Out of the Blue

About UCLA/ Battle of the Sexes

Lea’s POV

Paige and Caylah were with the three of us at the beach while we all were being followed by paparazzi asking Nareesha and Kelsey questions if we were the boys’ girlfriends or were we their sisters. I can seem to tell that they don’t know me. The boys were getting something to eat while we were out on this beautiful morning for an early-morning-stroll around the beach. 

Nathan ran towards me and wrapped his hand around my waist. Photos were already being taken but I didn’t seem to be caring neither even Nathan. People around us were looking at me and Nathan. He pulled me closer to him and kissed me softly making the flashes around us brighter

“Okay, you really want to show them you’re taken?”

He shrugged and walked further still holding my hand.

We were sitting at the sand while Paige and Caylah were surfing. Tom tapped my shoulder while I was reading the new issue of ‘Seventeen’.

“Can we talk? Alone”

I stood up and dropped the magazine on the blanket. He sat down on the bench that was outside the beach.

“What did you wanna talk about?”

He looked from left then to right.

“It’s about Nathan. Also about college”

“What about college?”

“He had a small talk to me last night. He wanted me to actually transfer you to University of California, well; you were close to us when we are on tour”

“I also thought about that when we were still at the house and I agreed”

He shook my hand and walked back to the spot we were sitting on. Well, the good thing is I was gonna be in Los Angeles. What could go wrong while I’m staying in California? Of course, I’m closer to my brother.

Nathan sat down beside me on the sand; somehow it was also caked on his wet thighs. I intertwined my fingers with his and put on my sunglass. He handed me my shirt and put on his over-sized shirt. I put on mine and stood up.

“Tom, we’re walking around for a minute. Do you mind?” 

“Why not; Sykes guard my sister, her safeties with your life” 

We were walking at the end of the beach hand-in-hand. Our over-sized shirt were both wet, and had a little bit of sand attached to it. I couldn’t even understand how everyone would be lazy enough to just walk all the way to the end of the beach. Both of us were alone, no one was disturbing our moment. He spun me around to face him and kissed me softly, I pulled away to see a paparazzi that has already taken our photo.

“Why did you wanna walk around here? Our spot was okay, right?”

He sat down on the sand and sat me down on his lap.

“We’re talking about you being enrolled in UCLA”

“How did you know?”

“I was the one to convince Tom to enroll you there; somehow I found this school so I can get closer to you”

I enveloped him in a hug and kissed his cheek. There were more things worst than being sent away for college but actually being found by my father. He pulled away from the hug and stood me up.

“Maybe we should go back. We still have some songwriting to do. We’ve been staying here for a week and we haven’t written anything”

“I ran out of ideas”

He intertwined our fingers together and walked back to our spot where the boys were just tapping away on their phones and the girls were chatting about something.

“I’m thinking we search for some sunglasses while waiting for them to finish their games”

I was trying out some of these huge sunglasses that looked like those ‘Vogue Eyewear’ from the Teen Vogue magazine I read, the issue back at February. Nathan was picking out some of eyeglasses without actually trying them all out before buying them. I put the glasses on the counter and waited for him to put his on top of it. He put four sunglasses on the counter and went back to the stand.  A girl approached him and smiled; I walked towards him and put my hand on his back.

“Hi, you’re Nathan Sykes, right? I’m your biggest fan. Can you sign my phone and maybe I can take a picture with you?”

“Sure”

I patted his back and walked back. I took the girl’s phone and snapped a picture of the both of them, I went back to Nathan. He gave her a hug; the girl gave me a dirty look from behind him. She turned around and walked away.

“She was sweet”

“Really Nate”

He shrugged and walked towards the cashier holding two more sunglasses.

The ten of us were playing beach volleyball: Boys against girls. Kelsey thought of it, she said ‘it was time to put their money where their mouth is’ because the boys keep saying boys are better than girls. I don’t believe in that, I mean just because Nathan ditched me at seventh grade doesn’t make them better than us. What girls do is just balanced with boys, they can do some things boys can’t do and girls can’t do some things that boys do.

“Okay, this game is corny; why not just – Let’s run around the cove in many laps as we can, the last gender standing or running gets to prove that they’re better than the loser”

The boys seem to have agreed with Nathan’s idea. He just wasn’t in tracks-and-field back in eighth grade. Me, Paige and Caylah were always there, we used to have a tie and we’d beat up all the boys we were competing with.

“What is this battle of the sexes?”

“That’s what it is babe”

Jay gave Max a high-five and put their shirts on while running for the cove. We followed them and prepared for the run. People were gathering around taking pictures and videos of us.

“Ready… set… go”

Paige ran first going faster than anyone actually. I was faced with Nathan who was just smirking at me and focusing back to the cove. Caylah was going faster than Jay who was already faced with Paige. Kelsey and Nareesha were both slowing down, I slowed down and stopped.

“We’ll just leave it to Caylah and Paige”

I gave Kelsey a high-five and went back to watching Paige run faster than Siva and Jay.

*15 minutes later*

Jay sat down beside Siva. Only Paige and Max were the only one running, this is between the two of them now. I was lucky that Nathan wasn’t the one that was left standing or he’ll distract her with something Paige likes.

They went by the bench we all were sitting on and Max turned to a stop.

“Oh God, I give up. Okay, you win. The girls are better than us”

“No were not. Boys and girls are just balanced, you just thought of it yourself. There are some things that boys can’t do that girls can and there are some things the girls can’t do that the boys can. So we all are even. There’s no battle of the sexes here, right?”