"Who's idea was this?" Jordan asked as we traipsed across the concrete. All three of us stopped suddenly in our tracks, halfway across the parking lot, to shoot him a glare.

"Yours," we said together, by now quite thoroughly exasperated. The asphalt crunched beneath our feet as we walked.

"Are you sure?" Jordan replied, twirling his racquet in the air. "I distinctly remember it being Declan's idea."

"I distinctly remember the opposite," Declan growled, swinging his own racquet so close to Jordan's face that it ruffled his blond hair.

"Well, I distinctly remember that somebody applied for 'music theory' as an elective this semester." His green gaze was mocking.

"And I distinctly remember telling you to shut your mouth."

"Well, I distinctly remember telling you guys to stop fighting," Bennett interrupted, stepping in between them. His tone was just as nonchalant and calm as it always was, but I could tell that he was getting irritated.

"Sorry, Mom," Jordan muttered, and Bennett swung his own racquet at Jordan's face. Once again, Jordan only narrowly avoided it.

We reached the end of the parking lot and stepped onto the sidewalk. We had come to a large, green court, surrounded by metal chain-link fence that stretched towards the sky.

Yup. A tennis court.

It had been Jordan's brilliant idea that we play a few rounds of tennis, because a hot Saturday like this was too good to be wasted sitting inside. Bennett had strongly disagreed, but Declan had been willing to do anything as long as he got to beat the crap out of something or someone with a tennis racquet.

Of course, I wasn't against the exercise, but I knew that this was going to be embarrassing, because I totally sucked at tennis. But Jordan was all for tennis, and when Jordan is all for something, chances are it's going to happen.

We made our way to the entrance, where our human wallet pulled out his membership card and swiped it. The chain-link door swung open and we stepped inside.

"Now what?" I asked, taking a tennis ball from Declan, who was supplying them. I knew better than to practice now, because the last thing I needed was to show the others how terrible at tennis I was.

Jordan grinned. We play teams."

"Who's on which team, then?" Bennett asked, looking a little fed up. Clearly, he didn't want to draw this out in any way.

"I say me and Bennett versus you and Naomi," Declan advised, bouncing his ball up and down on his racquet.

"That's not fair!" I exclaimed. "You two are the best at tennis! You can't both be on the same team!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jordan gave me a wounded look.

"I'm just saying that they're better at tennis."

He drew himself up in mock haughtiness, his hands on his hips. "You don't know that! What if I'm very good at tennis? Maybe I am! Maybe I have secret tennis superpowers that I've been hiding from the world this entire time!"

"Maybe you don't," Declan retorted.

Jordan placed his hands on his heart, which was a total Jordan thing to do. "I can't believe this," he cried, kneeling on the floor.

"Jordan. Stop being a drama queen." Bennett gave him a degrading look from underneath his mop of shaggy black hair. Declan insisted that he remove his usual navy-blue beanie that normally covers most of it.

"Fine," Jordan spat, his hands still on his heart. "Naomi, you can have Bennett, and I'll side with Mr. Muscles over here."

"I have muscles, too," Bennett snapped, which made Jordan smirk. So much for his "wounded heart".

I looked up at the blazing sun, now high in the sky. "Guys, if we keep arguing, it's going to be midnight before we finish this tennis game."

"If it's dark, I won't have to look at Jordan's ugly face," Declan pointed out.

Bennett, who had come over to my side of the court by now, rolled his eyes. "Jordan, get off your knees and get to the other side of the court. Declan, stop antagonizing the drama queen, please."

"I am not a drama queen," Jordan protested as he stomped to the other side of the court.

"Uh-huh," Bennett muttered, but I knew that I was the only one that heard it. He raised his voice, addressing all of us. "I'm assuming we all know how to play tennis?"

I'm a little rusty, I thought, and the racquet felt awkward and heavy in my hand.

He turned to me. "You're a little rusty," he guessed, reading my mind.

"Well I—"

"Don't argue." He pointed to the other side of the net. "You know, you have to hit the ball over the net, it can only bounce once—"

"I know that," I said, frustrated.

Bennett nodded. He pointed to a small area that extended past the sidelines of the court. "That's the alley. We're playing doubles, so you can use that extra space."

I nodded. I had forgotten that.

"You need to pick: left court or right court." He's already standing on the left side, so I go ahead and pick the right side.

"You alternate serves, so I'll serve, and then Declan will serve, and then you'll serve, and then Jordan will—"

"How come I'm last?" Jordan whined.

"Because I said so," Bennett replied.

"Why should I listen to you?"

"Because I'm the one with the membership, the wallet, and the car keys."

Apparently, Jordan couldn't think of a valid argument, so he went back to sulking. Looking satisfied, Bennett continued.

"You have to serve from the baseline," he said, pointing to the line we were standing on, "and you want to get the ball to the service box."

"Service box?"

Bennett nodded, looking just a little bit amused through his poker face. "That's the section on their side of the court," he told me, pointing to it, "where you want to hit the ball."

I nodded. "Sounds easy enough."

Boy, was I wrong.

Bennett started off serving. He tossed the ball up into the air and, using all of his might, hit it to the other side. My eyes were trained on it as it soared over my head, but with a deafening crack and a flash of neon green, it was hurtling back in our direction.

Declan had returned the serve.

Without hesitating, Bennett sprang forward with formerly-unseen agility and swung the racquet, sending the ball towards Jordan this time. Jordan, being Jordan, saw the ball that was coming straight at him and ducked. It flew over his head and bounced past him.

Declan looked as if he could murder someone.

As Declan spouted off, flinging a string of curse words at Jordan's face, Bennett turned back to me. "That, Naomi, was our first point."

He waited patiently for Declan to stop flipping Jordan off before calling out to me. "Fifteen, love!"

I was instantly confused. Why did he call me love? We're just friends! Right? Besides, even if we were more than friends, which we aren't, he wouldn't do it in front of the others!

Jordan looked just as confused as I was, and more than a little mad. "Bennett! Is there something going on between you and Naomi? That's breaking Section Fifteen, Article Five!"

Bennett rolled his ice-blue eyes, but I could see that his ears were turning red and he was blushing like no tomorrow.

"Jordan, you idiot. In tennis, 'love' is the call for having zero points! That's just... no..."

"Oh," was all Jordan replied with.

Bennett gave me an apologetic glance before turning back to Declan, who instantly served. Bennett returned the serve and they rallied for a while before a trigger-happy shot by Declan sent the ball whizzing out of bounds and against the chain-link fence.

A ghost of a smile played across Bennett's lips, as if he was daring to actually enjoy the game. "Thirty, love!" he bragged to Declan.

"Right back at you, love!" Declan sarcastically called out in reply.

Jordan grinned. "Oooh... Beclan!"

Bennett shook his head as he retrieved the ball and tossed it to me. "I like Jeclan better!" he cried.

I felt the ball in my fingers. It was fuzzy, and it had torn a little bit where Declan had lobbed it at the fence. I wasn't sure I could do this.

Not at all.

I backed up towards the baseline, as I had gone forwards a little to watch the volley between Declan and Bennett. I knew how to serve, at least from watching the others do it.

I tossed it up in the air, but I immediately knew it was too high. There was an awkward clunking noise as racquet and ball connected and the ball flew too slowly through the air. I winced as it fell short of the net by a few feet.

"Thirty, fifteen!"

I expected Bennett to cringe, but he just looked at me sympathetically. "Don't worry," he said coolly, snatching up the ball and tossing it to Declan's side. "Jordan was ten times worse the first time he hit a tennis ball."

Declan snorted, tossing the ball to Jordan. "It's true. Jordan hit the ball backwards!"

"If your brain was any slower, it would be going   backwards," Jordan snapped.

"I'm impressed you aren't holding your tennis racquet upside down," Declan shot back.

"Guys," Bennett scolded. "Come on."

Jordan tossed the ball up in the air for a serve, but he swung too early and he completely missed, the ball bouncing back to earth beside him. Jordan's face was redder than a tomato.

Bennett grinned. "Forty, fifteen!"

"Shut up, Bent," Jordan growled, picking up the ball and chucking it at Bennett. Bennett caught it with a flick of the wrist: apparently Bennett had a thing for tennis.

But his thing for tennis was still no match for Declan, who returned his serve so fast that I hardy even saw it pass before it skittered to the floor by his feet.

"Forty, thirty!"

Now it was Declan's serve, and he made the smart choice of aiming the ball straight for me. Me, being me, of course, swung at the ball and missed by a mile.

Embarrassed, I collected the ball, as it was my turn to serve. Jordan and Declan were cheering from the other side of the court.

"Deuce!" Bennett shouted, trying to be heard over the warble of afternoon cicadas. He'd clearly given up "not caring" about the game.

Jordan stopped cheering. "What did you just call me?"

Bennett face-palmed. "No, Jordan, I said the word 'deuce'. It means that we're tied, forty to forty."

Jordan obviously hated being proved wrong. "You're a deuce, Bennett," he shot back.

"That doesn't even make sense," Bennett told him, mystified.

"Ladies, stop fighting," Declan soothed, which earned him two glares: one was acid-green and one was ice-blue.

I was struggling to figure out my stance when Bennett came up to me. "Let me help you," he ordered. I was going to protest, but I didn't really have choice.

Bennett clasped his long, narrow fingers around my racquet hand and I felt a surge of fiery heat flood my body. He gently moved my hand to where it was supposed to go, and I felt my racquet slide into the right place. It felt ten times more comfortable, like I was suddenly doing it right.

I shivered as he let go, and turned to look at him. He and Jordan were having some sort of lip-reading argument that broke off as soon as they noticed I was looking.

What're they arguing about?

I pushed the thought to the back of my head as I tossed the tennis ball up into the air. I felt my racquet swing naturally, easily, and the ball hit it straight in the middle, gliding through the air and well over the net. It caught Declan very off guard, and he ran to combat my serve but it was too late.

I did it! I served!

"We have the advantage!" Bennett exclaimed jubilantly. "One more point and we win!"

I couldn't help but grin at his boyish happiness. It turned out that he really could enjoy something other than cooking.

I could tell that Jordan was dreading it: it was his serve, and we only needed one more point to win the game. If he messed up...

Surprisingly, Jordan managed to hit the ball over the net, but Bennett was ready for him, because Bennett was ready for everything. He hit it back at Jordan, who was still in shock that he'd hit the ball in the first place that he completely didn't notice the tennis ball that flew over his head.

Bennett and I cheered and rejoiced: we won! Before I could say anything, he tackled me in a giant hug, which was surprising, considering that's usually what Jordan did.

But Jordan was too busy being yelled at by Declan, who's mouth couldn't have been fouler if he'd eaten a sewer rat. So I gladly returned Bennett's hug.

"It's nice to care about something as trivial as winning a tennis game," he told me later on, after we'd finished (and won) the set. "I don't have to worry about money, or my father and his business, or the Lost Boys—"

"Bennett." I interrupted him. "Just enjoy the moment."

"It's hard, when you have a multi-million dollar company looming over your head and a family name to uphold."

"Bennett. You aren't your father. Don't worry about the past. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why it's called the present."

He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that meant he didn't quite believe me.

Yet.