Will Rejection Hold? novel Chapter 7

"Sally do you need any help?" I came up behind her and rested my hand on her shoulder.

"Can you please get the children out of here for a bit? They're just in the way." She pleaded to me as she attempted to clean around the kids.

"Of course!" I smiled at her, before turning around. "All right! Everyone under the age of 13, I want you out front with tennis shoes on, in let's say 3 minutes!" The kids sprung into action. I watched amused, as they bustled this way, then that.

I turned around only to bump into Sally. She wiped her hands on her apron before grabbing mine, "You make a natural leader, dear." I smiled, then went to grab my shoes.

As I walked out the front door I saw about 30 kids all running a muck. "Everyone come sit down please." I stated, I didn't yell, or command.

Everyone came running over, except one little girl. "Sweetie? Do you wanna play the game with us?" I tried to be nice, squatting down to her height.

"My brother and his friends said I can't." She had tiny tears rolling down her face.

"We'll I think they're being kinda mean, don't you?" She nodded, and her cute red pigtails bounced. "Come on and play." She came running over to me smiling. She bounced up on my lap wiping her tears, and I let her stay there.

"Okay guys! How about we play tag, but with teams?" That all shouted "Yes"s and "Yeah"s. "Okay so I need about 15 kids on each team." They all divided up. It ended up girls against boys. But turns out it wasn't an even thirty, we had one too many players on my team.

"Um does anyone know anyone else that wants to play?" I asked.

They all shook their heads "no". I wasn't sure what I was going to do, when Chase came walking around the side of the house. "I'll play!" He shouted running over to the boys, and high-fiving them. I caught his eye and sent him an appreciative smile, which he returned with a wink.

"Okay, on your mark... Get set... Go!" The goal of the game was to never get tagged by the other team, and to get the flag from their side. Only one person had to get the flag, for the whole team to win.

We ran and ran. After about 15 minutes it was down to 5 girls, and 8 boys. Odds were not in my favor. A little girl tried running to the other side, but was tagged. She pouted and walked to the side. The other girls slowly dwindled off in similar fashion, leaving only me against Chase, and 7 thirteen year olds.

"Might as well give up now!" A thirteen year old yelled, running towards our flag. I tagged him before he was even close. I looked over to see Chase whispering to his team.

"You got it Ms. Lexi!!" My girls cheered.

I took a couple running steps towards the flag, but I was tackled to the ground by none other than Chase. I looked up to see him, grinning like an idiot I'm sure. I laughed at him. He was leaned above me, supported by his forearms, looking me straight in the eyes.

"You okay now sweetie?" I kissed her forehead. She nodded, and I saw Chase come up and grab her brothers shoulder. He said something in her brothers ear, then they walked off by the woods. I smiled to myself, he would be such a good dad...

Wait why would I think that. I shook my head, then got up and helped the little ginger up. "What's your name?" I asked her.

"Angelina." She smiled a dimpled smile.

"I love that name!" I turned to the group and spoke to them as a whole. "How about we all take a break, and play again, maybe after dinner?" I asked them all. "Yeah"s were thrown around, so I turned and started to walk into the house when an arm slipped around my waist.

I turned to see a boy, that looked to be about 13. "Umm hello?" I chuckled at me.

"It's okay, I know your incredibly attracted to me right now." He winked at me, I merely chuckled.

"Is that so?" I questioned.