Competition

 Competition

He stared down his adversary, noting every possible angle of attack. His allies stood silently by, waiting for him to make his move. He hefted his weapon in his hands and tested its weight before he pointed it at his foe. He struck and his opponent shot across the felt covered table and crashed into others of its kind, causing one of them to fall into the far left table’s pockets. Ryan, supremely pleased with himself, whooped and did a little victory dance.

“Lord of pool! King of the cues baby!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah so you get another shot. Big deal,” shot back Lindsey.

“Nobody likes a sore loser,” replied Chris with a grin and a wink.

They had been playing this particular game for the past hour and it had been pretty close the whole time. It had started when Ryan and his roommates had gone to a dance that the Branbury had held in the Clubhouse a few days before. There had been a live jazz band even and most of the guys, with the exception of Chris had been pretty psyched to go… even though they didn’t know much about swing dancing. And just his luck, Chris had gotten partnered up with Lindsey, the girl he’d accidentally kinda sorta insulted a week or so ago.

“I promise I’ll try not to step on your feet,” he joked, trying to break the ice.

“Yes, please don’t,” she responded coolly.

They hadn’t done too badly either… right up until Ryan did the very thing that he’d joked about and accidently stepped on Lindsey’s right foot. She’d limped off the dance floor faster than you could say ‘gaffe.’

Chris had wandered over and thrown an arm around Ryan’s shoulders grinning at him.

“See, if only you’d stepped on her foot earlier then you might be even further behind than you are now!”

Ryan had just glared at him witheringly, especially as he’d noted that Ian and Rachel were cutting up the rug.

To Ryan’s surprise, he saw Lindsey again just an hour and a half later as they piled into the Branvan (the teal van that the management owned) and headed up Y mountain for a midnight hike by the full moon. He’d tried to wander over to apologize but she was busy talking to Rachel and a couple of other girls. It was when they got back down the mountain and were in the parking lot that things turned around. After they piled into the van again, one of the RAs, Jake, ended up driving them to an apartment complex nearby the Branbury. Just as Mickael asked Jake why they were here, he shouted, “Chinese Fire Drill!” and turned up the music with heavy bass out the external speakers. Caught off guard, nobody moved a muscle as Jake leapt out of the driver’s side door. There was a pause and then he stuck his head back in.

“Hey, what part of Chinese Fire Drill don’t you understand? C’mon, get crazy!”

They piled out of the side doors and began to run in a circle around the Branvan and almost as if it had been planned, Ryan found himself running next to Lindsey. Suddenly, she put on a burst of speed as they rounded the rear bumper. Ryan began to run faster as well and overtook her.

“You think this is a race huh?” she called from behind him.

“No, I’m just faster than you!” he joked, looking back and grinning at her. Lindsey began to run faster until Jake called out, “OK, back in the van before we wear out our welcome!”

They climbed back into the van and Ryan found himself sitting next to Lindsey.

“Wanna try that again, where it’s a straight run instead of going in circles?” she asked.

Not sure where the sudden desire for competition came from Ryan just shrugged and said, “Sure.”

So they had a race, first around the Branbury wins. He’d managed to pull it off but it had been close. And then, for whatever reason, Lindsey had challenged him on his win, saying that he’d won because he had longer legs or cheated around the last corner or some other excuses that were mumbled with a smile under her breath. So he’d asked her if she wanted to join him for a tie-breaker. That led them to a game of basketball.

“First to 21?” he asked.

“You’re on,” she shot back and for a moment Ryan was pleasantly distracted by her big brown lashes and glowing smile.

Once again it had been a very close game and she’d managed to duck under him at game point and scored the winning basket.

Bristling under the laughter from his roommates, he’d asked her if there wasn’t thing else she thought she could beat him at. That then had led to a game of swimming pool basketball that Ryan had won… again narrowly. That had led to another challenge and this was the one they were in now, the game of pool (or billiards or whatever you want to call it). So far, Ryan was winning, but again, narrowly.

He lined up his next shot, intending to pocket the 4 ball in the far corner pocket. He cracked the cue against the cue ball, watched it roll across the table, smack into the 12 ball, the 12 smack into the 4 and the 4 rolled towards the pocket. He turned around to grin at Lindsey and found her pointing triumphantly at the table. He turned around again and saw, to his horror that the 4 ball had glanced off the side of the pocket and bounced out.

“Oops,” said Lindsey with fake innocence. She strode around to the side of the table, lined up a shot and pocketed the 12 ball, which meant that all she had to do was pocket one more ball and the 8 ball and she would win. Ryan watched with a sinking heart and a touch of pride as she lined up another shot. Hoping against hope, he watched as she lined up her last shot, struck… and pocketed the 8 ball, ending the match.

“So… shall we play again?” she asked, a triumphant smirk plastered across her face.

“Racquetball?” he asked.  He suddenly had a strong desire to make sure their competition continued for a completely different reason than why it had started.