Only

five

present time

"Wow, you guys sure are like every teen fiction book anywhere," Christian laughs.

"You know, we try," I shrug.

"So after that did you guys like talk then decide, yeah we want to be together?"

"Well, kind of. We told our parents after, just cause we both wanted to let them know, and we've both been through hell when it comes to relationships, so our parents thought it was best for us to mature a bit before we actually started dating." I replied.

"So right now, you're just waiting until your both eighteen?"

"Did he not hear what I just said?" I look at Luca and he shrugs.

"Alright, alright, well--" Christian was cut off by the bus stopping outside of what we've grown to call four corners. Basically, it's always one hundred degrees, and we get in and get out in as fast as we can.

We held off the rest of our conversation as we hurried off the bus inside the gas station. I got an Arizona, a Cinnabon and some chips. Luca got Subway and we met back in the bus. When it came to food, I always got the unhealthy stuff, Luca got the healthy stuff, so we always ended up splitting. Half of his sub, half my Cinnabon, and chips.

Pretty soon, everyone was back on the bus and we were officially only two hours away from the college. 

"Alright, guys," Christian starts, putting a few chips into his mouth, "Get ready for something special." He looks between Vicky and I and winks.

Luca nudges me with his arm, "What does he mean?" He whispers. I wink at him as I reach into my bag and pull out a red bull, "Ray, what does it mean?" He asks again.

"On your marks," Christian announces, I look at Vicky, Holly, and Kathy, "Get set... Go!"

We all pull at the tabs of our red bulls and start to drink them immediately. It was a tradition we had. A chugging contest and the three that lost had to do the Vote For Pedro dance from Napoleon Dynamite.

I see out of the corner of my eye, Luca, who looked completely confused but still amused. I took one more big long gulp, then held the can above my head to show I had no more, "Done!" I shout.

I hear the other girls groan, "How do you win every single time?" Vicky asks.

I shrug, "I don't know, must be a talent,"

"Wait... so is this like an annual thing?" Luca scrunches his eyebrows.

Before I can answer, Vicky does, "Yeah, we started it a couple of years ago and have had it going on ever since."

Luca nods and leans back in his seat as I continue to talk with the girls, all the way until we arrived at the college.

It didn't take long to get all the luggage out from under the bus and onto the grass in front of the dorms. I went with the girls in line to check in which took a while, but finally, I got my team shirt and the key to my dorm. I saw Luca checking in, and he looked over at me. He winked and smiled.

After putting all my stuff down inside my dorm, I changed into my team shirt and put on my sneakers. I met Vicky, Kathy, and Holly in the common room, then we went over to the boys where we met up with Luca, Alex, and one of our friends from the conference, Tim.

We all walked together towards the cafeteria when Luca pulled me back behind everyone a little bit, "That girl you'd mentioned," he said, "is that her?" He pointed to someone in front of us a couple hundred feet away.

She turned her head to look at her friend next to her and I nod, "Yep, that's her,"

"She came up to me after you went inside your dorm," He says.

I stop mid walk, making him stop as well, "What did she say?"

Luca shrugged, turning to face me, "Just asked if this was my first year, then she asked who I came with,"

"What did you say?"

He grinned, "Ray, stop worrying so much, you know how I feel about you, nothing and no one is gonna stop that,"

I crossed my arms over my chest, "I just don't like her,"

"I know, love,"