Promises (Jack Gilinsky)

Chapter 4

"Jack's in love! Jack's in love!" Carter chants as I come down into Nash's basement. Everyone's laughing but Johnson. At least he understands.

I honestly don't get why they don't listen to me. It seems like, when it comes to situations like these, everything I say goes right over their heads. No matter how hard I try to explain, the guys never listen to me. It's like everything I say just goes right over their heads.

I continue to get remarks like this from everybody until we go outside to play basketball. As I'm walking out to Nash's driveway, Johnson comes up next to me. "Dude, something happened with Charlotte, and I wanna know what it is."

"How do you know?"

"I'm your best friend, I know everything. Besides, I live a couple houses away from Charlotte, remember? I saw you two walking home."

I hesitate before speaking. "Well, I finally got her to open up to me."

"Really? What did she say?"

"All I'm gonna tell you is that now I know why she didn't wanna tell us. Her life wasn't exactly easy in Maryland."

"Oh," he says kind of disappointed. "Did anything else happen?"

"Well, she made it clear that she doesn't want a boyfriend, so I think that the guys should stop teasing me about when it's obvious that neither of us like the other that way."

"Yo, Gilinsky, Johnson," Nash calls from the driveway. "Are we gonna play or what?"

"I don't know, Nash," Aaron joins in, "Seems like they're to busy talking about Gilinsky's new girlfriend." This immediately makes Taylor start going "oooohh" and the others soon join in. Johnson stares at me, waiting for me to say something.

"She's not my girlfriend, alright?" I raise my voice, obviously annoyed. "She made it clear that she doesn't want a boyfriend. And besides, I told you guys that I wasn't going to fall for her, and nothing has changed."

The boys just stare at me, a little surprised. I'm not usually one to lose my temper, so they weren't expecting that. "Sorry dude," Cam says. "We just kinda thought that you were gonna ask her out and you just didn't wanna tell us."

"Well, I didn't and I don't plan to any time soon." I say, calmed down. "So, let's play."

We play for about an hour, then go back into the basement to watch a movie. We decide on "The Conjuring". As the movie starts, Nash's little brother, Hayes, comes down to sit next to me. A few minutes in he starts talking to me.
"So Jack, I hear your having girl problems for once in your life."

"What? No I'm not." I say defensively. Hayes is like a little brother to me. That also means that he's always trying to get involved in my business.

"Dude, yes you are. I know all about Charlotte and I wanna help."

"You're a freshman and you wanna help a me with my girl problems. In case you haven't noticed, juniors are a lot different than freshmen."

"Yes but we both know that I know more about girls than any of these morons." He says gesturing to the rest of the guys. It's true though. The longest any of our relationships ever lasted was four months, and that was just because the girl's brother told Cam that he would kick his ass if he dumped her.

"Well, your assistance is not needed, Hayes. I am not interested in this girl and she is not interested in me. So, whatever Nash told you is probably not true."

Hayes raises his eyebrows at me. "Dude, I saw you walking with her earlier. By the way that you looked at eachother, it was kinda obvious that you have a thing for her."

"I do not have a thing for her!" I say a little louder than I intended. Everybody turns to look at us.

"Ok, whatever you say." Hayes says as he gets up to leave.

I try and watch the rest of the movie without thinking about her, but I can't. Does everybody really think that we like eachother? The last thing that I need is rumors about us dating. Can't I just be friends with the new girl without things like this happening? I guess not. But one thing is for sure.

People need to mind their own damn business.