I looked around at my teammates as we stretched. We have a game tomorrow night and so far, we're undefeated. With each game, there's more and more pressure to keep our streak.

"Where's coach?" Hannah asked me as we finished our stretches.

"I have no idea," I sighed as I looked around.

We had already set up the volleyball nets and got all the equipment out, if coach isn't going to show up then I guess running practice is going to fall on the team captain, me.

"Guys, let's play clocks to start and maybe coach will be here by the time we're done."

The girls all got in a circle and I tossed a volleyball to each of them. Clocks is a game where we start with someone on the outside circle who sets the ball to the girl in the center, who then passes it back to the girl who set it to her. The girl in the center then rotates until she's passed a ball back to each of the girls in the outside circle. I jumped into the center of the circle and made my way around until I completed the rotation. By the time we were done playing Clocks, coach still hadn't shown up.

"Let's go ahead and do some serving. We'll go one at a time until each of us serves in-play five times," I explained.

We lined up and took turns serving. It was weird running practice, but I refuse to let my team down.

I turned my attention to the gym doors as I heard them open. Maybe coach is finally here. I watched as four guys walked into the gym and walked over to the bleachers to sit down.

"Hannah, who's that with your brother?" I asked as we moved up in line.

"His friends Chris, Jake, and Jimmy. He asked if he could come watch practice, but I didn't think they'd come with him," Hannah explained, "plus he's driving me home."

Hannah Hallow is my best friend; she has been for years. We've been on the same team since the sixth grade and now we're seniors. When we finished the drill, I didn't know what else to do for practice. The second I had to step up, I completely forgot every drill we've ever run.

"Y'all want to have a race?" I asked.

The girls agreed excitedly, and I looked around the gym to come up with a relay race in my head.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do. We'll break into two teams, and you race one at a time, once each member of your team has completed the race you win. First, you run across the gym to the ropes and climb to the top. When you get back on the floor, you'll run up to the net. A ball will be thrown to the edge of the gym. You have to run back to the edge of the court to save the ball and get it back in play, if you don't make the ball back over the net, you do it again. After the ball gets back to the starting side of the net, you dive under the net. You'll drop down into defense position and try to make it back to the starting line without getting your knees touched. You'll tag in the next teammate and that's it," I explained.

Our team has an odd number of players, so the teams can't be even.

"Okay, I'll demonstrate, then we'll have even teams of eight. Hannah," I smirked, tossing her the ball that was in my hands.

I waited until Hannah told me to go and I sprinted to the other end of the gym and jumped to grab onto one of the climbing ropes. When I grabbed it, I climbed all the way to top and smacked the bell before I jumped back down to the ground, feeling a sting in both of my legs. I ignored the sting and sprinted back to the net. Hannah tossed it, and I shuffled back for a few steps before I turned and hit the ball backwards over the net. When I watched the ball land back by Hannah, I sprinted back to the net and dove under it. I dropped down into defense position and Hannah did her best to touch my knees as I shuffled around her and got back to the startling line.

"Alright, y'all ready?" I asked, earning a bunch of nods from the team, "okay, odd jersey numbers versus evens."

The girls split up and got ready to start. When they were ready, I released the first pair of girls to start the relay and watched them start to climb the rope.

"Cap," Hannah called, "I'll go a second turn to race you. Loser buys pizza next sleepover."

"You're on," I laughed.

I watched as each of the girls took their turns in the relay until our last girl was running. I waited to be tagged in and sprinted across the gym. Hannah had begun her second turn before I started mine, but I made up all of the time with climbing the rope. I let go of the rope after I smacked the bell and let myself fall all the way back to the ground. If anyone ever didn't think I had a death wish before, they definitely do now. Mia threw the ball to the back of the court and I hit it back over the net. Hannah was just diving under the net as I crossed the starting line, meaning my team won.

"No!" Hannah yelled, falling to the floor in frustration, "I swear you cheated."

"Sore loser," I laughed as I held my hand out to Hannah to help her up, "you gotta be quicker than that Hallow."

"I want a rematch," Hannah insisted.

"Okay, then we make it more interesting," I laughed, "loser buys pizza next sleepover and the winner gets to post whatever they want of the loser on their Instagram story."

"You are so on," Hannah laughed.

Haylie told us when to start and we took off sprinting. Once again, I climbed the rope to the top, getting there way faster than Hannah had. I finished the rest of the relay and Hannah had caught up to me, so I dove over the starting line to get there first.

"I hate you," Hannah laughed.

"Suck it Hallow," I laughed.

The girls all took a break to get some water, but I grabbed my phone off of the bleachers to quickly post a video of Hannah on my Instagram story. When I made that bet, I already had a video in mind. A few weeks ago, we were hanging out and Hannah laughed so hard that lemonade came out of her nose, and I had a video of it.

"Let's scrimmage. We're a solid team so let's break up into two teams and have a practice game," I suggested as the girls looked at me.

We split apart into teams of 9. Hannah and I are always on the same team, we always have been. Hannah helped me put the extra volleyballs away before we got ready to start the scrimmage.

"First team to fifteen wins, winners assign the punishment," I smiled as I held the volleyball between my fingers, "who's birthday is closest?"

Ashley raised her hand, "Mine. It's next week."

Actually, it's mine. My birthday is in two days, but I don't celebrate my birthday.

"Alright, it's our serve then," I smiled over at Ashley from where she stood in front of me, "and happy early birthday."

I took a second to stretch my arms before I tossed the ball in the air and served it overhand. I watched as my serve went straight over the net and fell right in front of Amelia as she dove to dig under my serve.

"Ace! Hoorah!" My team cheered as we jumped in the center of our side of the court.

The ball was thrown back to me, and I stretched the same way I did before I served every time. When the ball went over the net this time, it was hit back in three and the volley continued.

We continued scrimmaging until we were tied at fourteen to fourteen. I watched as Hannah served a perfect shot, it was passed back over the net to us. Hannah passed the ball up to Meredith.

"Outside," I called.

Meredith set the ball and I followed through with an outside hit, spiking the ball directly into the center of the court.

"Kill, Kill, Kill! Lock it up!" We cheered as the ball bounced off the court.

My team huddled together, and we decided that the punishment would be to run fifteen suicides.

"The punishment is fifteen suicides, but," I started as I looked at each member of the team, "we are a team, so we are all running them together."

The winning team from the scrimmage groaned but we all ran the suicides together. When we were done running I excused the girls to take a break. While they were all sitting down and taking a few minutes to catch their breath, I kept working. I was doing an individual passing drill against the wall.

"Cap, take a break," Hannah laughed as she grabbed the volleyball before I could hit it back against the wall again.

"I can take a break when I'm dead," I laughed as we walked over to where the girls were sitting on the gym floor.

"What time is it?" I asked as I took a drink from my water bottle.

"Five," Meredith answered as she glanced at her phone.

"I think we can end early today. I have no idea where coach is, or why he didn't show up. But I know us as a team, and we're locked in. We've got tomorrow's game in the bag, Forest Area doesn't stand a chance. It's a home court game, we have this. This team is the team, so let's go home and get some sleep, and get ready for tomorrow," I spoke to everyone.

"Jaguars on three," Hannah smiled at me as she stood up and put her hand forward.

The whole team stood up and put their hands in. We cheered Jaguars together after the countdown and the girls left to head to the locker room. I started cleaning up the gym by placing all of the volleyballs into a rack. I brought the rack over to the equipment closet and grabbed the cart that the net pieces are stored on.

I'm pretty short, the top of the poles that hold the net are over a foot taller than I am, so it's always a process for me to set up and take down the nets. I jumped and smacked the dial that locks the net in place so it would loosen and begin to fall. I jumped again to pull the pin that attaches the net to the pole and went to get the other side.

"Let me help you," Chandler laughed as he jogged up to me. He easily reached the top of the pole and unhooked the net.

"Thank you," I smiled.

"You could've just asked for help, you know."

"That requires acknowledging that I need help," I laughed.

I unhooked the bottom of the net from both poles and left the net laying on the ground. I carefully lifted the first pole out of its place in the gym floor and carried it over to the cart. These poles easily weigh sixty pounds, but I've been setting up these nets for seven years, so this is nothing to me. Once both poles were on the cart, I replaced the caps that cover the holes in the floor that house the poles. I jogged over to the far wall of the gym and held down a switch on the wall that lowered a mesh cage. It's the cage that gets used for batting practice during baseball and softball season, but we hang the volleyball nets on the side of it. Our gym is big enough to be turned into four separate volleyball courts during tournaments, but for practice we only set up the main court that we use for games.

Once the net was secured on the cage, I raised it back up and rolled the cart into the equipment closet.

"Cap! Want a ride home?" Hannah called from where she stood in front of Chandler.

"I'm okay, I'm walking," I called back as I walked over to her.

"We can drive you home," Hannah laughed, "there's plenty of room."

"Nah, I like walking. Besides you'd have to go in the opposite direction to take me home."

"Shut up Marx," Chandler laughed, "let us drive you home."

"Now I'm really not going to let you," I laughed back, "you should know me well enough by now to know how much of a pain in the ass I am."

"You're a major pain in the ass," Hannah and Chandler laughed at the same time.

"Exactly, so I will see you tomorrow Han. Don't forget your uniform," I smiled as I began to walk away.

I was walking towards the side of the gym where my water bottle was sitting, so I could go to the locker room and change. With my water bottle and phone in my hand, I made my way over to the locker room. My stuff was all that remained, since everyone else was already gone. I changed out of my spandex and t-shirt, and put on my dark blue skinny jeans and simple white v-neck crop top. I tied my red flannel around my waist and put on my black vans before I pulled my duffle bag onto my shoulder and walked back out of the locker room. Hannah was leaning against the wall across from the locker room waiting for me.

"Seriously?" I asked with a laugh.

"He won't let me get in the car until you're with me," Hannah laughed.

I groaned and we walked to my locker together. I grabbed my homework and my backpack, and we walked out to Chandler's car together.

"You're annoying," I glared at Chandler playfully.

"So are you, get in the car," Chandler teased.

Hannah and I both climbed into the backseat and Chandler began driving in the direction of my house. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent a text to Hannah. Yes, we were sitting next to each other, but the last thing I want to do is have Chandler and his friends overhear our conversation.

Me: Why have I never seen any of these guys? I'm at your house all the time.

Hannah: They don't hang out at my place that often, and when they do they just play video games. They're usually at Jimmy's or the warehouse.

Me: The warehouse? What kind of weird sex thing is that?

Hannah: Dude. Don't be gross. They film YouTube videos at the warehouse.

"Marx!" Chandler called from the front seat.

"What? Sorry," I blushed slightly.

"I asked if your mom is going to be at home," Chandler glanced at me through the review mirror.

"Physically or consciously?" I asked.

"Physically," Chandler clarified

"I don't know, she wasn't there when I left this morning," I answered simply.

"Good," I heard Chandler mumble under his breath.

I rolled my eyes slightly and looked out the window.

I didn't live far from the school, so it wasn't long until we got to my house. Chandler parked his car in my driveway and I sighed to myself, making sure no one could hear me. I got out of the car and leaned through Chandler's open window.

"Thank you Chandler, but I could've walked," I smiled.

"Shut up," Chandler laughed.

"Are you coming to the game?"

"We'll see," Chandler smirked, "you're welcome for the ride, Marx."

I walked away from the car but turned back when Hannah called at me through the window, "later hottie!"

I shook my head at what she said and started to look for my keys in my bag, but I couldn't find them. I most likely left them in my locker. Just perfect. I knew Chandler isn't going to leave until I get inside, which leaves me with no choice. I threw my bags up onto the roof outside of my window and used the windows to help me climb up onto the roof. My bedroom is upstairs, and I never lock my window. I carefully pushed my window up and climbed inside. I didn't close my window but walked downstairs to the front door. I unlocked the front door and leaned in the doorway as I watched Chandler leave.

I got started on my homework after I returned to my room. It had only been a few minutes since they left, but Hannah was already texting me.

Hannah: Jimmy won't shut up about you

Hannah: He doesn't think I can hear him talking about you, but he hasn't stopped

Me: Which one is Jimmy?

Hannah: He was sitting in the front seat on the drive home.

Hannah: Oh, are we dressing up tomorrow or wearing our track suits?

Me: Dressing up.

Me: He was the cute one...

Hannah: You think he's cute?! Get some Cap!

Me: Never gonna happen.