A/N: Thanks to GuatemalanRockerChick and Armed Scribbles for reviewing! Thanks guys!

I personally like this chapter a lot because of all the dialog, but I don't like how it's not very descriptive. What do you guys think? Review please and let me know!

"You'll find as you look back upon your life that moments when you have truly lived are moments when you have done things in the spirit of love."-Henry Drummond

Flirting with Disaster

By SavannahX

Chapter Nine: Luck

Katie was doing a really good thing. I mean, part of me resented her for being rather rude about it at first, but she was only looking out for the both of us. I understood that and I was glad she was.

"Anyway, what are you doing tonight?" she asked me curiously.

I was shocked. I hadn't really been expecting an invitation tonight but I thought that all of it had been revoked. I guess I was wrong though. Here she was, inviting me to join them. I really shouldn't assume things, so I decided to play it cool and easy. She was just curious.

"Nothing really, just going to go home and sleep," I told her as I shrugged.

"Hm, actually I think you're going to come with us," she commented absentmindedly as she took my hand and started to lead me out of the room.

Score one for Courtney.

"Oh, okay," I told her, trying to act like I wasn't going to jump up and down about it all. I personally think I did a really good job containing myself. "But I really can't be out too late because of my parents."

"That's understandable. We'll get you back by eleven because that's town curfew. Think you could get away with it?" she asked me.

Think I could? I knew I could. What were my parents going to do, drop by to come pick me up? Right. My mom was too busy playing card games and my dad was probably watching football or whatever else was on at this time. It was nine thirty which gave me an hour and a half to hang out with them. My parents wouldn't find out, I was sure of it.

"Definitely. My parents probably won't even notice that I come home late," I told her and she nodded. "What are we going to do?"

"Well, I'm not sure, let's ask the rest of them," she told me as we approached them. "Hey guys!"

They all turned to look at the two of us. Nicole and Kristi were talking about something or other and David was just laughing at them.

"She's going to be joining us tonight," Katie said with a smile. "We've only got until eleven so what should we do?"

"Let's go to the riverfront," Nicole suggested. "It's close and a good place to hang out."

"Fine by me," Katie said with a shrug. "So I don't have my car so who are we riding with?"

"Why don't you ride with me?" Kristi suggested and then she nodded.

"Court, Krisit, and I will meet the two of you there, okay?"

To me it seemed like Katie was the plan organizer. She seemed to be in charge of everything.

"Bye guys! See you there!" Nicole said as she started to walk out.

"See you," David responded and walked out of the room. I went to go pick up my stuff as Katie's phone rang.

"Hey Kristi, Austin and Nick are going to join us there," she said as she typed furiously into her phone. "I just texted them about the whole thing."

"That's cool. David probably won't feel so out of it like he usually does." The two of them exchanged a glance and started to laugh.

I was lost but tried not to show it. I really didn't know what they were talking about, but I could just pretend that I did, no problem.

We started to walk out toward Kristi's light blue car. She unlocked it and Katie slid in the back. "You could have sat up front, you know," I told her kindly.

"Well, you're a lot taller than me so I thought it was only fair that you sat in the front," she told me with a shrug. "It doesn't really bother me at all."

"Okay," I told her as I slid into the front seat. Kristi was already in the driver's seat, fiddling with her iPod. It started playing a heavy rock song that I actually liked.

"Maybe we should explain," Kristi said as we started driving.

"Yeah," Katie said. "So we're meeting two friends there besides David and Nicole. One of them is Austin and the other one is Nick. He's a great guy but he acts like he's gay a lot of the time. He's not, but just beware and don't say anything about it, okay?"

"Okay," I told her. "I won't say anything."

"Good," Kristi said. "Nick doesn't really like being called gay. It pisses him off. He really acts like he is all the time so I don't know why he gets so offended, but he does."

"It's actually pretty fun. David teases him about being gay all the time and Nick gets all up in his face about the whole thing."

I felt a smile creep on my face as I imagined this whole scenario. I imagined a tall, very skinny boy wearing a pink shirt and skinny jeans with straight blond hair that fell perfectly into his eyes. And then him getting all pissed off over David calling him gay.

What a funny sight.

The rest of the ride consisted of the two of them singing really loudly to some music that I didn't recognize. They were hilarious with it and it made me smile.

We arrived at the riverfront to see Nicole and David already standing there. "Ready to go?" David asked us.

"Not yet," Kristi responded. "Austin and Nick are meeting us here."

"Yay, Austin and Nick!" Nicole exclaimed with a smile. "That makes me happy!" She smiled really wide.

"Good," David muttered. "I didn't want to be the only guy here. Although I do look like a pretty beastly pimp." He yawned and attempted to put his arms around Katie and Nicole's shoulders but got slapped instead.

"David, no," Katie said with a glare. "You are not a beastly pimp and never will be."

We all started laughing.

"Hey!" we heard a voice say and we all turned around to see a blue truck pulling up with a curly haired boy sticking out of the window blowing kisses. The car was still moving but he jumped out and ran straight into Katie's arms. "Hey babe, I've missed you!"

"Nick, next time wait until I've stopped my truck!" I heard the other boy say and I turned to see none other than Austin, the one who I'd called hot. I felt my face turn very red and was thankful for the darkness covering my face.

"I'm sorry," Nick said and I could hear the thing that made most people think he was gay. He had a very flamboyant voice that was high pitched in nature and just had that "gay" tone radiating from it. He was tall and slender with big brown curls and thick rimmed glasses. "I just had to come up and hug my Katie. And now it's Nicole's turn!" He reached over and hugged Nicole tightly.

"Well, you could have fallen out and died you moron!" Austin exclaimed and shot him a dirty look.

Nick was currently hugging Kristi and then he turned to me. "Hi!" he said in that voice of his. "I'm Nick. Who are you?"

"This is Courtney," Kristi said.

"Yeah, she's going to be chilling with us for awhile tonight," Katie responded.

"Oh, okay!" Nick exclaimed. "Nice to meet you!"

I smiled. "Nice to meet you too."

"I'm Austin," he said as he shook my hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Don't you guys remember her at all?" Nicole asked curiously.

"No," Austin responded. "Where from?"

"She was at the talent competition and she came up to give me a hug afterwards."

The two of them were in thought for a few moments and then Austin remembered unfortunately. His face went from a blank stare to a grin. "Haha, I remember you!" he said with a laugh. "You and some girl thought I was hot!" He started to laugh and everyone else in the group started to laugh as well.

My face burned but instead of being a baby and denying it all, I confronted it head on like a football player. "So what if I did?" I asked with an attitude. I put lots of emphasis on the word did and he looked slightly taken aback by my reaction.

"That's just funny," he said with a laugh. "My first memory of you. Wow, that's never going to get out of my mind."

"That is really funny!" Nick said with a laugh and a smile appeared on my face. Nick laughing was just really hysterical sounding. His laugh was girlish, yet halfway masculine at the same time. It was almost as if his voice couldn't decide which octave to reside in.

"Let's start walking guys," David suggested with a smile. "We don't really have that long now that Austin and Nick have wasted so much time." He smiled as the two of them looked at him.

"Wait, why do we have a time limit?" Nick asked as he put one hand on his hip, the other one his hair.

The four of them turned and looked in my direction and I turned scarlet again. They seemed to have a way with making me do that.

"What?" Austin asked, looking from me to David.

"There happens to be a town curfew," Kristi said. "And we've gotta get her home because her parents don't know she's with us."

"Ah," Austin said as things clicked into place. "That makes sense."

In his head, Austin was assuming that I was seventeen or something to that effect. He hadn't anticipated the fact that I was really just a lowly sophomore. That thought hadn't crossed his mind. He didn't question it for reasons that I found out later, but instead just ignored the fact.

We started walking, slowly at first, talking the whole time. For the most part I just stayed out of the conversations because I wanted to observe a little bit before I jumped in headfirst. I didn't want to come off like a little girl with high school problems. Before I dived into the fifty foot deep pool, I decided to test the waters a little bit first. No problem with that, right?

Well the first thing that I noticed was that their conversation was really rather dirty. It was a lot different from high school conversations because we were all really dirty, but censored ourselves a lot for many reasons. They didn't seem to have a problem openly talking about sex and homosexuality. They didn't need to censor themselves at all.

I noticed tidbits of everyone's personalities. Each one had such a distinct personality that you could distinguish major differences immediately. Austin seemed almost cocky, but not too cocky. He was aware of the fact that he was hot, but didn't brag about it. He walked with this swag that just echoed "confident" with every stride.

Nick bounced when he walked. He would often have random little outbursts about nothing and he wasn't afraid to argue with people, especially David. Well, I guess you could say that about David, Kristi, and Austin as well, but Nick's opinions were usually silly ones that made us all laugh. He seemed to be a very happy person.

Kristi seemed to get along with Austin, but you could almost see the tension between them with every word that was exchanged between them. She had her times when she seemed a little bit stuck up and superior to Austin, but that was it.

Nicole seemed to be crushing on Austin. I noticed that instantly. Every word he said was countered by a little giggle from her direction. From what I'd caught on, she really had no chance because he was dating some girl. She seemed to be very self-conscious about what she said and it was all aimed to impress him. He didn't seem to catch on, though.

Katie seemed to be the mediator that everyone liked and looked to when they were having issues. She was the one who laughed the most and kept herself out of fights.

Then there was David. He seemed to be the scapegoat of everything. Jokes were directed at him but he was confident about them and just laughed them off. I don't think anyone meant to hurt him, they were just being weird. He was very passionate about politics and it resulted in quite a few arguments.

Like I said, I stayed out of most of it. I laughed on cue and participated right when I was scripted in. It was quite a few good moves on my part, at least I thought so anyway.

Things were finally starting to look up. I could find myself naturally laughing with these people and having a good time.

Unfortunately, ten forty-five came. It ended up being decided that David would take me home because he had to work the next day. This was a pretty good excuse.

We said our farewells and I slipped into the passenger seat.

"What did you think?" he asked as he turned on the car.

"It was fun! I liked it!" I told him and meant every word of it.

"You seemed to be a bit quiet and it almost seemed like you felt out of place," he commented as he started driving.

"Yeah, I did feel a bit out of place. You all are living your college lives and here I am, not knowing any of your friends and only having stupid high school drama to talk about. I didn't want to seem like a little girl. I hate being the high schooler that just tags along."

"Honestly," David said as he looked me in the eye. "We like you. When Katie was yelling at me, she mentioned that she didn't want to see us screw up because she cares about both of us. She knows me inside and out and she was saying things about you. She told me that she liked you. You seemed pretty sweet."

A smile crept onto my face. "That's sweet of her," I commented as I looked out the window.

"Yeah, and I know Nicole likes you. I remember during that play all we would hear about was this sweet girl named Courtney who was fun to be around."

"Yeah, Nicole and I had a lot of fun together. That was a great play."

"What do you think about Austin and Nick?"

"Nick is funny!" I said with a laugh. "He's absolutely hysterical.

"He's not gay, by the way," he said as he looked me in the eye.

"I heard the warning label on the way here. He's so sure of himself, it's great."

"What about Austin?"

I smiled again. "Austin, well I like him but he really embarrassed me by blurting that out. Other than that he seems like a nice guy"

"That's cool," he said as we pulled onto my street. "Austin, Nick, and I are going to be sharing a dorm at state next year. Along with some other kid we don't know."

"Sounds fun!" I told him as he pulled in front of my house. "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow! Thanks for letting me hang out with you."

"See you later, Courtney," he said as I closed the door.

I couldn't believe my luck.

A/N: Well, that was a fast update.

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