I plunked myself onto the bench and put my basketball between my feet, trying to catch my breath. Kyle Andrews and Alex Reed came and sat down next to me, also breathless and sweaty.
I redid my long brown ponytail, put my headband back on, and wiped my hand across my forehead. It came back down covered in sweat. Yuck.
I grabbed a small towel out of my bag and wiped my face.
"Katelyn, done for the day already?" Kyle asked with a mischievous grin, green eyes sparkling. His face was flushed, from the exercise, I assumed.
We'd done extra conditioning at the end of practice, and I was exhausted. I wasn't going to show it of course. He ran his hand through his dark hair, and it also came back covered in sweat. I grinned.
"Yeah, and don't tell me you're not tired, 'cause I won't believe you." I retorted, swiping his towel.
He grabbed it back from me and wiped his hand and face, while Alex just laughed. He had been studying the gatorade pattern thing on our towels (they were from the school weight room, and gatorade sponsors our sports league-program-thing), in the midst of la la land.
"Alex? You alright?" Kyle seemed to notice too.
"Oh, I'm fine. Just...lost in thought." Alex said quickly.
"Thoughts about?"
"Um...nothing."
Kyle raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything. They then started chatting about some boy thing, a video game cheat or whatever.
So I let my thoughts wander, too. Basketball season was just around the corner, and we had just finished one of our daily after school basketball practices. We needed to be in tip-top condition for tryouts, in a month. Usually Tristan Fairview was with us, but he couldn't come today. Some theater thing.
The boys finally finished talking, and we stood up to gather their things. We got our stuff and walked out of the gym, toward our bikes.
A group of girls was standing off to the side. They all started giggling when Alex and Kyle followed me out. I groaned, and Kyle raised an eyebrow at me.
Dang!! I thought to myself, for, like, the millionth time. I'd always wanted to be able to raise one eyebrow, but no matter how hard I tried, I always raised two.
"Hey guys!" a blond girl named Brittany called out.
All the other girls started giggling and twirling their hair. Kyle winked at them, which didn't help matters. A bunch of girls blushed, and more giggles came from their general area. I rolled my eyes.
Kyle has the biggest fan club in the whole eighth grade, and it doesn't help that he knows it. His number of admirers is followed closely by Tristan, and then Alex.
A lot of girls are jealous of me, but the boys are just my friends.
To Alex's credit, he just smiled in their direction.
He and I hurried to the bike rack as Kyle started to chat with some of the girls about his last AAU game. They all sighed when he told him about the game-winning three pointer he had made. I rolled my eyes as he talked about how many people were guarding him. I had been there, so I had seen that he wasn't actually guarded by four people, and he hadn't cleverly dribbled past every single one of them, something he seemed to want the girls to know.
As Alex and I undid our bike locks, Kyle joined us, brushing sweat from his face. I raised my eyebrows at him, feeling irritated, for some reason.
"What?" he asked.
