Behind the Scenes

These are my Friends

“I’m open!” I called and stuck out my hands. The ball hit my hands with a familiar ‘smack’ and I dribbled once before setting up for my shot and letting it sail towards the net. It was going in! the beautiful arc fell towards the net, but at the last second, an arm shot out and hit the ball out of the air in a block.

There were choruses of ‘Oh!’s as the ball hit the ground along with Robert who landed his jump as gracefully as Robert could; not very.

I frowned, “No! That was a beautiful shot and you ruined it Robert!”

He just smiled and picked up the ball, resuming the game.

My friends and I were in the park at the basketball court playing a game of pick-up. We were waiting for Niall but had arrived a little early so we could play a game.

My group of friends was the sporty ones. We had Robert, who was about 6’2’’, had brown eyes and black hair that fell slightly onto the dark skin of his forehead. Next was Mark who is the soccer player of our group but also really liked basketball but was only 5’7’’. He was insanely accident prone and his blonde hair was a buzz cut, but his best feature were his sky blue eyes that always managed to get you to tell him what was going on in your life.

Ben is the shortest out of our group at 5’6’’, and his short brown hair that he was always running his hand through had lighter brown highlights in it. He also had blue eyes, but was darker and more penetrating.

Tim is also really tall at 6’1’’ and with light blue eyes and his blonde hair was in a bieber-cut.

Curtis is my best friend out of everyone. He was also 6’1’’ and like almost all my other friends had blue eyes. He was always there to talk to and had been my friend since we had been in diapers. He was with me through the hardest times of my life and because of some of them, he’d grown quite protective; like and older brother. All the guys were protective of the girls in our group. They made joking comments all the time, but if anyone else did, they had to face our guys.

There were only two other girls in our group; Darcey, and Judline (pronounced jude – lynn). Darcey who Niall had already met is my height, 5’4’’ with black hair and blonde underneath. She had brown eyes and wore a lot of makeup. She was also very pretty and super skinny. Judline is African American. She came to Canada from Haiti when she was very little with her older brother, and they were adopted by a teacher at our school and his wife.

I looked around and saw Niall’s car pull up in the parking lot and ran over excited.

“Am I late?” Niall asked worriedly as he got out of the car

“No,” I laughed, “We came early to play some ball. Come on!” I took his hand and bought him over to where the group had stopped playing and was watching us. Niall looked really nervous because I’d told him all about my friends and he knew that they were like my family since my parents weren’t around much.

“Everybody, this is Niall; my boyfriend. Niall this is Robert, Mark, Tom, Curtis, Judline and Darcey who you’ve already met.” I introduced everyone.

Niall shook all the guy’s hands and but when he got to the girls, they both pulled him into a hug.

I smiled along with the girls, but the guys were all looking critically at Niall, sizing him up.

“You play?” Robert asked, breaking the silence that now filled the air and I shot him a grateful smile.

“I’m more of a football guy meself, but sure.” Niall responded taking off his jacket

“Ohh! Football, what position are you?” Judline asked expectantly

“I play most everything except goal and striker, but I’m normally a centre mid.” He responded, receiving confused looks from everyone

“Wait, you mean British football; like American soccer?” Tom asked

“Oh ya, sorry, I guess you guys call it soccer.” Niall said sheepishly

“Soccer; wicked! What team do you cheer for? I like Chelsea personally.” Mark said suddenly interested

The two of them began talking soccer and I shook my head. Niall now had Judline, Darcey and Mark on his side, only 4 more to go.

We started a game of basketball up and the teams were split into two. On my team were Robert, Tom, and Darcey against Niall, Mark, Curtis and Judline and Ben. They had the extra player so we got to start with the ball.

We played for a solid hour before everyone was tired and ended our game; my team had kicked ass.

“Who’s up for some food?” Robert asked. He, Tom and Ben had all warmed up to Niall, but Curtis was still skeptical.

We all agreed hungry after our game, and split into the various vehicles we’d taken to go to our favourite pizza place; Mario and Luigi’s.

I got into the car with Niall and started giving him directions.

“What do you think of my friends?” I questioned

“They’re great” he responded genuinely, “they clearly really care about you too.”

Once we got to the pizza place, we all sat down to eat and were having a great time before it was spoiled. First, a girl and her friend began whispering, and then they got on their phones, constantly looking over at Niall and me. Ten minutes later, hoards of girls began swarming the shop and Niall grabbed my hand.

“We got his, get out of here!” Curtis yelled in my ear over the hoards of screaming girls.

Tom and Ben shoved their way through the crowd leaving Niall and I little room to dash out and into his car. Niall quickly peeled out, careful not to hit anyone, and we raced for the hotel while girls chased the back of the car.

So this is what it feels like to date a celebrity.