Frenemies

15

After the spending the rest of the sunrise together, the both of us head in to the cafeteria to eat. We spot our school and with a last glance at each other, we part ways. I head over to Katie and the girls who were all staring at Grayson and I walking in. Our hands weren't interlocked, but Grayson had soflty grabbed a hold of my hand, pulling it in front of his body. 

I remembered my cheeks heating up when he had ended the phone call and had placed his hand on mine. I hadn't glanced at him only followed him toward the main cabin. 

"What was that?", Katie asks and the girls all start nodding eager to know my answer. 

"I don't know", I answer quickly and they all give me looks that say that they obviously don't believe me. I wave them off and look toward Gryason who meets my eye and gives me a soft smile. There goes my flushed cheeks again.

After breakfast, the task for the day is to practice for the tournament we have tonight. Last night we had a day off where we had all gone back to our cabins to catch up on missing work from school. I knew that even if we caught up now, by the day we got back, we were going to be still piled up with missing work.  

Once we get to our appointed gym space, coach calls me over. I'm still a little ticked off at Mrs. Kelly for her obvious rudeness to Grayson, but I still walk toward her. I stand beside Grayson who turns to me with a smile. His smile makes my stomach flutter, now that I know he likes me. He hadn't told me in those....actually he definitely told me.

...that you weren't going to see me the way I saw, see, you.

That was most honest I've seen Grayson be toward me and the thought of him liking me, having had liked me for a few years makes my head spin. I'm not sure how to interpret it, if he liked me all these years, why hadn't he spoken up? If he had shown interest in me, I would've considered the two of us together.

But then, I think about it and know that if he had shown interest a year ago, I wouldn't have been interested. Only that one week after my brutal breakup with Aidan, but he hadn't shown interest then.

His hand grazes the back of my hand lightly and I glance up at his face to see him giving me a look. I shake my head and give him a smile before turning to my coach. "Why are we here?", I ask her.

She turns to me with a huge smile and  says,"Jules." I give her a nod and she continues,"As you remember, the tournament the other day lasted too long so today, we are going to combine both our girls and boys' teams."

"So that means we are going to compete together tonight?", I ask and she nods. I turn to Grayson who had still the same smile on his face. "What do you think, Gray?"

Mrs. Kelly gives me a look at the sudden nickname for the guy I can't bare to stand next to but I ignore her. He picks his shoulders up in an elaborate shrug and says,"Could be fun."

"I think so too!", Mrs. Kelly shouts and I turn to her. My smile falls off my face and I say,"Are you going to apologize to Gray?"

"Sorry?", she asks me and I feel Grayson move closer to me. I ignore him and say,"For being harsh to him before we got here. For threatening to throw him off the team."

"Jules--", I know that she isn't going to apologize to him so I cut off the rest of  her statement.

I pull at my ponytail, making it looser,"I know Grayson is not your player but you could be a little nicer to him. You are, in comparison, so much nicer to me, to the girls."

I watch as my coach's eyes soften at my words and she casts a glance at Grayson who has now placed a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Grayson."

"No, it was fine", he looks at me, a tiny smile on his face,"I get it. You were stressed. And I had put up a fight."