Don't Play With My Heart - A Jai Brooks Fan Fiction (Watty Awards 2014)

Chapter 9: Cinema (Party Time)

Tamara’s POV

Jai slows down at a large pale blue two story house, the white picket front gate covered in balloons. He stops the car and comes round and opens my door for me. I could hear some sweet dance tunes already pumping from what seemed to be large speakers. He takes my hand, almost protectively, and leads me to the front door. He opens it up and heads out the back where the party is. From a distance I see Beau and Luke dancing with some girls and Skip and James are talking with a boy about our age. Jai takes me over to the three boys.

“Andy, what’s up man? It’s been too long,” Jai says, letting go of my hand and ‘man-hugs’ Andrew, then grabs my hand again.

“Not much man, not much. Who’s you’re hot plus one?” he replies looking me up and down. I blush slightly as he flashes me a smile. Jai gives him a stern look and he stops.

“Sorry bro. Didn’t realise she was taken.”

“We’re not dating. My names Tamara, I just moved here actually. Jai thought it might be nice for me to meet some people going to Penola before school starts back,” I answer, dropping my hand from his and shaking Andrew’s.

I don’t know what had got into Jai; those two seemed pretty close. To tell you the truth, it was nice to get a little attention from another guy. He wasn’t too bad looking either – obviously not as ripped as Jai, but he did have nice eyes.

“I’m Andrew. You wanna drink?”

“She’s not-” Jai started

“Coke would be great thanks,” I say following Andrew to the fridge, giving Jai a ‘stop being weird’ look.

He looked like he was set to follow us, when Skip grabbed his arm and started saying something to him. I hope he was telling him what a dickhead he was being.

“So Tamara, where’re you from?”

“Queensland. I moved here a couple days ago to live with my aunt,” I reply, trying to sound confident.

“Sweet. I’ve got a few mates from the Sunshine Coast,” he says as he grabs me a can from the fridge as well as a beer for himself.

“Cool. I used to go there all the time. My grandparents live there; it’s really pretty up there,” I reply, grabbing the coke he offered, “thanks. Sorry about Jai earlier. He was fine before.”

“It’s all good. I’d be the same if someone was looking at some chick I was into like that.”

“We’re just friends. I only met him two days ago,” I defend, emphasizing friends.

“Well it must have been an incredible couple of days cos he is whipped,” he asked grabbing my hand, not giving me a chance to respond, “wanna dance?”

We dance for a while, but my mind can’t shake the comment Andrew made about Jai. There’s no way that he could like me like that, was there? I mean how could Andrew possibly know that?

I go and grab another drink after some really fun but intense dancing and find Jai there, grabbing a beer.

“What happened to keeping sober?” I ask.

“I figured your new bestie Andrew could babysit, seen as he was sooo keen,” he slurred.

“Real mature Jai. He was just being polite, which is more than I can say for you. What was that back there?”

“Did you see the way he looked at you? He was being sleazy.”

“You know, I can make my own decisions as to who I hang out with; I don’t need you to protect me,” I reply.