"The Ball Game"

Some have said that summer simply isn’t summer without a visit to the beach. Lucky for my friends and I, the beach was a ten-minute drive away. So, after a ten-minute drive, in which my air conditioning wasn’t sufficient, we arrived at the beach – we being me, the Carmientti twins, Brooke’s boyfriend Brady, and Saycon. We met Jaime in the fairground and our trip to the beach soon turned in a trip to the fairground followed by the beach.

“Well, looks like we’re in a cart together. I really don’t fancy driving.” I told Jaime, as the others conveniently paired with each other leaving Jaime and I alone. Several fairground rides later we found ourselves on the beach, the very place I’d come to when contemplating my relationships with Lyndsey and Jaime.

“Make. Your. Move.” Brooke whispered to me, as Brady, her and I wandered ahead.

“Tell her to butt out,” Brady added, before kissing her, apologetically.

I smiled. The truth was: I wanted to make a move. But it just felt so forced and awkward knowing that I had an audience. I didn’t want to declare my feelings for Jaime as if I were on stage, delivering lines from some Shakespeare play, whilst having my performance and stage technique being critiqued by the audience (Saycon, Hayley, Brooke and Brady). But before I knew it, the trip to the fairground followed by the beach had come and gone, as had mine and Jaime’s awkward goodbyes. I was in my car driving home

“It just didn’t feel right, you know, having everyone watching. It was like being under the microscope, and I didn’t like the feeling that maybe someone was judging me.” I told Saycon before taking her back to her house.

“Yeah, Noah. You just have to do what you think is right. Don’t let anyone else influence you.”

Although I’d always tried not to let people influence me, was this a prime example of what I had learned was social influence? Social influence: having an action or decision influenced by society. It was an interesting thought.

On my arrival at home, my SidekickII told me, “New Message.” It was Jaime.

“Hey there. Do you fancy coming to mine tonight for some food? Jaime xxx”

“Sure! I love the food! How is 7.30? Noah xxx”

“7.30’s good. See you then. Jaime xxx”

I immediately dialled Kayla. “Kayla. Guess where I'm going tonight?” I didn’t give her the chance to answer. “Jaime’s house. I'm kind of nervous.”

“You are? I'm so excited for you. So is it like a date?” She asked.

“Oh wow, I don’t know. I guess so, I mean, what else could it be?”

“So why are you going round? What are you gonna do round there?”

“She invited me for ‘food’ but since she has the house to herself I'm guessing it’s more of a ‘food and…’ situation.”

“Well, have fun. Let me know how it goes!”

So at 7.25pm I took the five minute drive from mine to hers and I arrived, baring no gifts. And there our ‘is-it-a-date’ date ensued. We said our hellos and small, but pleasant, talk followed.

“So what’s on the menu for tonight?” I asked.

“Well, I haven’t made anything yet but I'm thinking maybe just pasta and a sauce?”

“Oh yeah, sounds good. I’ll get to help too.”

More conversation followed, and as did a bottle of red wine, which I drank over half of, telling myself it would take the edge off…off of what I do not know. Jaime, however, stuck to the water, trying to detox herself after a wild week.

It was the morning after the night before that I had spent at Jaime’s and my good friend Ashley came by my house and I drove us to the park. There, amongst families and lovers, two good friends talked about the night before.

“So, come on, spill,” Ashley teased.

“Well, we kissed and,” Ashley cut me off.

“You kissed? What base did you get too?”

“What base did I get to?” What was I? A fourteen year old all-American boy? “I don’t even understand how that works.”

“Well, first base is kissing, second base is hands, third base is mouth, and forth base is all the way.”

“Ok, well second base. There was a lot of groping. Like, one second we were watching ‘What About Brian’ on TV, and the next we were kissing. We kissed sitting up. We kissed standing up. We kissed lying down, me on top of her, her on top of me. And we kissed spooning on her sofa, before nearly falling asleep. Let’s just say that it was hard to control myself.” I later told Aspen that my balls were practically blue by the time I got home. I was sure this was something that Ashley, or Kayla, or even Madeline would have appreciated.

Driving home though, I thought to myself why hadn’t things gone further? Why hadn’t I hit my blue balls out of the park and ran like my life depended on it to forth base? There was just a sexual chemistry I felt that night, but what I did know was that this ball game definitely wasn’t over.