Game, Set, Match

{7}

Nate

"Well done for completing task one boys, now for task two. Don't bother bringing your football kit to practice today."

"What? Why?" I ask. Chase and I are in Coach Ray's office, early Monday morning like he said.

"You two won't be participating today. Instead, you'll be watching everyone else practice because they know how to actually work as a team." Coach says.

"Oh come on Coach. You can't make us watch practice for an hour." I say. I turn to Chase to get him to back me up here but he's hardly paying attention, just staring blankly out the window.

"You won't be watching for the whole hour. There's also another activity which you'll be doing as well but that will be revealed later."

"But Coach-"

"Now run along you're dismissed." It's almost as if Chase comes back to life at the words and quickly exits the room while I'm still sitting in my seat.

"Go on now Nate." Coach says impatiently. I walk out his office, dreading what's to come.

*

"See boys, this is real teamwork. Lovely pass Timmy keep up the good work lads!" Coach claps his hands proudly at the team and before Georgia can make another comment about Coach ignoring her on the team he adds "And girl. I get it."

Chase and I sit on the grassy field, still in uniform, watching them play. I so desperately want to get up and join them but Coach clearly stated that we won't be taking part.

After a couple more minutes Coach finally says "Come on, on your feet." Happy to finally have something to do, I jump up onto my feet and Chase does too. Coach goes to the benches and brings with him a bucket.

"This is your second task. For the rest of practice you two will have to throw water balloons back and forth."

Chase and I groan at the news.

"Oh and they're filled with freezing cold water so be sure not to drop them." Coach walks off at that leaving Chase and I with the bucket of water balloons.

"This won't be too hard, will it?" I say to Chase.

"Just pick up the water balloon and let's be done with this."

I pick up a blue water balloon from the bucket, not expecting it to be so cold against my fingertips. I take a few steps back and throw the thing at Chase who's standing a couple metres in front of me. He catches it smoothly and quickly tosses it back to me. We successfully throw the balloon back and forth keeping a steady rhythm going.

I guess this isn't too-

"What the hell do you call that?!" Coach yells at the team on the field, blowing his whistle loudly and ruining my concentration. The blue water balloon splashes on my chest, drenching me in cold water. Chase laughs hysterically barely keeping his balance.

"Oh for fuck sake!" I yell and it only seems to make Chase laugh more. "Oh you think this is funny?"

Chase looks at me as if he knows what I'm about to do. I pick up a red water balloon and launch it at him, drenching him as well. Now I laugh.

Before Chase can throw another one at me Coach comes storming towards us.

"Oi! You're not supposed to be throwing them at each other!"

"Technically we are Coach." Chase says.

"Don't get smart with me Malroy." Coach says pointing his finger at Chase. "You know what, I've had enough of you two. Out of my sight."

We pretend to look disappointed in front of Coach when we walk off but the second we enter the school building we start laughing our heads off.

"Did you see Coach's face?" I say as I try to compose myself.

"He looked like he wanted to throw that whole bucket at us." Chase says laughing.

I like his laugh.

"Come on, let's go before he actually does."

We walk through the building to the other side of the school where the main entrance is, the only entrance that would still be open this late after school. As we're passing the classrooms we stumble across Mr Miller one of the maths teachers. He calls for Chase.

"Yes Sir." Chase replies.

"Chase, I just finished marking the recent paper and unfortunately you're not doing as well as you should be doing. If you don't step up now your grade is going to slip and at this point in the year we can't afford to be slipping."

He's failing maths?

"Yeah, yeah I get it Sir."

"This needs to be taken seriously Chase or you're going to have to put in extra work after school to get to where you need to be."

"Yeah whatever."

Mr Miller huffs knowing that Chase clearly isn't bothered by this. He hands him his marked paper and I can clearly see his score. He only managed to get 23%. Mr Miller walks back into his classroom and Chase heads for the door.

My phone rings and Rachel's name pops across the screen. I press decline.

"Do you want help with that?" I ask.

"Help with what?"

"Maths. Your paper. We can go through it if you want. I'm really good at maths."

He looks down at the test in his hand, at the 23% written boldly in red pen and then at me.

"Erm yeah if that's alright."

I smile.

"Ok cool. Let's go to your place." I suggest.

"You can't come to my house." He replies quickly.

"Why?"

Chase

Because my brother will be there.

Nate

"Because I forgot my keys." Chase says.

"That's alright. My place it is."

*

I think we're getting along. Chase and I. We haven't argued at all. I'm just looking through his paper, helping him improve in maths. I can tell he's good at it. All the questions he attempted he got mostly right but those were the first seven and then he kind of just gave up on the rest. Almost like he wasn't bothered to put in the effort. We go through the questions he didn't try and once we're done, I order pizza.

It's almost like we're friends, sitting on my living room sofa, watching the recording of last nights match and eating slices of pizza. It's almost like it's normal.

Why can't it be normal?

*******************************
Finally put 2 POV's in one chapter. I know it's just one line but more will come. I thought that one line was cool to be honest.

Anyway thanks for reading xxx