Chapter 1

I close my eyes and sigh audibly. I feel the warmth of the sunlight caressing my cheek through the small window, a contented smile on my face. Summer is coming to an end, and this trip is probably the last time I will be able to hang out with my friends before school started again.

I think back to all of the good times we’ve had over break, hiking in the nearby mountains, playing video games; Reese has the greatest setup with enough computers for all four of us to play online. Sure we are not particularly good, but we get things done. We mainly focus on first person shooters, preferably the most popular currently on the market. Since that changes a lot, so do our preferences.

We also spent a good portion of the summer practicing for the Karate Tournament. I put in some long hours just drilling the basics. My friends and I all practice Karate, it’s how they originally met. Dale is the largest and the strongest of us, and he’s not exactly slow either, so when we spar with him, it’s usually two of us fighting him, and even then, we only win about half of the time. Reese is the fastest of the four of us, so when I fight against him, I usually end up on my back in about thirty or so seconds. Rafael on the other hand, can be handled  by anyone else in our little group. He’s a bit overweight, and is not particularly skilled in any one area, but he tends to make up for it in effort. I like to describe myself as a jack-of-all-trades kind of fighter, or person in general; I tend to focus a little bit of everything. In Karate, this means strength, speed and technique, so I am a somewhat decent fighter. However, when I’m put up against someone really strong, or really fast, like Dale or Reese, I tend to be a little out of my depth.

I open slowly open my eyes to the clean, white cabin of the plane. I feel the comfortable first class seat beneath me. Damn this jet lag, I nodded off; I feel so tired and yet according to my watch, it’s mid morning in the previous timezone. Looking towards the ground I see, several thousand feet below, and far to the side of us, dark grey thunderheads stretching all the way to the horizon. It’s a veritable lightshow down there with almost constant lightning visible from the plane. I’ll be honest, this weather is somewhat alarming, as it is a complete turn around from when it was completely clear before I fell asleep.

Looking at my watch, I see that we’re about two thirds of the way to our destination. ‘I hope that this weather doesn’t make have us turn around,’ I think to myself. We’re going to stay with Reese’s grandfather at his vacation home for a few weeks to absorb some new culture, well, that’s what I told my aunt and uncle at least. We’re probably just going to party in the nearby city. Reese, also called Ra’ees by his family, is an exchange student to my fairly small town’s even smaller high school, along with his little sister Mariyah, or Mary for short.

Reese brought the three of us along with him, while Mary brought two other girls along with her. Their names are Julia and Lila, and honestly, I am very happy that they are coming along, as all three of them are exceptionally beautiful and smart. Julia is a very athletic girl and practices Karate with us every once in a while. However, for the most part, she focuses of running. She’s in the top ten in the state, and is really popular because of it. She’s tall and pale with long, dark brown hair and chocolatey brown eyes. She’s of Asian descent on her mother’s side, and in my opinion, that adds that little spark that makes her seem even more beautiful to me. Unfortunately for me, she has a boyfriend already, Dale, that lucky bastard.

Lila, in contrast to Julia can only be described as plump. Not overly so, but just enough to be comely. She has light blonde hair, hazel eyes, and is, at least compared to myself, short at about five feet, two inches. While she’s not athletic, she has other great abilities and qualities, such as her voice and her kindness. She is first chair of the sopranos in the community choir, despite only being fifteen. Her voice is heavenly, and I hope that she uses it, and doesn’t let her talent go to waste after we graduate, wherever she sees fit to go. It’s not exactly “official,” but in our group, it’s acknowledged that Lila and Raphael are a couple. Raph is also quite the lucky bastard.

That leaves Mariyah, Mary for short. The best description I can give of her is one word, “sexy.” She has all the right curves in all the right places and has a face like a goddess with an exotic look to it and a smattering of freckles across her cheekbones and nose. She has raven black hair. Her fierce stormy grey eyes almost seem to look straight into your soul. All of these features are accentuated by the light purple hijab that she wears. She’s very smart as well; I’ve only talked to her a few times outside of this trip, as she is way out of my league, but even then I could tell she was smart. During this trip, however, as we’ve been stuck in a well air conditioned box traveling five hundred and thirty miles per hour at approximately thirty-six thousand feet, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to her and get to know her a bit better, as she’s sitting next to me. No doubt about it, she’s a keeper, well, she is if I can ever get her to go on a date with me.

I turn towards the group of six people and see Dale teaching the girls how to play Blackjack on their phones.They don’t even need to look at each other to play. The part that makes the app extra addicting, which is not necessarily a good thing, as I am about to discover, is that the app uses real money. “Oh, come on then, Dale; deal the cards. I’ve need to win that back!” Mary shouts as she loses a handful of chips to Dale.

“And so her addiction begins. Nice going Dale! Now we’ve gotta hold an intervention before it’s too late” bantered Rafael. Mary looks at him with those stormy grey eyes, an obvious frown marring her face, despite the fact that she knows he’s joking.

“Sis, we need to talk. You’ve got a serious problem and we want to help. What can we do to help?” Reese said with a mock-serious look on his face, continuing the good natured banter.

“Well, first off, my good sir, you could donate some of your winnings to me so that I can continue playing this fine game.” replied Mary with a wink, her normal smile returning to her face. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Well then it’s not a donation, is it?” asked Lila in a soft voice.

Stolen novel; please report.

“True enough. But seriously, could I get a loan here? I’m almost out of chips. What about you Frances? Got any to spare?” She says  when she sees me logging into the game.

“Not for you. Send me the invite, Dale.” I say while winking at her. She pouts with that beautiful face, making eye contact with me. I almost break right there; and prepare to send a couple chips over to her. Luckily she breaks eye contact when she turns back towards her phone. If she had looked at me like that for another few seconds, I might have had to give her all of my chips from when we were playing poker earlier in the flight.

“Sure buddy. I’m always willing to play with someone that doesn’t mind losing a little coin.”

“Screw you Dale. I’m not that bad, am I?”

“You’re as good at cards as an Ethiopian is at finding food.” Julia laughed. Everyone laughs awkwardly at the offensive joke, except Lila, who normally doesn’t laugh at that kind of joke because of her kind and polite disposition.

“I’m sorry Frances, but it’s true. You’re shit at cards. Your poker face so bad. Remember that one time you burst out laughing when you had a pair of twos saying, “I’ve got a shitty hand, but I’m just gonna ride this out” He kept emphasizing how poor his cards were until the end of the hand. That was a terrible double bluff, and the worst part is is that after saying that, he went all in. I mean that’s pretty pathetic bro. From what I’ve seen so far, you’re even better at losing than little sis here.” joked Reese lightheartedly.

“Nice monologue Reese, but what you said pretty was far from the truth, but in all seriousness, send me the invite, Dale.”

“Soooo…? Nobody’s gonna give me a loan?” Mary moaned.

“Fine. Take it.” Pitying her, I send her a couple chips. “That should keep you going for a while.”

“You’re not gonna get it back Frances, at this point giving her money’s like throwing it into the trash.” Rafael said, as “witty” as ever.

“Come on Raf, I’m not that bad, am I?” Mary said.

“That’s the exact same thing Frances said. Do I need to say more?” Julia said with a straight face, only to start giggling about two seconds later.

We play several more hands and I, along with Mary quickly lose the few chips we had, prompting a round of laughter from the others as we leave the game, dejected. The hostess is walking down the aisle and I wave her over. As she is walking over, I lean on one of my elbows, my chin on my palm, facing Mary, as she lowers the back of her seat. I relish the silence for a few seconds until Mary breaks it. “Do you have any sweets, miss?” Mary quietly asked the elderly hostess.

Apparently Reese’s sense of hearing is pretty good, because he chimed in from the other side of the cabin, “Go on, eat away your feelings, sis. It’s always the best when you’re sad from losing.”

Listening to Reese’s reply the hostess says, “I know exactly what you need. Is ice cream okay, miss?”

“You know what? I’ll have an ice cream too. That sounds pretty good. I’ll take whatever you’ve got. Thank you” Lila shouts towards them from her seat, turning her head to face them.

“Yes misses. Coming straight up” The hostess said, while turning on her heel to walk towards the stairs at the front of the cabin.

“I’m sorry for the trouble ma’am, but would you mind giving me a soda?” I shout at her swiftly retreating back.

She turns back towards me, but doesn’t walk any closer and says, “What kind of soda would you like, sir?”

“Orange Cream, please.”

“I’m sorry sir. We don’t have any.” She says apologetically.

“Do you have any cola, any kind at all?”

“Yes, we do. I’ll bring it back with the ice creams.”

“Thank you ma’am.”

A few minutes goes by in silence as we are still waiting for the hostess to return. Finally, I get the courage to say what I’ve been meaning to say to Mary the whole trip. “I’m looking forward to spending this trip with you and everyone else.” I wink at her slyly and she blushes. I didn’t even realize that her face could get that red. Inside my brain, I’m cheering. She may have simply been blushing at how awkward that line was, but it was a point to me in my books. Oh, I hope she’s interested in me.

We look at each other in the eyes. Finally, what I said caught up to me and, according to my friends later, turn a color somewhat like salmon. The next thing I hear was Julia, in a flirty tone, saying from the seat behind us, “Nice weather we’re having.” Mary proceeded to get even redder, unbuckled her seatbelt in a rush, and stormed off towards the lavatory, bumping into the hostess as she ran, almost making her drop the tray she’s carrying.

I say to Julia, “Thanks for ruining the moment Jules.”

“Oh don’t mention it. Anytime.” she says back.

“Oh, please don’t Julia.”

“Oh, I most certainly will.” She said is a playfully malicious tone.

The intercom dings and the captain announces that we will be landing in about twenty minutes and that she wants us to take our seats. I use that as an excuse to get away from Julia, and almost run to my seat.

Once there I start to relax and pick up a book and read for a few minutes. One of the many I carry around with me whenever I travel. This particular book is about a young nobleman in a desert land, trying to rebuild his house that his father ruined through gambling. The prince becomes a mercenary, traveling around and has many exciting adventures, slowly building his harem, and finding treasure while fighting in many fierce battles. It’s a good book, if a bit too cliche.

Dale sits across from me and puts his hand on my shoulder, getting my attention. He then looks into my eyes and says solemnly, “Did you lose your chance at love, Frances?”

I say, “Screw off,” and we both end up chuckling. “She told you? Really?” I ask.

“Hey, come now, don’t act so skeptical. Jules and I have a special bond. She tells me everything.”

In a really misguided way of getting back at him for making fun of me, I say, “Really? Everything?”

The intercom dings again and the captain announces that we are making our final descent, and that she would appreciate it if we would buckle our seat belts.

A little after the bell, the lavatory door opens, and Mary walks out, much more calm then before but still a bit red. She shuts the door behind herself and silently makes her way to her seat and buckles herself in. Lila, sitting next to her asks, “What’s wrong? You look pretty flushed.” Mary turns red again and covers her face with her hands. Lila, as clueless as she is, then asks even more seriously, “Mary, what’s wrong?” Everyone who had just been laughing at my situation then laughed at Mary and Lila. Lila the asked, “What’s so funny? Guys? Seriously. What’s so funny?” Then we all lost it. Raphael even ends up unbuckling his seatbelt just to roll around on the floor laughing his deep belly laugh.