Frenemies

02

The sound of victory is me laughing like a lunatic and Grayson shaking his head causing his hair to fall into his eyes. I wonder when he got his last haircut, or if he can see me. In case he can't, I stick out my tongue at him. He shakes his head harder and I continue laughing. The score is 13:12, with the girls team in the lead.

I can't say it doesn't feel good, because it does. 

Katie passes the ball to me and I slam it over the net and watch it hit Grayson's feet. He just stares at it dumbfounded and I laugh harder. 

"That's 14:12, baby!", I shout. 

Grayson picks up the ball and passes it to his server. "Whatever, we have a few more points to beat you guys." 

"As if." 

I might've let myself celebrate too early because I lost the game by four points. I got too cocky at the end and I was running on adrenaline that I kept hitting it in the net. It was Grayson's fault, he kept making eye contact with me which made me lose my concentration. To make matters worse, their last point was made because I hit it into the net again.

"Good job. You've earned your name,loser", Grayson says as soon as the game is over. I'm not sure how he got to my side of the net so fast. I turn to him and say,"That wasn't fair." 

"Why not?", he says his eyes trained on mine again, taunting me. 

"Because of that", I spit out. His eyes still stay on mine and I feel my face heat up with more anger. 

"With your stupid eyes on mine", I say enunciating each word slowly. 

"Oh?", he says teasingly and I fume up more. "Ugh", I say my hand making it's way up to his face and before I even know what I'm doing, I brush his hair off his eye causing him to close his eyes at my touch. I feel his warm breath on my hair and it tickles the new growing hair. Before he gets a chance to open his eyes, I retract my hand and step back. 

"I don't even know how your eyes taunted me with your hair in your eyes", I say leaving out any adjectives, because the only adjective I could use to describe his hair is soft. Ridiculously soft. Softer than mine even as I shampoo and conditioning it twice. 

His eyes open and I feel as though he is looking at me for the first time. It scares me, scares me as to how he would perceive me, so I blow out a breath and adjust my tank top, now noticing how much stomach I was showing. "I'm leaving." 

"Juliette", Grayson says as soon as I turn around. I don't turn back as he says,"Until next time, loser. " 

••••

It's the next day at school when I see Grayson again in the afternoon. We don't have any morning classes together and when I step into class, I take my assigned seat next to him. I lean over my seat and tap him on the shoulder. 

"Rematch next week", I say with a light tone. He picks his head up from the table and looks at me with droopy eyes. He gives me a tiny smile and goes back to resting his head on his arms. I shrug and turn back to my seat. Grayson and I have a long record of one upping each other in class so it confuses me when he makes no effort to answer the questions asked by our teacher. In fact, when I look over to him, he has his head rested on his arm, eyes now closed. 

"Grayson", I hiss as the teacher walks around passing papers out. He doesn't answer so I lean over and poke him on the shoulder. He moves a little but that's it. I sigh and turn around to the teacher making her way toward us. I take a breath in and put both my hands on his shoulder and shake him. This time he picks his head up and turns to me. His lips curve into a smile right before his head falls back on his arm. Again.

"What is wrong with you?", I say and shake him again. This time he can't put his head down because the teacher comes right up to us and says,"I'm going to pretend like you, mister, weren't passed out in my class. I do, however, expect this done before the end of the hour and turned in." 

"Sorry", Grayson says, not meeting the teacher's eye. Huh. I should've let him stay asleep, let him get scolded for a few minutes. I grab a pencil and start the worksheet immediately. When I am halfway done with the page, I turn to my side to watch Grayson staring dumbfoundedly at his paper. He turns toward me and mouths ,"Help." 

"No way", I say incredulously. I never thought there would be a day where Grayson was asking for my help. I commemorate that to memory. He shakes his head and says,"Shut up and help me." 

I laugh softly and put my paper on the edge of my desk. He cranes his neck to see my paper and quickly copies it down. 

"What's happening here?", the teacher asks us. My face heats up but apparently Grayson has a lot of practice with this that he moves his hand to my hair and gives it a tug. His touch is soft, but I still feel the presence of his hand in my hair to the flush of my face."There was just something in Juliette's hair." 

"Right", the teacher says skeptical and this would be the perfect time for me to let him get in trouble. Instead I put my hand in a lock of hair and take out the bobby pin. "It was just a bobby pin, dummy." 

"Oh", Grayson says, faking innocence and we both turn to the teacher. She shakes her head and says,"You guys are an odd pair." 

"A what?", I ask her but she doesn't answer as she murmurs something along the lines of 'teenagers'. 

"Thanks Julie, I can do the rest myself", he says flashing me a smile and turning back to his desk. I don't respond because I don't know how to answer. We have never played nice before only when he twisted his ankle last year and the teacher asked me to take him to the nurse. Even then, we had bickered on our way there. Never like this, never this causal and trusting. 

••••

"Really, Julie, thank you for helping me out there", he says as we walk to our next class. I shrug and say,"Why the lack of sleep?" 

He scratches the back of his neck and says,"Just things that happened this morning." 

"Oh", I say surprised at his body language. 

"Yeah", he says awkwardly and we both walk silently to our next class. Grayson manages to keep his eyes open the rest of the classes and I'm glad I don't have to be on the verge of getting in trouble to help him.