Felicia got to her room and saw Denise was already there, setting put her suitcases. “Hi,” Felicia said, startling Denise in the process.

“Hi Felicia, did you have a nice nap?”

Felicia nodded. “AJ went to go make his phone calls.”

“Good. Well, I will let you get ready,” Denise said. “The bathroom is right across the hall if you need it”

Felicia started thinking back to AJ wanting to call her his sister. She figured she needed to move on, and her birth mother was her mommy, not her mom. “Thanks…. mom.”

Denise smiled and gave her a hug. “Your welcome. Now get ready, we don’t want the guys to see when your half dressed, do we?”

Felicia giggled. “That would be a bad thing, right?” she asked, playing dumb.

“I see AJ is already rubbing off on you,” Denise laughed. “I will see you in a few,” she said, shutting the door behind her as she left.

Things are starting to come back together.

Felicia was all ready to go into the pool. Luckily, one of the group fieldtrips was to the local pool so Felicia still had her bathing suit. She grabbed a towel Denise put in her room and wrapped it around her waist. She looked at the clock and saw it was 6:40. As long as the guys were coming on time, she had an extra 20 minutes to relax by the pool. The way AJ described the guys, it seemed like once they got there she wouldn’t be resting until they left.

Felicia managed to find her way out to the pool without getting lost and saw AJ was about to go off the diving board at the end of the pool. He didn’t realize she was there until he was in the air.

“Hey-,” he yelled as the water cut him off.

Felicia laughed and put her towel down on a lawn chair. “Judges score, a 5.5. Execution was sloppy,” she joked.

“This coming from the one who made me do that,” he laughed.

“I know,” Felicia said, putting on a big cheesy grin. She leaned back in her chair.

“Come on in, the water is wonderful!” AJ said, spinning around.

“That’s okay, I will wait,” Felicia said, not wanting to get cold just yet.

“Aww….come on, you know you wanna,” AJ said as he splashed her.

Felicia squealed. She took of her glasses. “That’s it. I’m gonna get you Alexander.”

Felicia went to the diving board and just walked off as if she was walking off a plank. She was underwater for a long time.

“Felicia, are you okay?” AJ asked, starting to worry.

Little did he know that Felicia managed to get behind him. She quietly came out from the water and dunked him. When AJ came up, he had a shocked look on his face.

“Well…I didn’t know you had that in ya,” he said and then got an evil look on his face and started to come closer.

“Uh oh…” Felicia said and started to swim away. This time, AJ was the fast one and started to tickle her. “Ah! Stop it!” she exclaimed, giggling the whole time.

“Say mercy.”

“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!” Felicia exclaimed as he let go. She was trying to catch her breath from all the laughing.

AJ looked at his watch. The guys should be here soon. “I’m gonna get out to meet the guys. I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay, I think I will hang out here some more,” Felicia said, starting to swim around some more.

“Cool, just don’t like, drown or anything. That could be bad,” AJ said.

“I’ll try not to.”

The rest of the guys figured that it would be easier to carpool. Partly to save gas, but also because they didn’t want the others to find out about AJ’s surprise before themselves. They pulled up to his house and got out. Before they could even get up to the walkway, AJ opened the door.

“Hey guys!”

“Man, did you go in the pool already?” Nick asked, seeing AJ’s still wet hair.

“Heh…sorry man, it was just too tempting.”

“Sure man, whatever you say,” Nick said, still slightly mad.

“Anyways…. what’s your surprise for us?” Brian asked.

“You’ll see. This way fella’s,” AJ said, playing tour guide again.

They made it to the patio, and the first to notice anything was Nick.

“Who’s the girl?” he asked, noticing she looked really young. “Don’t you think she’s too young for you?”

“Your nasty Carter. Felicia! Come on over here,” AJ said, motioning for her to come over.

Felicia got out of the pool, grabbed her towel and glasses, and came over.

“Guys, the reason why my mom and I left was because my mom wanted to adopt. We went up to Ohio. This is Felicia, my sister….well, legally speaking, my foster sister.”

“Wow…”Nick said, staring at her as she came over.

“That’s awesome J,” Howie said.

Felicia put on her glasses, and suddenly the four blurry blobs she saw before turned into four guys. Sadly, that’s all she knew; she completely forgot who was who. She whispered over to AJ and he chuckled.

“That’s okay,” AJ said. “That’s Kevin, Howie, Brian, and Nick,” he said, pointing at each one.

“Huh?” Nick asked, hearing his name being called.

“Earth to Frack, come in Frack,” Brian laughed.

Everyone laughed except for Nick, who just crossed his arms.

“How old are you?” Kevin asked Felicia.

Felicia was slightly intimidated. He was the tallest one in the group. Felicia never considered herself tall or short, but he looked like a giant.”12,” she said softly, needing to tilt her head up to see him.

“Yay! Now I’m not the youngest of the bunch anymore!” Nick exclaimed, not thinking straight.

Everyone laughed, and Brian elbowed Nick.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“Your big mouth,” Brian said matter-of-factly.

“Come on guys, lets go swimming before the pizza comes. It should be here around 7:45,” AJ said as he put his towel back down. “We can play water basketball.”

“YES!” yelled Brian and Nick. Just like that, they stripped down to their swimsuits and jumped in the pool, causing a huge splash that soaked the others.

“You guys are dead,” Kevin claimed, now soaking wet.

AJ laughed. “If you want, I can put those in the dryer.”

“That might be a good idea,” Howie said as he and Kevin stripped as well.

Felicia decided not to look and went into the pool, remembering to take her glasses off. Brian was the first to come up to her in the pool.

“So where are you from?”

“Solon, OH….its between Cleveland and Akron.”

“That’s cool. Are you a sports fan?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“If the teams are horrible or not,” she joked.

Brian laughed. “That’s a good reason.”

By that time, AJ had come back and set up the little basketball hoop at the end of the pool.

“I say, let Nick and Brian be captains so they are on different teams,” Kevin said.

“Okay, well, since I’m older, I get first pick,” Brian said, and before Nick could object, Brian dunked him. “I pick Kevin.”

Nick came back up. “Not cool man, not cool.” Felicia giggled. She could tell those two were probably best friends. “Okay, I pick…AJ”

“And I will take…. Felicia.”

“Aww…why am I always last?” asked Howie.

Everyone laughed at that.

The game had been going on for about 15 minutes, and Brian’s team was ‘winning’. No one really knew the score, but Brian kept bragging about it. He passed the ball to Felicia who was in the corner. She was about to swim so she could make the shot, but Nick got in the way.

“Uh uh, not getting past me,” Nick claimed, blocking her as if his life depended on it.

Felicia giggled. Nick was taller than her as well, and he started causing all these waves. Felicia was too short for the end of the pool she was in, and went under water. With all the commotion, she started going around in circles and didn’t know which way was up. Suddenly, someone pulled her above water and she started coughing.

“Are you okay?” AJ asked, very worried.

Felicia nodded, still coughing. She looked over at Nick and saw he looked worried as well. “I’m fine.”

“You just sit over here, okay?”

Felicia nodded and sat on the edge of the pool, still trying to catch her breath.

Nick came over to sit next to her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“That’s okay. It happened to me before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, well sort of. Once at a kiddy pool, I was really little and my mom didn’t see me go in. The other time I was at camp, and my counselor pushed me in, thinking I could swim really well. That was before I took swim lessons.”

“I’m glad your okay.”

“Thanks,” Felicia said softly, and watched as the rest of the guys were still playing. She kept glancing over at Nick through the corner of her eye. She liked this guy already.

hey lenni...now this chapter is winning :). i would do another chapter, but its late, and i need to be rested for work tomorrow. luckily i start at 4 lol. and this has nothing to do with it, but i think i figured out how to work you into the story :).