Kayla's P.O.V

The first thing that caught my eye when I walked onto the beach that Saturday morning was the crowd. There were way more people than I ever expected. Every team in the league had showed up and tons of random people who happened to be on the beach that day had decided to stick around too.

I started to get nervous, this was a lot of people who would be watching if I messed up. The butterflies in my stomach were starting a riot when I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders.

"Did you bring your can of whoop ass?" Jake whispered in my ear.

I started cracking up. The nerves disappeared.

"Thanks Jake I needed that" I looked up at him and couldn't help but smile.

"It's been you and me all summer and it's you and me today. You've got my back and I've got yours and we are going to go out there and blow this team away" Jake always knew exactly what I needed to hear.

"Let's do this" we started warming up and the stands continued to fill.

I took the down time to check out our competition. They were another team like us with one girl and one guy.

By the looks of it they were probably siblings and they were definitely good. They were the only other undefeated team besides us in the league.

"Alright what's the plan?" I asked Jake.

"Kayla Ryans doesn't have a plan? I'm shocked" Jake mocked me.

"Hardee hardee har you're hilarious" I punched his arm.

"Ouch girl. You're stronger than you look. But in all serious the girl doesn't move backwards well and the guy doesn't move forwards well. We're not going to be able to outswing them strength wise so we're going to have to hit the spots on the court where they won't be ready. Target their weaknesses" Jake suddenly switched into game mode.

"Alright sounds like a plan. The girl has a good float too so we need to watch out for that. Oh and the guy can swing line pretty consistently" I pointed out.

The ref called for the coin toss, we won the serve.

"Alright we've been waiting all summer for this. Let's kick some booty" Jake high fived me before he went back to serve.

I couldn't believe he just said "booty" but there was no time to think about it because we had a game to focus on.

Almost an hour later we were taking a short break before we started the third game. We had won the first game, but they came back and won the second. Both had been really close, but now we were forced to play a third game in eighty five degree weather.

"Okay one more game, we can do this. Twenty one points. One point at a time" I tried to get my breath back as I chugged water out of my water bottle. It wasn't working too well.

"They're killing us on the deep corner shots. We need to be ready for those" Jake and I lined back up. They had won the serve. Jake had a perfect pass, I set him up, and he sealed the deal with a kill that landed right in between the other two players. It was perfect.

We high fived, but the momentum was temporary. The whole game went back and forth. It would be tied then one of us would score, but the other would quickly tie it back up again.

It was all tied up 19-19, the sun hadn't let up, if anything it was hotter than ever. A light breeze had started up, but all that did was blow the sand around and make it harder to play.

The other team called a time out.

"We just have to push two points. We can't let this go over 21 or we're going to be too exhausted. Let's just finish it now" Jake and I were using every second of the one minute time out possible.

"We need to win that stupid prize money. We're so close" I groaned.

"Prize money or no prize money, I wouldn't have wanted to do this with any other partner" Jake wrapped me in a sweaty hug.

"Me neither. Let's go knock 'em dead" I went back to serve. Jake out his hand behind his back and flashed me one finger telling me to serve to zone one. It was a decent float, but they got it up and the girl went up to hit. She tipped it at the last second, but I managed to get there in time and get it up. Jake set me up and I sent a deep roll shot over the girl's head and she didn't get it in time.

I served again and they managed to set it up again. I swear that was the longest rally of my life. No one could seem to put the ball away. They set it up again and the guy went up to hit. I decided to take a risk. He favored swinging line so when Jake went up to block I cheated over to the side to cover the line.

He took the shot and I was right. I passed it up, Jake set me up, and I hit that ball harder than I've ever hit a ball. It bounced off the other guy's shoulder. The girl went to dive for it, but she missed. The ball landed helplessly on the sand.

We won.

Screaming erupted and before I knew it there was a huge medal placed around my neck and all of our friends and family had swarmed the court.

They presented Jake and I with one of those huge checks you see on TV.

We posed for pictures for the newspaper, and of course our moms and friends insisted on taking pictures with us too.

My face was starting to hurt from smiling so much.

We were first out of fifty teams in the league and I still couldn't seem to wrap my head around it.

All of my friends and some of the other teams came up to congratulate us.

I was getting swallowed in the crowd when a felt a hand intertwine with mine. Jake spun me around and wrapped me up in a huge bear hug.

"Oh my gosh I can't believe it. We did it!" adrenaline was pumping through me and I swear I had never felt so excited in my life.

"Gosh that last swing was amazing! You're amazing" Jake put me down and looked me right in the eyes.

All of the noise, chaos, and people around us seemed to fade.

I was a sweaty mess and I still hadn't completely caught my breath, but for some reason Jake didn't seem to mind. I realized how lucky I was to have met him and realized I was more afraid of losing him than I was of admitting how much he meant to me.

"Jake how drunk were you the night after the party? Do you remember our conversation at my house?" I asked hesitantly.

Before I knew what was happening, Jake crashed his lips down on mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back.

When we finally pulled apart he kept his forehead pressed against mine.

"I remember enough to know that you've been waiting to do that again just as much as I have" Jake smiled.

"Why didn't you mention it sooner?" I asked.

"Because I knew you wanted to wait until after the championship game, I knew you needed time, and I didn't want to rush you" Jake intertwined his fingers with mine again.

"Thanks Jake, for everything" I kissed him again.

"Anything for you Kayla Ryans, anything for you" Jake grinned. My face was already hurting from smiling so hard, but I just couldn't stop.

"This is shocking. Little brat actually won. This whole league was rigged" I heard someone snarl from behind me.

I whipped around to see the two idiots from earlier in the season standing in front of us. I didn't understand why they would even show up to the game.

"I'm sorry can you take a step back? You reek of bitterness and jealousy" I spat. My blood was boiling remembering how rude those jerks had been.

"Still a snob I see. You know you didn't deserve to win. Stop acting like you're so much better than everyone else" Idiot number two retorted.

"Look buddy I'm sorry we kicked your asses and I'm sorry you're too immature to get over it, but even if we didn't beat you, you still lost to three other teams so you wouldn't be here anyway. So my advice is to go home, grow up, and get over it" I snapped. I was sick of these guys and their pretentious attitudes. I saw Jake begin to step forward out of the corner of my eye, but I grabbed his arm to hold him back.

"Whatever bitch" Idiot number one stepped toward me.

"Back. Up. Now" Jake stepped forward and they stared each other down.

"Hey man it's not my fault you pick the-" before he could finish his sentence the first punch was thrown.

Who do you think threw the first punch? Any guesses?

I hope this chapter was everything you were hoping it would be. PLEASE comment and let me know what you think!

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