Chapter 6
Nat had walked into her dorm after returning Bruce safely to Mari. She saw Travis sitting at his desk working on homework. “Hey, I meant to tell you I got you an in with Lottie.” She felt guilty telling him this especially after their possibly almost kiss but she wanted to let him know she was keeping up her end of the deal.
Travis looked up as his face lit up with a smile. “Really, man you rock!” He held his fist out for Nat to bump and Nat did reluctantly but Travis was too happy to notice. “Can you help me ask her out tomorrow?” Nat started shaking her head no.
“Man you have to let her approach you, also I have this carnival fundraiser thing I have to go to tomorrow.” Nat puts her bag away and Travis frowns before looking back at Nat again.
“Wait is this for the debutant junior league?” Nat looked surprised before answering.
“Yeah, my aun-I mean my mom is in it. Why?”
“My mom is in it, I have to go tomorrow too.” Travis gave a small smile. Nat groans and sits on her bed.
“I honestly can’t deal with the carnival, I have soccer to worry about.” Travis gives her a confused look.
“It’s not gonna be that bad.” He smiles before continuing “Lottie’s gonna be there. It’s the perfect opportunity for me to lay some ground work.” Nat just nods resigned.
“Oh, Lottie’s gonna be there…and my cousin…and Allie… and you…and my mom. Great.” Nat just flops back on the bed and prays for a miracle for tomorrow.
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Nat arrives at the carnival with Travis, Jeff, and Randy. A clown comes walking up and Jeff holds a fist up in warning. “I’ll punch you man.” The clown runs off in another direction and Nat rolls her eyes before looking around at the carnival.
“To tell you the truth I never really liked carnivals.” Nat shrugs looking at Travis as Lottie comes walking up to the group. Nat adjusts the backpack on her back and straightens
at the sight of her.
“Hey! I’m working the kissing booth, come see me.” She smiles right at Nat before walking off. Nat’s pretty sure that she’s blushing big time and prays that Travis doesn’t notice.
“Man I love carnivals.” Travis mutters while starting to follow after the direction that Lottie went.
“Hey, where are you going?” Nat asked confused.
“Where do you think I’m going?” Travis asks like it’s obvious and continues following after Lottie to the presumed kissing booth.
Nat sighs before looking around again and spotting Allie. Her eyes widen as she turns to Jeff and Randy. “Oh no.”
“What’s up?” Jeff asks.
“Just saw my psycho ex and don’t really wanna deal with her so if guys don’t mind, I’m gonna lay low for a little while.” Nat says before starting to head to where the porta-potties are after hearing them say they’ll meet up with her later.
Nat changes into a simple red dress and shoves her other clothes into her backpack before exiting and running to the tent that her aunt Lisa was in. “Hey aunt Lisa!”
Lisa’s eyes light up when she sees Nat. “Oh honey, you look like such a lady! It’s a miracle!”
Nat puts on a fake smile before nodding “It really is.”
“So, Allie’s getting you all excited about being a debutant huh?” Lisa grins at her and Nat nods with her fake smile still in place.
“Oh super excited! Have a good carnival!” Nat tries to make a run for it but her aunt grabs her by the arm before she can get very far.
“Hold up, you have the next shift at the kissing booth and where’s your cousin? He’s late for the cotton candy cart!” Nat snaps her fingers and points at her aunt like she had a brilliant idea.
“You know what, I’m gonna go look for him. Ok, bye!” She waves before running off to change again.
As Nat is running to go change she runs into Travis who tries to look at her closely. “Wait do I know you?”
Nat turns to hide her face with her hair. “No.” And then she’s off running again only to run into her ex, Bobby at another stand.
“Hey Nat! Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling. I miss you. We need to talk!” Bobby smiles at her with what he thinks is a charming smile.
Nat just scoffs. “We’ve talked Bobby. All the talking is done.”
“Look nobody breaks up over a stupid soccer issue. Can you just be a girl for 5 seconds?” He looks down at her still smiling and Nat gives him a tight smile.
“For five seconds ok.” She starts counting to 5 with her hand raised. “First of all its not a stupid soccer issue and second you’re a dick.” She stops counting with mock surprise. “Oh wow look at that! Times up!” She pats his cheek before running away to the spinning teacups.
She manages to change into her guy clothes without throwing up on the teacups ride only for Allie to spot her and she’s running off to change again. Nat spots Van, Tai, and
Shauna near the bounce house. “Help, Allie’s behind me!” She yells before shoving her bag and herself into the bounce house.
“We’re on it!” Van states and they guard the bounce house along with Shauna and Tai. Allie comes running up just then. “Excuse me, nobody above 8 years old is allowed inside the bounce house.” They cross their arms and give Allie a bored stare.
“But I just saw my boyfriend go in there.” Allie tries looking past them.
“I believe the correct term is EX boyfriend.” Tai states and Allie rolls her eyes and starts to scrunch up her face.
“No relationship is over until I say it is. Understand?” She asks them.
“Whatever, you’re still not getting on the bounce house.” Shauna glares at her challenging her and Allie glares but they can see she’s shaking a little in fear. Nobody wants to face the wrath of Shauna Shipman.
“Ugh, fine. Whatever.” Allie says before stomping away.
Nat peeks her head out, now back in her red dress, and Van comes walking up. “She’s gone.” They smile at her as Tai and Shauna come walking up.
“Thank you! I owe you guys big time when all of this is over.” Nat smiles gratefully before rushing off towards the kissing booth.
Nat comes walking up in enough time to see Lottie cringing as she kisses a lanky guy with glasses. “Hey, um, I’m your relief.” Nat taps Lottie on the shoulder as she says this and Lottie finally gets to separate from the lanky boy.
“Oh thank god!” She whispers before giving a fake smile to the boy as he walks away. She turns back to Nat. “Beware of the old guy chewing gum, it’s not gum.”
Nat’s face turns to disgust. “Good to know.” Lottie takes a closer look at her now and Nat starts to panic.
“Do I know you?” Lottie asks looking confused.
“No, I just have one of those faces.” Nat fake laughs and hopes Lottie buys the lie.
“Huh” Lottie says as she walks away.
“Just my luck.” Travis murmurs as he steps up. Nat hadn’t realized he had been the next one in line to kiss Lottie. A small part of her is relieved but another part of her is panicking because she realizes now that she has to kiss him. She must’ve been making a face because he starts rambling. “I mean, it’s not that you’re… It’s just that she… I mean you’re, you know.” Travis struggles and Nat decides to put him out of his misery.
“I am, thanks I guess.” She smiles awkwardly at him.
“Um maybe I should kiss you now.” Travis rubs the back of his neck and Nat reluctantly agrees.
“I guess.” They both sit down on the stools that were at the booth and start to lean in. Before they can actually kiss though Bobby shows up.
“Nat what the hell are you doing?” Bobby grabs her back by the shoulder away from Travis. “Scuse me jackass, you were about to kiss my girlfriend.” Nat and Travis are standing now.
“Ex girlfriend.” Nat glares at him.
“Woah, wait you’re Nathan’s cousin?” Travis asks and Bobby shoves at him before Nat can answer.
“And you’re about to get your ass kicked.” Travis just laughs in Bobby’s face.
“What are you gonna do, drown me in your tears?” Travis steps closer to Bobby.
“I didn’t cry during that game, I had something in my eye.” Bobby insists as he looks at the ground before looking back at Travis.
“You know what, why don’t we just dial it down guys and step away.” Nat intervenes as she pushes Travis and Bobby away from each other.
Travis nods. “She’s right. I’m gonna see you on the soccer field and we’ll settle this all then.”
“Ok Travis” Bobby smirks and turns to go walk away. “Or we can straighten it all out right here!” He says right before sucker punching Travis in the face.
Travis grabs onto him and tackles him off of the kissing booth stage. They get back up and are grabbing at each other, running into trash cans and balloon towers before tackling each pother to the ground again.
“Bobby get off!” Nat tries to shove Bobby off Travis but it’s no use, he just goes to tackle him again. She hops onto his back hoping to try to stop the fight and they all end up crashing into the popcorn cart.
Aunt Lisa pushes through the crowd, apologizing along the way. “Natalie! Stop, this isn’t lady like!” Nat stands up and spits the popcorn that was in her mouth out.
Another lady that was a part of the debutant junior league stepped up. “There is no room for violence here! This is a lovely children’s carnival goddammit!”
Aunt Lisa points at Travis and Bobby. “Both of you. Out. Now!” Before taking Nat away to help clean her up.
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That night Nat came back to her dorm to find Travis with a tampon up his nose. He agreed that she was right in the beginning, it really does stop the bleeding. She resisted laughing at him and just went to bed.
Nat and Travis started up some more training the next day on the field. They didn’t notice they were being watched by two pairs of eyes. One belonging to Mari, who was spying on Nat and got hit in the head with a soccer ball that went too far when Nat kicked it. The other belonged to Coach Martinez, who was observing Nat’s improvement on the field.
After a while Nat and Travis decide to head to the gym to exercise some. As they were doing some bench presses, Coach Martinez came up to them.
“Scatorrcio!” He presented her with a dark blue and yellow jersey with her name and number on it. “You’re first-string for the Cornwall game.” He hands her the jersey and she takes it delicately, like it’ll fall apart if she touches it wrong.
“Really?” Nat asks in disbelief.
Coach Martinez scoffs. “No I was joking, that’s why I gave you your own jersey.” He rolls his eyes as he walks away but Nat doesn’t care. Now she can play at the game and kick Bobby’s ass.
Travis grins and high fives her. “Dude thank you so much for your help, I never would’ve gotten first-string without you.” Nat says right before spotting Lottie and Akilah walking over to them.
“Hey Nat, I heard what your coach said while I was on the treadmill and wanted to say congrats!” Lottie brings Nat into a hug as she says this. Nat tries not to melt into the hug, especially not in front of Travis but it’s so hard not to. She just wraps her arms around Lottie’s waist and gives what she hopes looks like a friendly hug.
“Congrats Nat, hey Travis” Akilah greets them. Travis waves back with a small smile before turning back to look at Lottie.
Lottie gets a look on her face but before Nat can even try to read it, turning to face Travis. “Hey Travis? You wanna go out tonight to Cesario’s?” Nat’s eyes widen and Travis gets excited.
“YES!” He stops and clears his throat. “I mean yeah, sure that’d be cool.” He tries to play it off and leans against the equipment behind him. Nat rolls her eyes and Lottie seems to catch it because she smirks for a split second before switching to a sweet smile.
“Cool, I’ll see you tonight at 8 then!” She puts her hand on his arm. “Bye Travis, bye Nat.” Lottie and Akilah both exit the gym and Travis turns to Nat grinning as he starts dancing like a dork.
“You did it, I’m going out with Lottie!” He says in a singsong voice while playing with the strings on Nat’s Wiskayok hoodie. Nat just pushes him away and furrows her brows.
“Yeah, uh, I’ll be right back.” Nat starts to head out in the direction where Lottie and Akilah went. It doesn’t take long to catch up with them. “Hey Lottie, can I talk to you for a second.” Lottie gives Akilah a nod before smiling and turning to Nat.
“Sure, what’s up Nat.” She has this playful look in her eyes and Nat isn’t sure why.
“It’s about your date with Travis.” Nat starts and Lottie starts smiling even wider.
“Oh I’m so glad I listened to you about asking him out. Plus he looked pretty good in those shorts.” Lottie leans back against the stairs that they’re sat on. Nat gags internally and tries to figure out what the fuck is going on considering she’s pretty sure they almost kissed the other night and now Lottie’s just asking Travis out all for what?
“Look, Travis is a man with feelings.” Nat starts. And Lottie stands up and starts leaning against the guard rail instead.
“And I’m a woman with feelings and my feelings seem to match his.” Now Nat is really confused. She goes to stand beside Lottie.
“Speaking as a completely objective third party observer with absolutely no personal interest in the matter, I’m not so sure you and Travis are a good idea after all.” Nat shrugs and there’s a look on Lottie’s eyes that Nat can’t decipher but Lottie just smiles at her.
“Well thank you for your concern. And if you’re so worried, maybe you should come to Cesario’s tonight and keep an eye on me.” Lottie shrugs as she suggests. “We could double?” Just then Misty runs past on the track in front of them. “I bet Misty is available.”
Misty appears behind the both of them in a matter of seconds. “I’m so there!” She grins at Nat and Lottie before running off again. Nat just knows that tonight is gonna be interesting.