CALIFORNIA DREAMING ▹ ADAM BANKS [ON HOLD]

IT BEGINS WITH US, TOGETHER

[ C A L I F O R N I A  D R E A M I N G ]

❛ it begins with us, together ❜

          THE ROWDINESS OF THE BOYS ON THE COURT ONLY made me and Charlie more excited about the fact that we were gonna be the Ducks again. After Jesse scored his goal I nudged Charlie to blow on the noisemaker that Bombay gave us. The noise brought everybody's attention towards us "Hey, Charlie! Alex!" Jesse greets.

"Jesse, we're back!" Charlie yells. Jesse practically jumped out of the court and onto the sidewalk with us. We quickly started skating again before Jesse announced our next destination.

"Let's go get Averman," Jesse smirks skating off faster which only made the rest of us follow quicker. After a bit of skating, our wheels took us to the mall where Averman was working in during the summer. As we were skating around the mall to find Averman, a bunch of people hollered at us in the process. We approached the escalators, which was much harder to go up than I ever imagined.

"Let's go, Jesse. Over to the left," Charlie shouts as he goes up the escalator quicker than anyone else. I saw our favorite nerd handing out tickets to his boring customers. He looked depressed.

Charlie hands over the noisemaker and smiles "Go for it," he shrugs.

Averman looks over at us with the biggest smile ever "Averman, let's go!" I call him over.

"Come on! Come on!" the two other Ducks with me cheered.

"But, but, but—" Averman stutter.

"Come on. Let's go!" we chuckle. Averman dragged another employee into his station and ran off somewhere to change. He came out with his skates intact. We skated through the mall once again to reach an exit, it was much more fun with Averman in the group. The group and I got near the bridge.

"Where we goin' now?" Averman asked.

"Gotta get Connie and Guy," Charlie announces to the rest of us. When we had arrived near the waterfall, we saw Guy and Connie together, it looked like Guy was about to make his move when Charlie decides to interrupt them with the noisemaker.

"The Quack Attack is back, Jack!" Averman yells at the couple who were just about to have their moment. The boys started hollering at them as I held in my laughter.

"I was this close," Guy informs squinting his two fingers showing the proximity of their kiss. We were skating back to town to go find another Ducks member when we ran into some construction but nothing ever stopped us. Charlie led us through the traffic cones but what he didn't see coming down was a man slower himself from his machine.

"Charlie, watch out!" I scream but it was too late Charlie had jumped his way across the machine and onto the other side. The crowd goes wild at Charlie. Next stop Goldberg's Delicatessen to get back our goalie. Averman was the first to reach the window that saw through the shop. Charlie blew on the noisemaker once again which caught Goldberg's attention away from wiping down his current table.

"Goldberg!" we all yelled making fun of him from the other side of the window. Goldberg's smile lit up as he saw every one of us, well almost everyone. He rushed away from his table into the back and pulled out his skates. We reached the bridge that took us to a park in which we had a little too much fun in. I found myself skating through the fountain, it felt like I was floating on the water really quickly. It was much different from where the rest of us lived, this community was more for the rich and I knew exactly where we were headed next.

"He's comin' across the goalie, between his legs— Score!" Banks cheered. Charlie handed me the noisemaker and smirked. I looked up at everyone and saw their smirks. I attached my mouth to the noisemaker and blew on it to make the recurring duck noise. It caught his attention immediately.

"Hey, cake-eater, you wanna play some real hockey?" I tease with a wink. The others behind me help him decide.

"Yeah!" Banks beamed. Adam drops his things and quickly joins the group. Everyone pats his back and then skated off. It was just me and Adam left standing there.

"Hi," he smiles looking down at me.

"Hi," I grin up towards his face. I'm pretty sure these were the most words we've said to each other all summer long. "We should probably catch up with them."

"Yeah, we should," Adam agrees "Last one there is a rotten egg!"

Adam skates away from me like sonic speed. We managed to catch up with everyone "Guys, it's an international competition. It's us against the world!" Adam chirps at the idea.

"Hey, man, bring 'em on. We're ready!" Goldberg challenges the universe as if it was a person.

"Oh, Goldberg!" Jesse exclaims holding onto his friend's shoulder.

"Whoa!" Goldberg blurts out falling to the other side of the green grass. The entire crew cheered as Goldberg made his way back up again but not without a mouth full of whatever that family had in their picnic basket. Typical Goldberg, eating food as it comes his way. Jesse was showing off his skills on his skates as we skated across the bridge that took us back into the city. I see Fulton in the distant with a bunch of the sore Hawks.

"That'll teach ya to mess with the Ducks! Yeah!" Fulton shouts holding onto the clothes of the Hawk players. They were tied to the tree in their boxers, what an embarrassment. We were all together again! We agreed with Bombay that after we get everyone together that we would meet him wherever he wanted. The Band Box. I nudge at Charlie to blow the whistle at this point. The entire team started chanting to the Ducks.

"Okay! All right! Come on, get back!" Bombay yells trying to get our attention. We calm down after a bit and Bombay begins a little speech "Welcome back Ducks. I really missed you guys. Are you ready to fly?"

"Yeah!" the crowd cheers loudly.

"Whoo! All right! All right!" Bombay joins in. Moments after, we paused our cheering to look at the noise that stopped us. I turned to see a limo approaching us. My eyes widen at the view and mentally laughing thinking about how a year ago that was how Bombay met us. In a limo on the ice. Everyone was asking questions about who or what was the mystery behind the limo scene.

—

[ A U T H O R ' S  N O T E ]
Second chapter is here! I've been trying to keep the chapters at a minimum number of words to not make it too long so you can have more chapters to read! Also if you want to, check out any of my other books just in case you're in other fandoms that I've written about so far.