I tapped my pen against the side of my head and stared at the blank piece of paper sitting on my desk in front of me. The second day of school and we are already having to write a three page paper about how the economy has effected our family life, personally.

Writing a paper had never been an issue for me in the past but for some reason my brain just would not cooperate with me today. I couldn't get my mind off of this morning and what had happened with Charlie and that Missy girl. Sitting at my desk staring at a blank piece of paper definitely was not calming my thoughts down any.

"You look like you need some help," Kent finally said from where he was sitting, reading a book on his bed. I dropped my pen and flashed a glare over at him, his smirk grew even bigger than before. If he wasn't so attractive sitting like that I would have killed him by now. I take that back, I was always prepared to kill Kent no matter how attractive he was looking.

"As if you're going to help me," I snorted unattractively and Kent laughed, getting up slowly from his lounging spot and setting his book on his nightstand beside his bed. He approached my desk and his chest pressed lightly against the back of my head.

"That looks like fun, your teacher must be an interesting fella," Kent said with a sigh and returned to his previous spot on his bed with a chuckle. "That sucks,"

"Words of wisdom," I replied, letting out an exasperated breath and picking up my pen once again.

"Have you ever heard of taking a break? Some of the guys are going down to play some football in the front yard, you should come," He said flashing me a quick smile that actually seemed real for once. This could be my chance to make some more friends in the dorm. Although most of the guys were nice I could still tell they weren't all that excited about a girl living with them.

It's not like I even had a choice in the matter. Maybe if I played around with them for a few minutes they would loosen up a bit and see I'm more relaxed then most of the girls at this school.

"I guess a break won't hurt," I said standing up at the same time Kent stood.

"Whatever the Princess wants," Kent snickered and I stuck my tongue out at him and for some odd reason he got a huge grin on his face. "Real mature,"

He grabbed a light sweatshirt and I followed him out of the room and to the stairs.

When we arrived down at the front yard there was a large pack of rowdy and loud guys gathered together. Most of them were just talking while the rest were rough housing and running around. This probably wasn't the best idea.

"How'd you get Sadie to come down here?" Charlie asked, emerging from the group and patting Kent on the back, smiling down at me.

"She needed a break from school work," Kent explained nonchalantly and disappeared into the group of guys to mingle.

"So he said you needed some fresh air, clever," Charlie acknowledged.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked uncertainly, starting to feel more and more nervous.

"I guess I should have figured Kent didn't mention this is a tackle football game, probably not your type of thing. I guess since you're already down here your fate is made," Charlie explained to me while gently pushing me towards the group of guys. His attitude was slightly different than this morning in the library, he was more cocky and not so relaxed. I guess he was more like the other guys than I had predicted, changing his behavior when I'm not around.

"I've got a paper to finish, so I'm out of here!" I yelled trying to push past Charlie but then Kent grabbed my arm and playfully pulled me towards him. I caught a glimpse of what I assume was a glare from Charlie before I was whipped around to face Kent and Chunk.

"You're not scared of a little mud are you, sweetheart?" Kent asked menacingly. I wanted to slap him.

"It'll be fun Sadie," Chunk encouraged me and I wanted to slap him too.

Seeing as there was no way out of this predicament I sighed and listened to the guys barking around orders, splitting up into two different teams. I was with Kent, Squid, Jayden and Jace and a few other guys I hadn't had the pleasure of introducing myself to yet.

"Huddle up," Kent ordered and we all rushed towards him. I carefully listened as Kent assigned each guy their position and instructed what play they were going to run, I was almost surprised with how much he knew about football but then remembered Squid had told me he was one of the captains of the football team so of course he knew a lot. Every word that came out of his mouth was gibberish, sure I watched football with my dad on Sunday's but never paid that much attention to it. Kent was so much more attractive at this moment as he called out orders and I couldn't help but imagine what he looked like in his uniform.

"Earth to Sadie," Kent suddenly snapped in my face, the familiar scowl on his face like always.

"What?"

"You got all that right?" Kent rolled his eyes and looked away from me. The guys had already broken out of the huddle and started lining up against the other team.

"Huh? No, I mean, I wasn't really . . ." Before I could finished Kent had already moved away from me and lined up as well.

I stood there for a second next to Kent while everyone else was already where they were supposed to be. Was I supposed to be here? Am I too close to Kent?

"Try not to get killed out there babe," Kent whispered with a wink before calling to hike the ball. I stood star-struck for a moment, realizing Kent had just called me babe when I remembered I was in the middle of playing tackle football with a ton of testosterone filled guys! As soon as I started to move away Kent thrust the leather ball into my gut and shoved me forward. The impact of the ball hitting my stomach knocked the wind from my lungs for a couple seconds.

"Run you idiot, run!" Kent, or maybe it was Jace, yelled at me. Tossing around a football in the back yard at home with friends and cousins was definitely different than this crazy mess of a game. For one I wasn't scared for my life back at home!

I tucked the ball under my arm, like I saw all football players do, and ran forward with all the strength I had in my legs. I didn't even know where I was going, they didn't explain where the end zone even was! I just knew that if I stopped running I would surely die. A dozen guys were probably right on my heels waiting for me to slow down just a little bit so that they could tackle me and I would be lying on the ground with my ribs poking out of my sides and they would probably watch me die and laugh about it. This whole situation was definitely a horrible idea!

"Sadie!" I heard coming yell but I couldn't stop running. No way was I going to risk looking behind me and getting blindsided by some 200 pound guy.

"Sadie stop!" That time it was Kent. I slowly went from a sprint to a jog and then from a jog to a brisk walk. Only then did I turn to look around, still briskly walking of course. I was near the parking lot on the other side of the yard, the opposite side we had started on. I stopped walking and turned all the way around, Kent and Charlie were running towards me with the other guys trailing behind them.

"Jeez, now I know you're crazy," Charlie said when he got closer to me.

"I didn't go the wrong way, did I?" I asked, waiting for the guys to start laughing uncontrollably and my cheeks were already starting to burn from embarrassment.

"No," Kent replied with a sheepish grin.

"Well did I run out of bounds or something?" I asked starting to get impatient. If they were going to make fun of me, they might as well tell me what I even did wrong.

"Not even close dude, you just scored a touchdown!" Kent yelled and instinctively hugged me briskly. I didn't mess up at all, in fact, I just showed up all the guys on the other team!

"I made a touchdown?" I asked, beginning to feel excited and chucking the ball to the ground. Kent was standing close to me, smiling a genuine smile and it felt nice to have him looking at me the way he was. He actually had an amazing smile when he was truly smiling, perfect teeth - I wonder how long he had to have braces for.

"Can we get back to our game now?" Dyllan yelled from where he stood at the other end of the yard. I jumped back, away from Kent and I saw a strange look wash over his face before turning to jog back to the group.

"I'm going to sit this play out, I need to catch my breath," I said walking towards the building. I did need to catch my breath, but not so much from running.

"You're our best player, you can't leave me hanging," I noticed how Kent said leave him hanging instead of the team.

"You can handle this play without me, promise," I reassured him and hurried towards the buildings steps to sit down before he could convince me otherwise. As soon as I was away from the guys and sat down I let out a huge sigh and relaxed just a bit. Hugging Kent was definitely not a good idea, we both were just caught up in the moment, nothing more.

"Hey there," A high pitched voice said close to my ear, causing me to jump slightly and scoot three inches away. It was the girl from this morning. Missy. From what I've heard she's staying in the Blairemount Dorm which is luckily all the way across campus. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you,"

Who come sup behind someone and yells in their ear anyway?

"You didn't," I replied shortly, obviously lying. If anything she creeped me out more than startled me.

"So I was thinking, I really want to get to know you. I feel like if anyone on campus needs some girlfriends it's you, having to live with these crazy boys and all," She mentioned, nodding her head in the direction of the guys still tackling each other. She gave off sort of a clingy vibe. I've heard people talking about her though and she does seem quite popular around school.

"Yeah, it would be kind of nice to have some girls to hangout with too," I said trying not to sound as awkward as I felt. I did have Jackie to hangout with after all.

"Good choice," Missy commented, digging through her purse to pull out a piece of paper and a bright pink pen. "Here is my number, there's this little café in the corner of the cafeteria, I don't know if you've seen it or not yet, but you should text me tomorrow and we'll meet up,"

"Sounds good to me," I replied holding the piece of paper in my hands and trying to decide if I should just throw it away and hope not to run into Missy tomorrow.

"See you later Sadie," Missy said, standing up and walking a few feet towards the yard where the guys had just ended another play.

"What the hell are you doing over here?" Kent suddenly was yelling, his face turning red immediately and the rest of the guys dispersed, getting as much distance between them and Missy as possible. Something serious must have happened between those two.

"What were you doing talking to her?" Charlie was suddenly right next to me, sweat dripping from his face.

"She's just being friendly," I said, watching Kent and Missy talking but not being able to hear what they were saying.

"Missy is not capable of being friendly, stay away from her," Charlie warned me. "You don't want to get caught up in her web of drama,"

"What do you mean?" I asked but Charlie was already walking away from me. It was starting to annoy me how much of this situation was being kept a secret.

A few minutes later Missy was walking away, back towards her dorm and Kent was gathering his team back together, angrier than ever.

"Sadie, are you going to play or just sit on your ass all night?" Kent yelled over to me.

"I'm coming!"