Ben’s bed engulfed him.

He stared at the ceiling, contemplating what to do with the

remaining hours of his day. Glancing at his computer, he decided that starting a new TV show
was too much work. His eyes darted to the old chess board on his bedside table, but he was too
brain-fried to play a game with himself. Things were lonely ever since Kailyn left. She was the
youngest of his four sisters, and she moved into UMich at the beginning of the school year. Ever
since then, Ben had trouble entertaining himself.
He was counting down the days until college. Only 180 more days until he left his
suffocating hometown and ended up some school off of his list. What really made him anxious
was the fact that not a single school on his list was an all boys school. He’d attended an all boys
school his entire life, and honestly the only girls he’d ever talked to had really only talked to his
sisters.
His thoughts were interrupted by the vibrating of his phone on the nightstand. He
begrudgingly rolled over to see the ugly contact picture he’d chosen for Lucas, his best friend.
He clicked accept on the call and pressed the speaker button so he could stay hidden in the
blankets.
“What do you want?” He groaned.
“Where the fuck are you?” Lucas whispered harshly. “Ashley’s here. She brought her
friend. That hot one.”
“I can’t believe you just called your girlfriend’s friend hot…” muttered Ben.
“Am I wrong? And that’s besides the point. Are you at least crossing Main Street by
now?” Ben shot up in his bed. Basketball. He forgot about basketball.
“Uhhh yeah. Well, no. I’m almost to Main Street” He tried to keep his voice calm while he
scrambled to get his stuff together.
“I swear to god-” Lucas was cut off by Ben ending the call. Now he was going to be late
and he had to talk to an attractive girl. Could this get any worse? With a quick look in the mirror
at the monstrosity of his hair, he grabbed a hat and was finally out the door.
Ben jogged towards the courts. He kept quick enough to not piss Lucas off, but slow
enough to not show up in front of the group a sweaty mess.
When Ben finally got to the courts, Lucas was holding the ball and looking very
disappointed. Ashley was standing next to Lucas, and on the other side of Ashley was a tall
brunette wearing Nike shorts and an oversized blue top. Her hair was pulled back into two neat
dutch braids. Ben was familiar with those, as he used to braid Kailyn’s hair before her softball
practices. Shit, he was staring.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“You were in bed weren’t you.”
“...No.” At this, the pretty girl quietly chuckled. Oh my god, did Ben just make a girl
laugh? Lucas turned towards the girls.
“Ashley you’ve heard about Ben but I don’t think you’ve ever actually met him. So, this is
Ben. Ben, this is Ashley and Cayla.” Ben gave an awkward wave to both of them and choked
out a hello.
“Wanna do a 2v2?” asked Ashley.
“Ashley, I don't know how to play, remember?” said Cayla. She seemed stressed. Ben
glanced between the three of them before speaking up.
 “If you two wanna do a quick 1v1 I can teach Cayla how to play.” There was silence as
Ashley and Cayla spoke with their eyes.
“Yeah,” said Ashley finally, “Lucas c’mon.” Lucas turned and gave Ben an approving
look before letting Ashley drag him towards the net. Cayla stepped a little closer to Ben and
picked up the ball at his feet.
“So, do you know… like anything?” Ben’s voice was embarrassingly shaky. He bounced
the ball to Cayla.
“I mean, I know the basics.” She bounced it back.
“So, dribbling.” He demonstrated briefly, then bounced the ball back to her.
“Sure.” She tried dribbling and failed horribly.
“Okay, we’ll start there.” Ben gave Cayla a short crash course on how to dribble the ball,
then had her try and dribble while intermittently looking up and away from the ball.
“So,” said Cayla, “I actually have seen you around.”
“You have?”
“Yeah. You work at Mikey’s shop on fifth street right?” She looked up from the ball,
which got away from her and started rolling towards Ben.
“Yeah I do. How did you know that?” He bent down, grabbed the ball, and tossed it back
to her.
“I go there for coffee on weekends. I’m surprised you don’t recognize your own regular.”
There was a brief moment of silence before she spoke up again. “There’s this guy I think is
really cute who works there.” Ben’s heart skipped a beat.
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Ben was staring at Cayla even though her eyes were fixed on the basketball.
“You’re silly.” Was she talking about Ben? Surely not.
“You should give me a hint.”
“Okay fine. He’s about your height actually. He has brown wavy hair. His name starts
with the letter B…” Holy fuck. There was no way. He awkwardly cleared his throat and looked
over at Lucas for help, but he was preoccupied with Ashley.
“Do you wanna go to Mikey’s some time? When I’m not working?” Ben’s heart was
beating a thousand beats per second.
“Yeah sure, that would be fun. Let’s do it.” He did it. He just asked a girl out. And she
said yes. His sister would be so proud.
“So are you sure you don’t wanna tell me who it is?” Ben prodded again, now more
confident. “I’ll buy you a pastry or something.”
“Okay fine, you’ve twisted my arm.” She looked up and gave a shy grin at Ben, this time
without losing control of the basketball. “It’s Brody. Do you know him?” Ben’s eyes widened.
“Brody Anderson?”
“He’s the one with the glasses who works as the cashier on Saturday’s, right?” Ben was
floored. Why didn’t he think of fucking Brody.
“Uh, yeah I know him.”
“Maybe you can introduce me to him when we go. Can we go on Saturday then?”
Ben didn’t know what to say. He looked over at Lucas again, begging with his eyes for
him to turn around.
 “Yeah Saturday works.” Ben was still staring at Lucas. Turn around. Turn around.
By the grace of god, Lucas turned around.
“Cayla! Ben! Y'all ready to play now?” Cayla shouted back that she was ready, and used
her new dribbling skills to slowly walk over to Ashley, incredibly focused on the ball. Ben
pretended to grab his phone.
“My sister’s calling me one second I’ll be right over!” Ben put the phone up to his ear and
pretended to have a one sided conversation. He paced back and forth for a couple minutes,
putting the singular acting class he took the summer prior to good use. Lucas, Ashley, and
Cayla all started talking in a triangle while they waited.
Finally, when Ben felt like it had been long enough, he wandered back over to the group.
“I’m so sorry guys my mom said I needed to be home now. She made dinner.”
“I thought you said your sister was calling.” Fuck.
“Um. Yeah but then after that my mom called.” Lucas gave Ben a strange look, but didn’t
fight it. Ben shouted his goodbyes while he awkwardly stumbled back home and to his fluffy
blankets in his bed. He’d figure out how to talk to girls next year.