“Where the heck is my Bradley basketball fisherman hat?” I complained loudly as I threw articles of clothing out of my closet.
“Going out as the Bradley billboard again?” my friend, and roommate, Karen, joked.
I stopped making a total disaster area of our room and looked down at what I was wearing; red and white warm-up pants with the Bradley emblem on them, my warm-up shirt from last year’s basketball season, my Bradley jacket, and hopefully soon, my Bradley basketball hat.
“What can I say? I like to draw attention to myself!” I proclaimed as I turned back to my almost empty closet. “Ah ha! Here it is!” I pulled out a slightly wrinkled white fisherman style hat with the Bradley emblem on the front. Quickly, I shook it out and then plopped it on top of my head.
“Nice Alik,” Karen laughed.
“Yea, I know. Well, I’m headed for the mall. See you at the guys’ game tonight,” I explained as I grabbed my car keys and headed out into the hall of our dorm.
“Later!”
As soon as I reached the elevator, it opened. Must be my lucky day. As soon as the few people that had been on it got off, I hopped in and pressed the button for the lobby.
I guess this would be a good time to tell you a little bit about myself. I’m 19 and go to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. I play for the varsity basketball team and love it. Along with this, I participate in various other activities including softball, Speech, and photography. I love hanging out with my friends, listening to music, and doing anything that has to do with any sport.
As soon as the doors opened on the main level, I hurried out and almost ran into my friend, Shane.
“Whoa! Watch it Alik! Where are you going in such a hurry anyway?” he asked, a little startled.
“The mall!” I exclaimed.
“That would figure,” he laughed. “You are going to be at the game tonight, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world. See ya later, Shay!” As soon as I was out of the building, I ran for my car that was parked in the student parking lot. The dark green convertible had been a gift from my parents on my 18th birthday. As soon as the keys were in, the top went down. Not five minutes later, I was out on the road.
Once I arrived at the mall, I quickly found a place to park and then hopped out of the car and hurried into the large building. Within fifteen minutes, I was surrounded by young teenage girls wanting my autograph. What a life. With a smile on my face, and a pen ready, I gladly signed their notebooks and pieces of paper.
“Hey!! Alik!!” someone yelled from the escalator.
Looking up, I quickly recognized another one of the guys from the basketball team at my school. “Blake! What do you think you’re doing here? You’re supposed to be resting you freak!” I joked.
“Yea, well, you know how I am when it comes to shopping. I’m almost as bad as you now!”
I walked over to where he stood after he got off the escalator. “No one’s as bad as me. Now c’mon. I need the company.” I started walking toward Sam Goody’s.
“Yes ma’am; Alik ma’am!” he saluted, smiling.
“No good. You need to start taking drama with me. You can’t smile when you’re doing that you goon!” I laughed.
“Yea, that’s what you always say. Hurry up, I need to get back to my dorm or else I’m gonna get killed.” He shifted uneasily from foot to foot.
“Who’s threatening now?” I smiled.
“Coach West.”
“That would figure. OK, I’ll be done in a second. I just want to grab a CD really quick.” I explained as a quickly raced into the store.
Backstreet Boys…Backstreet Boys…dangit…where is it?
“AH HA! Here it is!” I exclaimed to myself as I picked the CD up off the shelf. Soon, I was standing back outside the store with Blake, my bag in hand.
“What’d you get?” he asked as we walked back toward the front door.
“And old CD. Do you remember the Backstreet Boys?”
“Yea, my sister was totally crazy over them.”
“Well, that’s what I got. My original got broken by, well, I won’t mention any names but…Ryan.”
Blake laughed. “That guy just doesn’t know when to stop does he?”
“Nope. I would’ve killed him right then and there but he has to play tonight, so…”
“Yea, I get it. Well, I’ll see you tonight at the game, Alik. If I’m not back at that dorm in fifteen minutes, Coach is going to have my head!” He quickly raced out into the parking lot.
“Later Blake!” I yelled after him as I, also headed for my car.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
“Karen! C’mon! We’re going to be late for the game!” I yelled to my friend as I shifted from foot to foot in front of our dorm room door.
“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” she announced as she came out of the bathroom, putting a scrunchie in her hair. “Let’s go,” she said as she grabbed her Bradley basketball jacket.
“Finally,” I mumbled, “Finding a parking place is going to be the worst now. We’re gonna have to walk.”
“That’s easy for you to say!” she argued as we got on the elevator.
“Well it’s not my fault someone had to take forever in the bathroom,” I countered. “I’m running there. I’ll get a ride from Blake or Shane or someone after the game.”
“Oh fine, but if you leave me behind again like last time, I swear to God, I’ll kill you,” she threatened as we walked out onto the street.
“Yea, yea, let’s get going.” I started out onto the sidewalk and was jogging as soon as my feet hit the concrete.
Fifteen minutes later, we were standing in front of the large arena where our boys’ basketball team played. Slightly winded, I flashed my pass to the person taking money at the front and waited impatiently as Karen, practically gagging for breath, searched for hers.
“You really should come running with me in the morning, Kar, then you wouldn’t be so dang out of shape in the off season,” I suggested.
“There’s no way you’re going to get me up at five in the morning just to stay in shape!” she exclaimed.
“Alright, suit yourself. Let’s get out seats. If Shane didn’t save the ones behind the bench like he promised, I’m gonna kill him.”
“You’re always finding one reason or another to threaten or kill Shane, Alik,” Karen laughed.
“Yea, well, I have to take it out on someone.”
She gave me a weird look and then pointed to the Bradley bench. “He saved the seats.”
“Dang it, now I can’t kill him! Oh well, maybe next time. Anyway, let’s go nab those seats before someone else.” I started jogging around the court, waving to my friends. Then, with Karen right behind me, I took a seat behind the bench and threw my jacket over the back of the chair.
“Hey Alik! Hey Karen!” Blake yelled from center court, waving like an idiot.
“Blake, quit making a fool of yourself and warm up!” I hollered back, smiling.
He stuck his tongue out and me and then swished a three pointer. When he looked at me, I just waved. Then, Kentucky, the other team, rushed out onto the court and started warming up. As I looked at them, I spotted a blonde guy, who looked about 20 that seemed kind of familiar to me. Yet, I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. Trying to push him out of my mind, I looked at the others warming up. A few of them I recognized from past games and made mental notes to remind Blake about some of them.
Twenty minutes, and a lot of trying to remember things later, the game started. As they announced the starting line-ups, I cheered for my team and then listened to the other team’s line-up, hoping to catch the blonde’s name.
“And the center for the Kentucky Wildcats, number 13, Nick Carter!” the announcer yelled as the blonde ran onto the floor.
“Why the heck does that name sound so dang familiar?” I said to myself. I stared at him, trying to figure out where I’d seen him before, but looked away when he glanced our way.
“You really should learn to be a little more discreet about staring at guys, Alik,” Karen joked.
“Oh, shut up. I’m trying to figure out where I know this guy from. He looks familiar. His name sounds familiar. I just can’t place my finger on where I’ve seen him before,” I explained, exasperated.
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before in my life. He is kind of cute though,” she added.
“Thank you Miss Helpfulness for stating the obvious,” I replied sarcastically. By this time, they were finally getting ready to jump the ball. “C’mon Blake!” I screamed as the referee threw the ball up. Unfortunately, the other guy, Nick, was a little taller and could jump higher. The Kentucky team was off down the court.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
With the score at 40-34 with Kentucky winning, and nearing the end of the second quarter, I was screaming my head off at the guys playing for our team. This didn’t pay off that much because when the buzzer went off to single the end of the half, the score was 45-38.
Karen and I went out into the hall to get food since we were both getting quite hungry. While out there, I spotted Nick again.
“I thought the players weren’t supposed to come out here during half-time,” Karen commented.
“They’re not. It looks like he’s talking to someone though. He doesn’t look in much a hurry or anything either. His coach probably gave him permission,” I agreed.
Nick’s friend was probably only about 5’6” and had short brown hair. As we walked past them, I picked up on a little bit of their conversation and also noticed that the other guy had a girl with him, probably his girlfriend.
“Nick, man, great game so far. Keep it up and watch out for that number 32 guy. He’s starting to pick up on your moves,” his friend was telling him. I smiled. They were talking about Blake.
“No problem, Brian. I’ve got it. Hey, I’ve gotta get back in there or else Coach is going to kill me. Later Rok! Later Amanda!” Nick announced as he ran back into the gym, and the locker room.
Brian…Rok…they sound familiar too…dang it! Where have I seen these guys before?
“Hey…Alik…yo…Alik…Alik!” I snapped out of my phase to hear my friend shouting my name.
“Huh? Wha? Oh man.”
“C’mon, let’s go get food,” she suggested, tugging on my arm. I glanced around. Brian and Amanda were gone, probably to go get food themselves. We walked over to the concession stand. Standing in line right in front of me were Brian and Amanda. I debated on weather or not to talk to them and ended up deciding against it. I figured that it would be kind of weird to tell the guy that I recognized him from somewhere and to please tell me who he was. This guy has one heck of a southern accent. I thought to myself as I heard him tell the worker what he wanted.
After getting our food, we quickly hurried back to our seats. I scanned the area for Brian and Amanda, trying to find where there were sitting. Five minutes later, I saw them sitting behind the Kentucky bench.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
“Great game guys!” I yelled to my friends as I ran onto the court.
“Thanks Alik,” Blake said, giving me a big sweaty hug.
“Yuck! Go take a shower!” I teased.
“Yea, Blake! We don’t wanna smell your BO anymore!” Shane joked from a few feet away, holding his nose.
“Look who’s talking!” Blake shot back.
“Shane is!” one of our other friends, Marc, said.
“Very funny, Marc,” Blake commented. Marc took a bow. “Ha, ha.”
“Yea, well, I’m gonna go … um … talk to someone,” I said, not wanting my friends to know that I was going to talk to Nick and Brian, the “enemies.”
“Alright. I’ll grab a ride with one of these wierdos, I guess,” Karen told me.
“Ok, cool. Later guys!” I yelled as I started looking around for Nick. I spotted him standing by the door to the hall. He was talking to Amanda and Brian again. When I got within a few feet away, Nick looked up and smiled at me.
“Hey, my friends are going to kill me if they find out I’m talking to you guys, but I just thought I’d come over here and tell you that you play a really great basketball game,” I commented him.
He blushed. “Thanks.” He looked at what I was wearing and smiled again. “I take it you play basketball, too?”
“You better believe it! Number 35 and proud captain of the Bradley Lady Braves,” I announced.
All three of them laughed.
“I think I’ve seen you play before,” Amanda said. “Your name is…MacNamara, right?”
“Yea, that’s me, Alik MacNamara. I know you’re Nick Carter,” I answered, “But I don’t believe I know you two. Care to introduce yourselves?”
Brian laughed. “I’m Brian Littrell,” he shook my hand. There’s that dang accent again.
“I’m Amanda Hendsbee,” she also shook my hand.
“Cool. Nice to meet you. Um…you guys might think I’m a little weird for asking this,” I was interrupted by Nick.
“Oh, we’ve had some pretty weird questions asked about us, so just ask away!”
I laughed, “Alright then…um…ok, I know that I’ve seen you two before,” I started again, nodding toward Brian and Nick, “But I can’t quite place my finger on when or where. I kind of figured that maybe you’d be able to help me out here.”
The two guys glanced at each other and Brian raised his eyebrows. Nick shrugged. Amanda and I laughed.
“Secret language?” I asked.
“Yup, but anyway…I think you probably recognize us from a couple years back,” Nick started to explain. “Have you ever heard of the Backstreet Boys?”
“Yeah…” I glanced at them again and then, before either one could start to talk again, figured it out. “Oh my God, how the heck could I have been so stupid? Jeez, ok, I’ve got it now. You guys were in that group. Now I remember.” They all laughed. “No, I’m not always like this,” I announced. “But anyway, I need to get going.” I looked around at the gym. Almost everyone was gone. “It looks like I’m going to have to walk home tonight. See ya!” I started to walk away.
Five minutes later, just as I neared the door to outside, I heard footsteps behind me. Quickly, I spun around to see who it was. Greatly to my surprise, Nick was standing behind me.
“We’re not leaving to head back to Kentucky until tomorrow morning. Want any company on the way back to your dorm?” he smiled. He has such a cute smile.
“Sure. Why not?” I agreed as I put my jacket on.
“Cool. So, how long have you been playing basketball?” he asked as we started for the sidewalk.
“I’d tell you if I knew, but I don’t. Probably since I was about yay-high,” I joked, bending down to put my hand about 2 feet above the ground.
He sighed dramatically, “Such a late start.”
I looked at him and laughed. “So when did you start playing, Mr. Hot Shot?”
“Oh, about the same,” he smiled.
“That would figure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing. How old are you anyway?” I changed the subject.
“21, you?”
“19.” We both walked in silence for a while, neither of us knew what to say.
“You wanna go do something?” he finally asked after we were about halfway back to my dorm.
“Like what?” Since the next day was Sunday, I was really open to suggestions. I never could go to sleep early on the weekends.
“I dunno. How’s finding a good place to eat and catching a late movie sound?”
“It sounds great actually, but I still need to go back to my dorm because Karen’s going to freak if she gets back and finds out I’m not home yet,” I agreed.
“Ok, it’s cool.”
“Are you too tired to run?” I asked quickly, grinning.
“No…why?”
“Beat you to my dorm!” I yelled as I took off down the sidewalk.
“No fair! I don’t know where the heck I’m going!” he yelled back, but still took off after me.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
“Did you see that look those old people gave us in the theater?” I laughed as we walked out of the movie complex.
“Yea! They thought we were totally nuts! God, I can’t believe you were throwing popcorn at the screen!” he voiced.
“No, not at the screen…at that bad dude! You know! That one! That was doin’ the bad stuff!”
“Ohhhh!! THAT dude!!” he joked, nodding. “The one that was doin’ the bad stuff! Yea! I remember him!"
“Are you mocking me, Nickolas?” I asked, trying to sound serious.
“What? Me? Mock you? Nooooo!”
I shook my head. “I get no respect around here!” He just laughed. We walked on in silence for a few minutes; not really going any place in particular. Soon though, I realized that we were going in the general direction of the Campus Park, so I decided that we’d just go there and hang out for a while. On the way there, I tried to figure out a good place to go to sit down without running into any of my friends. The lake…no one would have any reason to go there. They’ll all be busy partying somewhere, probably. After about ten minutes passed, we finally reached our destination. I turned to Nick to see a small smile playing across his face, almost as if he had a secret that he wanted to tell. Swiftly, he took my hand and led me down to the small dock that jutted out into the lake. We quickly discarded our shoes and socks and hung our feet over the side of the dock so that they were just barely in the water. Suddenly feeling slightly tired, I lay down on the dock; my feet still submerged in water.
“I think a fish just bit my toe,” I finally said after a few minutes of silence. He looked over his shoulder at me and laughed. “What? What’s so funny? I just got bit by a fish and you’re laughing? I said it once and I’ll say it again…I get no respect around here!”
“Yea, well, what can I say?”
“Nothing unless you want to get smacked really hard,” I joked, smiling. He smiled back and lay down next to me. We both just stared up at the stars for a while.
“I can’t find the North Star,” I complained after a few minutes. He laughed. “OK, so I don’t exactly like to pay attention in astronomy sometimes. So sue me!” This only made him laugh harder. I sat up and stared at him. “You’re just asking for trouble mister!” I warned. When he didn’t stop laughing, I reached down into the water and started splashing him.
“Hey!” he hollered as he started getting wet. Quickly, he sat up and started splashing me back. Soon, we had an all-out water fight – or at least, what we could have of one without wanting to totally get in the water. Finally, after both our outfits were soaked all the way through, we stopped flinging the water around.
I looked at my watch. “Hey, it’s twelve thirty. I should be getting back to my dorm. I want to get at least a few hours of sleep before I go running in the morning.”
“OK.” Was all he said as we got up. He looked a little disappointed – maybe sad. I wasn’t sure quite what it was. “What time do you go running?” he suddenly asked as we got to the park’s dirt trail.
“I usually try to start actually running by five, but tomorrow it probably won’t be until around five thirty. Why?”
“Would you like some company?” he asked, with a hint of hope in his voice.
I stopped walking for a second and looked over at him, considering the offer. “I run around ten miles a day,” I warned.
“I can keep up. I run almost everyday too,” he declared, looking me straight in the eyes.
His stare made me a little self-conscious so I diverted my eyes to the ground. Not even thinking about it, I started walking again, still thinking about Nick’s offer. I would like to have company when I ran because Karen would never come. She would never get up that early to run. About five minutes had passed and neither of us had said anything. Soon I realized that we were nearing the street again. Within minutes we would have to go separate ways so I reacted quickly.
“Ok, meet me at my dorm at a quarter after five and you can come running with me. If you’re not there though, I’m gonna go without you. Your hotel should be a couple blocks down that way, by the way.” I pointed to my left. “See you in the morning Nick!” I called over my shoulder as I turned right and started jogging down the sidewalk.
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
~*~WORK IN PROGRESS~*~