Nine. Today had been perfect in almost every single way.

Once I was in my room and changed into pajamas, I pulled out my laptop and logged onto my Twitter. My press manager had told me that I needed to keep my tweets relating to the Olympics, and if not about the Olympics, about how wonderful London was. Apparently it would make me more "lovable." How? I wasn't entirely sure.

I clicked onto the little white box and composed a new tweet.

@ScarlettMoss: Awesome win tonight! Thanks to everyone who tuned into watch! Got to sight see a bit and made some friends! Goodnight!

I spent some time going through my mentions to see what people were saying about me. One tweet in particular caught my eye.

@TeenMagazine: British Pop Sensation @Harry_Styles was seen hanging out with American Olympian @ScarlettMoss... Could there be a new hot couple?

I clicked on "Harry's" username and sure enough, there was the curly haired man that had walked into my life tonight. Curious as to why he had 5 million followers, I read through some of his tweets and even went about Googling him.

Harry Styles was 1/5 of the British and Irish boy band, better known as One Direction. Apparently they were insanely famous and I had spent the night with all of them. I decided to blame the idea that I had no clue who they were on the fact that they just weren't big in the United States.

Nope. That was not true at all. After I logged on to my Facebook, I had a good 40 notifications. A bunch of my friends were posting on my Facebook wall, congratulating me on my win. A few of them also made comments like, "You go to London for a few days and you're already going on dates with Harry Styles?" and "Teach me your ways, boy magnet!"

I grinned deviously as I pulled out my phone, typing in Harry's name and sending him a text message.

To: Harry
Message: We're already making the news! Why didn't you tell me that you were famous?

In less than a few minutes, I received a response from him.

From: Harry
Message: Figured you already knew. Those American girls dig us Brits xx

We texted back and forth until I finally passed out, exhaustion from the day's events taking over my entire my body. I fell into a blissful sleep, dreaming about sweet nothing's and calming thoughts.



"Rise and shine, superstar! You've got a game to play tonight! Interviews to attend, burning questions to answer!" My mom shouted as she shook my body from side to side.

In two short days I had become the best of friends with Harry Styles. When I wasn't practicing, making an appearance, or being questioned in an interview, I was texting that damn British boy who had captured my heart at dinner two nights ago.

The time difference was still throwing me off slightly, and between that and texting Harry, waking up and getting out of bed this morning was not something I wanted to do.

In total, I had probably only gotten about 9 hours of sleep, when on game days I needed at least 12. It was entirely my fault for staying up till the wee hours of the night texting Harry sweet nothings, but I still wanted to sleep. My mom shook my body about once again.

"Get out of bed, Scarlett! You have an interview with a California news station in an hour and a half, and then you go straight to practice for your game at five. There's breakfast on the table," My mom shouted again.

I sighed, throwing the covers off of me and detaching myself from the bed, "I'm up! I'm up! You can stop yelling at me now."

I trudged over to the table across the large hotel room and examined the food that was set out. A few bagels, croissants, and an assortment of fruit. Talk about bland and extremely healthy. I snatched up a bagel and shoved it into my mouth, scarfing it down in a few bites. After finishing my breakfast, I wandered towards the bathroom to make myself presentable. Thankfully, my mom had already set out an outfit for me to wear and all I had to do was put it on.

It didn't take long for me to get ready, I was never one to worry too much about my appearance. Once I thought I looked presentable enough, I walked over to my mom and showed her the finished product.

"Do I look okay enough to go out?" I asked, twirling around over dramatically.

My mom sighed, "Yes, Scarlett. Now grab your stuff and let's get going. We won't be back here until later tonight after your game."

I scrambled over to my bed and threw my volleyball bag over my shoulder and grabbed my phone off of the charger. My mom was waiting by the door, typing furiously away at her phone. Not only was she my mom, but she was also my "manager" and "publicist." We didn't have anybody official working for me, it was just my mom and I.

There was a taxi cab already waiting for us outside of the hotel, the driver looked annoyed and impatient. With my luck, I was going to get a speech from my mom telling me about how my "inability to comply to her requests about waking up was the reason for his attitude." Thankfully, that didn't happen. She just ushered me into the car and told the driver where to take us.

It took about 20 minutes for us to drive through the traffic and arrive at the stadium. It was another 15 minutes before I was seated across from a platinum blonde news anchor, whose hair was standing too high up on her head for it to be considered natural. Her perfectly straight set of teeth were also perfectly white, the kind that almost blind you when the person smiles. She had on a tight skirt and blazer, black hooker heels, and bright red lipstick was painted across her lips. Just looking at her made me want to gag.

"Hi there, you must be Scarlett, yes?" She asked, reaching out to shake my head.

I nodded quickly, returning the hand shake, "Yes, the one and only."

The news anchor laughed, no, more like cackled, at my statement. Her laugh was so loud it made me cringe slightly, also making me want to hurry up and get this interview over with.

"Good morning, Los Angeles! Lucy Connoway I'm here in London covering the London 2012 Olympics. This morning I'm here with one of our very own Olympians, Scarlett Johnson! Welcome Scarlett!" The anchor woman, now known as Lucy Connoway, almost squealed after the camera man cued her to begin.

I smiled, offering a small wave towards the camera, "Thank you Lucy, I'm excited to be here."

"Speaking of excitement, how excited are you to be here in the one and only London?" She asked me.

I grinned widely, "So very excited to be here! I've always wanted to travel to London, and I always wanted to compete in the Olympics. It's the best of both worlds!"

She asked a few more questions that related to the Olympics before turning the interview in an entirely new direction, "Tell me, how did you and Harry Styles end up hanging out?"

I should have known that this question was going to be asked, it was my first official interview after the pictures spread across the internet like a wild fire. Yet I still wasn't prepared with an answer.

"To be honest, I'm not even sure. I ran into a friend of his who brought me to dinner and he was there, we hit it off as friends almost instantly and yeah..." I shrugged, not knowing what to say.

I certainly was not going to tell them that we had been texting almost nonstop and that he'd be attending my game tonight.

Lucy smiled an almost blinding smile, turning towards the camera, "Well thank you, Scarlett. That's all the questions I have for you. Best of luck in your match today, we're all routing for you!"

"Thank you, Lucy," I replied simply, wanting to get out of the interview.

It was officially over after a few minutes and then I was able to leave. My mom handed me a water bottle and smiled, telling me that I did a good job and that I handled the Harry question well. Not even getting to take a break, I was being lead to the locker rooms to change into my practice clothes.



"MINE!" I shouted rather loudly, diving towards the ball that was flying over the net towards me.

I clasped my hands together and lined up my thumbs, throwing my arms in an upwards motion to hit the ball. It went upwards and slightly backwards, which my partner covered for. I clambered to my feet quickly and ran over to the net and watched as the ball moved forward, just far enough so I could bring my arm up and spike it over the net. It landed on the other teams side with a loud thud.

The fans that were once seated in the outdoor arena were all on their feet, jumping up and down and cheering at the top of their lungs. It was the second game of our second match and we had won, 25-9. My partner tackled me in a hug, shouting cheers of joy just as loudly as the fans. I jumped around and celebrated with her before going over to shake hands with the members of the other team. They offered us congratulations and we replied with a "good game."

My mom standing up and waving around a large American flag caught my eye first, the biggest smile ever plastered across her face. That in turn made me smile even wider. My eyes then began to scan everyone in attendance, looking for the one person I wanted to see most. That's when I spotted him.

He was standing on the right side of the beach court, about five rows up. He was up on his feet, smiling widely, shouting, and clapping his hands together. His stupid curls were going every which way, pulling off the perfect but messy look. He had on a bright red shirt and blue bands. Once we locked eyes, I smiled about as wide as the interviewer this morning and waved at him. He waved back and then gave me a thumbs up.

That simple gesture made my heart flutter. I then knew that if hew as going to be at every single one of my games, there was no way we could lose.