Chapter Eight: "In The Middle of a Top-Secret Mission."

NIKKO COLLAPSED ON THE ground next to me on Monday morning. His sudden movement made me jolt. My water bottle slipped from my hand and almost dove into the ground if I didn't manage to catch it. 

When I met his eyes, they were wide from his dramatics. The running our coaches made us do on the indoor track minutes ago hadn't been that bad. Although with the way Nikko, who shot me a sheepishly strained smile, laid back in exasperation said otherwise. 

The way the rest of my teammates, came over to where Nikko and I had reached first to grab some water also said otherwise. The first few weeks of practice had been brutal enough to get everyone adjusted. My hands formed blisters from the gym sessions each week. Muscles I had rarely used over the past years had a familiar ache whenever I shifted. The aches and groans had suddenly become second nature as my body adapted to everything squash provided. 

I tried evening out my own breaths as I took a seat next to Nikko who was doing the same. His hands were slapped onto his flushed face as he murmured, "We need to have rules."

I glanced over at where our coaches were talking to each other nearby. They were hard on us but not in a way no one couldn't handle. "There are no rules in running."

"There are rules to running when it comes to me and the rest of the team," He stressed, taking his hands off his face. Nikko peered up at me with a fake scowl, "You need to be put in a lab."

"I did as they asked!" I reached over to hand him his own water bottle. Maybe I went a little faster than one would have expected. Maybe. 

He graciously took the bottle but he didn't let up, "Put in a lab and studied for ridiculous speed and your need to overtake us all. Don't look smug." 

"I'm not smug." However, my attempt to keep my expression neutral was breaking. 

"You're smug," Nikko grumbled but I caught sight of the slight smile as he raised his water bottle, "Rightfully, though." 

Before I could say anything, Rhett approached us. As he passed us to likely get his water bottle, he muttered to me, "Save some speed for the rest of us, eh?" 

I shot him a dirty look that he reciprocated with one of his own before he walked away. His grouchy attitude hadn't changed much over the past few weeks. Nikko, on the other hand, flashed me one of his reassuring smiles, "That's Rhett talk meaning he's impressed."

"So his glare didn't mean he wished I tripped and fell on the track?" I deadpanned.

"I don't think he gives off those kind of vibes," Nikko sat up, his hands behind him, as he loudly whistled. My eyes went wide as everyone nearby swiveled their heads in our direction. Including Rhett who was now talking to Alan, another teammate of ours. "Rhett! Do you think you give off mean energy?"

Rhett made a face, "What kind of question is that?"

Alan took that moment to examine Rhett, looking at him up and down. Before Alan could add to the conversation, Rhett held up a finger, "Don't." 

As he stormed off, Nikko let out a little laugh. The rest of my team members that overheard did the same. So far, everyone was nice but I'd yet to get closer to anyone. I didn't really expect it, to be honest. Squash, while having teams, was more individual than anything. For instance, Liya was currently seated on the ground a good distance away. She was staring off into the distance as she sucked down the water from her bottle, other teammates passing by her to use the bathroom or drink their own water.

When I turned to glance at Nikko who had sprawled himself out next to me, I was surprised to find his eyes on me. "What?"

"You worried about Liya? She's always thinking about what she could have done better."

"Always looking to improve?"

"Exactly," Nikko said with a sigh, locking his arms around his knees. "Sometimes she's too harsh on herself." When his eyes slid back over to me, immediately I turned away finding the color of my water bottle suddenly very interesting.

He didn't have to say it out loud. I got it. He thought Liya and I share the same trait. Maybe I was a little hard on myself, sure. Especially with our first singles tournament coming soon. But speed? I had it. I was confident in it. Everything else that mattered was something I had to work on.

The knowledge only made me straighten my back, ready to stand up to go over to where some people were starting to make their way over to the coaches when Nikko spoke up again. 

"You know, I'm sorry about yesterday," His analytic expression was gone, replaced by a deprecatory smile. "If I was too forward. I know I can be like that sometimes and it—"

"You weren't," I promised him. I was aware of how he acted; he wanted us to be friends again. To be friends meant to talk, to end up having conversations about your childhood and who you grew up with and were surrounded by that shaped you into who you were in the present. It wasn't his fault for my reaction. "My family's not something I usually talk about a lot."

"I should've," He halted, rechoosing his words more carefully this time. "I didn't handle the conversation well. I shouldn't have been too forward even if you say it's okay. It wasn't right. I'm sorry about that."

It seriously wasn't that big of a deal. "You don't have to apologize."

He shot me a look, "Yes, I do."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

Why was he so persistent about it? "It's—"

He raised an eyebrow.

Well, then. "I accept your apology."

"Do you? You were looking a little reluctant when you said that. It's almost as if you were forced to accept it. As if you only accepted my apology to—"

"Nikko," I cut him off, unable to fight the growing smile on my face that he matched with his teasing. "I sincerely accept your apology."

"Good. I accept that you accept my apology," I shook my head, rolling my eyes at how easily amused he was able to get. "By the way, I watched Die Hard last night," Wait, what? Nikko's lips quirked at my excitement. "Turns out Mars likes the movie too. He suggested we all should watch it last night."

"Did you like it?"

"I did," He flipped his water bottle in his hands. "I think you should watch the first Captain America movie."

I stared at him as he flipped the water bottle once again. At the speed he was flipping that thing, he was going to drop it. "Now why the hell would I do that?"

"Because I've watched your favourite movie," He threw the water bottle up higher in the air. "Now it's time for you to watch my favorite franchise."

"Wait—no," There was absolutely no way that he wanted me to watch God knows how many of those movies were up there. Did he? "Nikko, there's like a hundred of those movies." 

He barked out a laugh, "Not a hundred." 

"It feels like a hundred,"  I stressed. "You know what's a hundred times two and a half hours? 250 hours of movies. 250 hours where I could literally be doing anything else." I seriously should have taken up Paula's idea of crocheting if I was even considering doing this. 

No, I totally wasn't considering doing this. 

"So you'll start the first one." 

He threw the bottle up in the air once again as I stared at him in disbelief. "Nikko." 

Nikko caught the bottle, furrowing his eyebrows as he asked, "What other movie do you like?" 

"Oh, we're going to do this?" I said dryly. "I tell you I like a movie and then you watch it and I have to watch one of your favourite movies and we repeat?" 

"I was just going to have you watch everything Marvel related but that sounds more reasonable," He said with a shrug. "Don't tell me horror movies, though. I can't watch those." 

"I can't watch those either."  When I would watch movies with the girls some of them involved horror. I'd be seated with a pillow covering my face the majority of the time while being teased and prodded. It was nice to know that he didn't like them either. But at the same time, it was a little difficult to imagine Nikko horrified at the idea of some fictional demon popping up on a screen. 

As if he could read my mind, he pursed his lips, pushing his hair back with his fingers, "You're imagining me being scared aren't you?" 

I didn't answer his question, "What else are you scared of? Besides horror movies." 

That's when the bottle fumbled out of Nikko's hands. His face, still flushed from the running, seemed to flush even deeper at my words and his action as he picked up the bottle, "I didn't say I was scared of them. I said I don't like them."

It was the same thing to me."Meaning you get scared." 

"I didn't say that." 

"You didn't have to," I jested. "You're terrified of horror --" 

I shrieked, rolling out of the way from the spray of water that came in my direction. My shriek turned into a laugh when Nikko did it again, attempting to douse me with the water from his bottle. 

The annoyed expression on his face as he failed to splash me with water wasn't the real one. I'd caught a glimpse of it that first time we were on the trail together. I'd even seen it as the weeks passed by when I watched some of his matches at practice. Nikko's irritation was one of the most unnatural things in the world. The face he was giving me right now didn't match the twinkle in his eyes that I couldn't help but match. "So what else? Spiders? Heights? Rollercoasters?" 

At a distance Coach Rosen blew the whistle for everyone to return. Nikko tossed his water bottle to the side and stood up. Wordlessly, he held out both of his hands in front of me. 

The pink hair tie wasn't on his wrist. 

It'd only been a few days since I had last spotted it. I didn't let its absence dictate my feelings. The sensible part of me was not going to dwell on it. But the unsensible part was ready to ask him about it. 

If he was not still holding out his hands in front of me. 

Without another thought, I slid my palms into his grip. That was when my stomach decided that this moment was the time to have a frenzy. My skin also decided that our hands touching was going to feel better than everything else at that moment. No ache. No pain. Just Nikko holding onto my hands to pull me up to my feet. 

When I was grounded, like his hugs, he squeezed my hands, "Let me know how Captain America goes, and maybe you'll get an answer."

He released me, turning to walk to where everyone had gathered on the track. Begrudgingly, I followed and we made our way over to the rest of the group without another exchange of words. 

By the time practice was over, I stood in the changeroom after a needed shower when Liya quickly made her way into the change room. Didn't she leave ten minutes ago... Liya rushed to one of the lockers and when she opened it, her shoulder slacked at whatever she found.

She reached in and pulled out a case of Airpods. Okay, now it all made sense. I would have rushed in here panicking too. When she saw me across the room, she gave me a little wave. She hadn't left the building before she realized she left her Airpods judging by her racquet bag strapped on her back. 

"Hey you're in the gym later, right?" She suddenly asked. 

I nodded. "At 1? Yeah, I am."  There was a reluctant pause in our conversation when she looked at me kind of...hopefully? I think. Oh, no. It was clear as day even as she adjusted her racquet bag in her hands, focusing on that instead. 

"Do you want to be spot partners?" I asked. 

Liya's eyes rounded, "Really?" There was no way someone didn't want to be with Liya. She had to be kidding. But based on how she looked like she was currently going through genuine shock, I nodded for reassurance. She wasn't kidding. Her face literally lit up, "Sure. I'll meet you there."

"Cool."

Together, we exited the changeroom with promises to see each other later in the day when I bumped into someone familiar. Someone I had no reason to be bumping into.

Rachel.

She was a girl with fair skin, blonde hair darker than mine, doe brown eyes and was usually accompanied by a girl closer to my height with brown hair. Rachel gasped lowly, a hand to her chest as she took in the sight of me. Like I was a pop-up in the middle of a haunted house. Meanwhile, all I felt was suppressed irritation suddenly rising. There was definitely a scowl on my face.

"Larine."

"Hi." I deadpanned.

However, she looked panicked, glancing down the empty hallway, "What are you doing here?"

"Squash practice." 

I wasn't the one who said that. Liya did. For good measure, she waved her racquet bag strapped to the back of her body. 

The brightness Liya constantly eluded had suddenly faded into dim I personally wasn't going to stop because the look she was giving Rachel, as if she immediately knew I didn't like her, was kind of rewarding.

In fact, it felt nice.

Rachel's eyes flickered to me as the beginning of my pleasure of Liya being on my side faded into a frown. Last I checked, she didn't play a sport. Maybe things changed in the past two years but the Rachel I knew hated sports. I wouldn't have even expected her to know what was happening on this side of the Rec Centre. "What are you doing here?" I asked. 

Her answer came to a stop after they turned a corner: Ashley.

Oh, brother.

Rachel, the girl whose lipgloss I'd borrowed once a long time ago was one thing. But Ashley, the girl who'd link her arms with mine the second she saw me, who'd sit next to me hockey game after hockey game, who'd tell me we'd all meet at her house for the pregame.

Again: Oh, brother.

Liya's eyes flickered from the girl in front of us, the girl down the hall, and then she looked up at me. I internally groaned. Could a hole appear in the middle of the ceiling with a ladder to carry me up and into a helicopter as if I was being saved in the middle of a top-secret mission?

Please?

But Liya didn't have to witness what could possibly turn into a moment of severe gaslighting, smokelighting, and all kinds of volatile lightings that were bound to be directed at me.

I gave her a soft smile, "I'll see you at 1, Liya."

She glanced over at both of them, her brightness dimming even further into a glare. I meant what I said before. It was a good feeling to have Liya, who didn't know me that well or the situation at hand, be on my side. 

Hesitantly, she nodded before making her way down the hallway, in the opposite direction of Ashley. As Liya rounded the corner, Ashley slowed her pace in my direction while brushing her dark wavy brown hair over her tanned shoulders exposed by her nice top. To make things worse, I almost itched with the need to know where she got her lashes done. 

But I held back, making sure my annoyance showed. 

It wasn't hard to remember how we used to be. I remembered Rachel and me waiting for her outside of an arena to go watch the boys' game back in first year. I remembered party after party where she'd yell my name for me to join them. When she invited me to her house and to her cottage over the summer. It's crazy how things change. 

Then again, they had never felt like my people anyway.

"Hi, Larine," Ashley said carefully. She wasn't as cautious as Rachel, though. For some reason, Rachel seemed like she was going to cave into the ground at this interaction.

"Are you here to watch the hockey game too?"

That was like asking me if I wanted to be in my own personal hell. "No." 

She and Rachel exchanged a glance. I almost waved my hand between the two of them. Hello? I was right here. Why I was here for this long was really the question I should have been asking myself. 

Ashley decided she was the one to speak up, "Look, I know we haven't spoken in a while." Long while. "And we ended off on a bad note—" Benny admitted that he was emotionally cheating on me with you and as he tried to tear me down in public both you and your minion stood there and listened. But, yes it was just a bad note. "And I mean, Bens was just—"

Bens?

Ew.

I put a hand up and to my pleasure, she stopped. "I don't need any explanations."

"I know it's weird that he and I are together now but—"

I shook my head. I did not need that information today. I didn't need it. The people on the other side of the changeroom who could be listening to this painful conversation didn't need it. The centipedes in the ceiling and in the corners of this hallway didn't need to hear any of this as well. "I don't care."

If she wanted to be with Benny, good for her. I wish them both a very happy 'I never want to see them again, please disappear from my life'. 

Ashley's eyes suddenly narrowed, "Okay, you don't have to get nasty because Benny chose me."

Why did she make it sound like the two of us and a bunch of other women had been lined up and Benny had his pick like we were puppies in a litter? Again: ew.

Besides, that wasn't it. "I'm not nasty because Benny chose you or whatever the hell that means," I rolled my eyes. "Maybe I'm nasty because you were my friend." 

She scoffed, "Larine, that was, like, two years ago. How long are you going to hold onto this for?" 

I blinked. What did she think? That I was going to forget everything happened, link arms with her and Rachel, and make our way to the hockey game? If she thought that, she was delusional. Luckily for me, I still held onto grudges. "Two years passed by and you're still not very bright, huh?" 

Ashley's lips pressed tight, her face starting to flush red with anger. Meanwhile, I stared at her with a blank expression of my own. The facts were on the table. She was not going to make it seem like it was nothing on my watch.

She opened her mouth to bark back when Rachel grabbed her arm, "Just leave it. C'mon, we're going to be late."

Ashley huffed, muttering under her breath as Rachel started dragging her away. I heard the murmur of 'bitch' in the silent hallway. The profanity somehow made me smile. Just before she turned a corner, she flashed me a hard glare that only made my grin grow even further. 

When she and Rachel disappeared from my sight, my smile immediately dropped. The moment had passed, yet I knew this small interaction was going to be in my head for longer than only today.