Courageous Hearts {READ DESCRIPTION}

Chapter Six: Welcome Wild Boy

Chapter Six: Welcome wild boy

Paige pulled herself out of bed; she had gotten back from volleyball practice at midnight, they had the nationals coming up and Coach Juliana was drilling them hard. She had been so tired that Michael had to pick her up and drive her home. She had collapsed on the bed utterly exhausted. Sitting on the floor she let her head fall back on the bed, she knew she should take a shower before doing anything but it felt like there was magma in her veins. She heard footsteps, turning her head she saw that it was Mordecai in his pajama bottoms. Mordecai walked into her room with his pajama pants pulled up past his belly button. This made Paige laugh a bit, his pajamas had a habit of inching up his waist while he slept, no one really knew how it happened nor did anyone actually care. It was a quirk of her brother that she loved. He ambled over and sat down by her bed on the big ball Michael had won for her at King's Island. "Dead or are you just feeling lazy again?"

She rubbed her face. "How would you feel if everything in your body was sore.?"

"Well, I was on the track team when I was in high school," He laughed at the memory, "Coach used to go insane right before a big match. Remember the day I didn’t wake up?"

Paige laughed, "Abril tried everything she could think of to wake you up, even resorting to a blow horn in your face. You still didn’t wake up though. Oh and she even got Willia to try to pull you out of your sleep, dad nearly chopped your head off when he saw her in your bed. Speaking of which," She gazed at him, "When are you going to propose to Willia?" Paige asked.

He gave a nervous laugh and ducked his head under his hands. He had grown used to Willia just being his girlfriend over the past two years that he hadn’t given any second thought to proposing to her. Just the idea of her living under the same roof as him made him want to jump into a vat of acid. "I-I don’t know."

"Nerves getting you?" Paige sat up scratching an itch that didn’t want to go away on her arm.

"What do you think?" He looked at his sister. "What would you do if Michael proposed to you today?"

Paige’s cheeks flushed over. It was true that she did have a crush on her best friend, but she wasn’t sure that he even liked her back. Who’d love a girl with no legs? "Well I don’t know. I’d say yes, because I love-"A grin broke out on Mordecai’s face. "Don’t let Abril see you say it, I’ll never hear the end of it."

"Already saw it," Abril’s partially delayed speech came through the doorway. Her head was peeking thought the doorway. Her slick black hair was pulled back and she was in her hot pink pajama bottoms and a zebra shirt. She bounced into the room landing on Paige’s bed. "So…how long have you had this crush on the British hottie?" Paige threw a pillow at her head.

"Awhile now." Paige admitted.

"I do have to admit he is hottie; chocolate brown hair, emerald green eyes, and that sprinkle of freckles on his nose." She squealed. "Remember that summer when he came to our house in just his trunks to take us swimming?" Paige hid her face in a pillow. She did remember how he looked. The trunks had hugged his waist and his not exactly ripped chest was showing. "You do remember!" Abril laughed jumping on her sister.

"Abril!" She tried to knock her off, but Abril jumped back out of Paige's stump's reaches. "Don't say a word, it'd make things awkward in our group."

"Donna and Phillip are dating and none thing is wrong with that." Abril looked at them like she had a halo above her head. Paige grinned and chucked a pillow at Abril's head.

"I know that but Aurora would be the only single person in the group." Paige tried to win her side of the argument.

"Well didn't she say just last Friday that she was going to swear off dating?" Paige huffed and Abril grinned.

"Abril go get ready." Paige nudged her with her stump. She stuck out of her tongue and skipped towards her room. Mordecai and she sat there looking at the empty space in the doorway. Paige looked over to her brother, he really needed his hair cut. His dark brown hair had got down to his shoulders now. "So are you actually going to do it?"

Blowing out a huff of hair he got up and walked to the doorway. "I don't know."

Across the school a tall tan nineteen year old guy stood at the front desk office with his mother who only came to his shoulders. It was clear that he had taken after his mother in almost every way except for him being close to six foot three. He had gotten his father's unruly curly black hair that stuck up on top of his head. It looked even more unruly mainly because he refused to cut it, it was now down to his shoulders. Or it would have if it wasn't for the overwhelming curling of his hair. A battered pair of old sunglasses kept his hair somewhat pinned back as he watched the receptionist gather all of his transfer papers.

"Looks like that's all it." The receptionist looked back at him. A look of wonder passed in her eyes. "I've got to ask, what do you do?"

He smiled back at her. "I do extreme sports. For instance," He pulled up his T-shirt's sleeve to his freckled shoulder and a long thick scar, "Got this one when I jumped off a Cliff in the Grand Canyon. Got to close to the wall and ripped me up."

"He got fifty stitches in that one alone, that's not even his worse scar he's got." His mother said.

"Where's that one?" She asked looking at him.

He started to pull his pants down, but his mother slapped his hands. "It's on my butt. I don't remember it really, but mom said I got a piece of barbed wire stuck in it."

She sat back in her chair and laughed. "I have a son that is just like you, stinker to put it kindly." Sitting back up she checked her phone and looked at them. "School starts again on Monday, so be here and don't hesitate to ask anyone where your classes are."

"Thanks," His mother said walking out of the office door.

"I'll be right back, I have to use the restroom." He jogged off to find a bathroom. Turning down a hallway he saw a sign for the Men's bathroom. He ran to into the bathroom and into a stall. Coming back out he ran down the hallway and found his mother. She was on her phone talking to someone, looking back at him she walked out of the doors and into the clear fall day. Walking down the sidewalk heading towards her car she looked back to find her son, but he had disappeared. Smiling she shook her head and sent him a text.

Went down to see the track, I'll be back soon. Go ahead and head home.

Down the hill he ran to the tack field he was planning on to try out for men's track as soon as he could. Stopping at the gate he noticed a woman down there already running on the track, something seemed off about her legs. Letting his wonder take over him he went down towards the track.

He stopped at where the bleachers were. Then he noticed why the girl's legs had looked off. The lower half of her legs were prosticks. The end was curved odd to be a sports foot. Then he saw her face, her curly black hair was pulled back from her face in a tight pony tail, but her eyes showed utter determination. Grinning he kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks, he was egar to see if he could out run her. Waiting by the track for her to pass him, he got a kick start running beside her at a even pace.

It took a couple of moments for Paige to notice the guy running beside her, but when she did she couldn't help but notice the playful grin on his face. He turned to look at her and smiled even bigger, his crystal blue eyes seeming to smile also and show the playfulness back at her. "Hey!" He shouted at her. "What's your name?"

"Paige Rockwell. Yours?"

"Matthew O'Donnell,"