We Come Alive 5

The One

Monday morning, bright and early, Ricky was making the walk from his apartment to his Jeep with Jacob right beside him. He offered to drive him to school since Ricky was starting to have more and more work to do around the school and needed to be there earlier.

"Why you ain't go to the party Saturday?" Ricky asked. "Wasn't it Colby's?"

Jacob nodded, glancing at Ricky who was leading him into the parking lot. "My dad wanted to hang out with me." He explained, waiting patiently for Ricky to unlock the doors. "Had to have dinner with that side of my family."

Ricky nodded his head slowly, unlocking the doors and getting into the driver's seat. "I don't have a dad. Can't relate." He shrugged, starting the Jeep up and driving off.

Jacob looked at Ricky with his jaw dropped, shocked that he'd say that. "Morbid much?" He gasped. "Damn, Rick. You're so dark."

"Not dark." The older boy replied, putting his seatbelt on with one hand. "Realistic."

Jacob put on his seat belt and shook his head. "You need therapy." He whispered. "You're such a damaged soul."

Ricky busted out laughing as Jacob shook his head chuckling. The two just kept driving to the school, cracking jokes for the rest of the way.

~**~

Hours later at Grand Ridge High School, the star seven football players were sitting at their lunch table in the cafeteria together. They were all in the mist of their conversation and laughing about what happened at Colby's party just two nights before.

"So Mateo's grounding you?" Jose snickered, rubbing Clover's hair down.

The only girl at the table sighed, pulling her hood up on her sweatshirt. "Yeah." She answered, looking at her friends. "I can't go out for the two weeks, I can only go to school and to practice, and I'm not getting paid for last weeks practice and game and this weeks."

Colby leaned on his fist that he had propped up with his elbow on the table. "I should've joined the baseball team. I wanna get paid." He pouted.

"It's not all that it's cracked up to be." Ethan assured him, tossing some grapes into his mouth. "We have to actually do shit. And we're not allowed to try to get kicked off the team. Gotta be good players."

The boys snickered as Ethan kept complaining. Their laughs calmed down when they saw a familiar face walking up to the table. Macy walked up to their table with her blonde hair flowing in the wind and her tight skirt tightening around her thighs with every step.

Jacob stood up to meet her halfway so she didn't have to get too close to the table, but she didn't stop. Macy smiled, greeting him with a quickly kiss before looking at the table.

"Boys." She greeted. "Annoying bitch." She hissed, looking at clover.

"Ugly skank." Clover replied, taking a bite into her sandwich. "I see you're extensions are doing you well. You might wanna go get your hair dyed again. Your roots are showing."

Macy gasped, touching her darker roots. "There suppose to be like that. What? You too wrapped up in your sports world you forgot what the rest of the world is like?"

Clover went to insult her some more, but Jose put his hand in front of her mouth telling her not to reply. She sighed and didn't say anything, choosing to ignore her so the conversation could be over quickly. Jacob grabbed Macy's hand and lead her away from the table so they could talk alone. The boys all looked from the new couple to Clover who was sitting there like nothing had happened.

"Anyway," Stephen begun, "who wants to write my English essay? Cause I don't wanna do it and I can't do it by tomorrow."

Diego looked at the younger Jewish boy next to him. "I'll do it. What book is it?"

Stephen pulled his phone out to remember the book title, but he didn't get far into his search when they all saw Mila coming to the table. Diego smiled widely but it dropped seeing the pissed off expression on her face. He stood up to talk to her, but Mila slapped Diego hard across the face.

"Ooh!" All his friends yelled out in unison.

"Damn!" Ethan gasped, earning a jab from Jose.

Diego held onto his cheek as looked at her shocked. "What was that for?"

"You piece of shit!" Mila screamed. "You promised me you'd never break my heart again! And here you go all over again. You said you didn't sleep with her!" Mila yelled, slapping Diego again but this time on the other cheek. She went to hit him, but Colby jumped up and pulled Mila away before she could connect.

"You said you didn't sleep with her but you got her pregnant?!" Mila cried out, tears rolling down her cheeks. "You got Hannah pregnant. Are you kidding me?!"

Diego tried to speak for himself, but before he could get a word out, Mila grabbed Ethan's red Gatorade and poured it over Diego's head. They all gasped while Clover got up and took Mila away from the scene and somewhere else. Colby turned around to face Diego only to see him wiping the drink out of his eyes, his clothes now tinted red.

Diego looked down and tried to hold back his emotions, but he ended up walking away from his friends when they tried asking him if he was okay.

Jose looked around at everyone looking at them. "Ethan do something." He whispered.

Instinctively, Ethan jumped up onto the table and looked at the cafeteria while the teachers tried to calm everyone down.

"Thank you everyone for watching and enjoying the latest addition of our very own telenovela, we're working on a title for it so send in your suggestions." Ethan smiled. "I hope you all have a nice lunch. Thank you, and good night."

Ethan hopped off the table after doing a dramatic bow to the kids in the lunch room then followed his friends out to go find Diego and check on him.

~**~

Meanwhile, Mateo was sitting in his office talking with Sam and Victor doing their usual small meetings they did every other day or so. They were almost finished when they heard a humming voice floating through the before silent athletic building.

Victor got up to go check it out, but his concern turn to amusement seeing who it was. "The hell you doing here, kid?" He laughed, walking over to Andrew who was walking into the waiting room for the offices.

"What can I say? Can't get to far away from the people I love the most." Andrew laughed, giving Victor a quick hug. He stood in the doorway of Mateo's office and waved to him and Sam. "Where's little Ricky?"

"In his office working." Sam answered. "Doing what you should be doing. Work."

Andrew brushed him off and walked off. He went to Ricky's office and walked in without bothering to knock. Ricky's head shot up hearing the door open, but a smile grew across his face seeing his long time friend.

"Weren't you just here?" Ricky asked. "Don't you stay in college since we all worked so hard to keep you there?"

Andrew shrugged, sitting down across from Ricky and grabbing a stack of papers to help him do them quicker. "What can I say? Where else would I be best friends with a group of people like y'all? A bunch of crazy lunatics. Speaking of lunatics, how's your girlfriend?"

Ricky laughed, forgetting all about his work and focusing on their banter. "She's great. We're doing amazing. I honestly can say I might've found the one cause she's..." He smiled softly. "She's so supportive."

"Oh shit!" Andrew nearly yelled too loudly. "Ricky Barnes done turned over a new leaf! You're in love, buddy boy. We talked about you at the game Friday and she got so nervous and turned all red. Now here you are smiling and all giggly. And y'all didn't even have a cupcake phase. Maybe for a week, then you told her dad to fuck off and she still ain't break up with you. Stood by your side? Cleaned up your cuts? You found your one. Better not mess this up, kid."

Ricky shrugged, staring down at his hands. "Yeah, I guess you're right. We'll see how it goes."

Andrew chuckled, starting to help Ricky with his work while Ricky thought about what Andrew said, he really might have found the one.