When Summer Ends by Katy Wormald (the speed reading book txt) 📕

so of being stood behind Marissa but with neither of them noticing me. Declan shot up to his feet to greet me, and Marissa put her sunglasses on the top of her head.

"Hey, I come about 10 minutes ago, my phone died so I couldn't ring to see when we was meeting up, don't mind do you?" Declan said, looking kind of worried that he had imposed, his smile came back though when I reassured him that he hadn't.

"I made pancakes, I thought you woud still be sleeping, you know, with the hangover?" I said questioning Marissa. You could definatley not tell that she had been so wasted last night, no bags under eyes, no illness, nothing. She looked the same fabulous self she always did.

"Its only you that sleeps in this late hun! And besides, hangovers are for old people, were still young! Marissa said doing some sort of strange dance with her arms while still sitting down.

"Yeah, me and Declan are young...I'm not quite sure about you!" I said laughing, and the two of them joined in with me. Marissa pushed me on my arm for insulting her, but at least she was laughing about it.

"Well, I'll go get plates then, we'll all eat out here!" Marissa practically shouted, jumping up from her seat and running inside. Wow, she really was like a teenagers still!

Me and Declan stood next to the empty seats for a few seconds, before he kindly broke the ice.

"She's not doing too bad to say she drank so much last night is she." He laughed.

"Oh, I know...So, what we doing today then?" I asked, wondering what he normally did. To be honest I was happy to do anything that didn't involve spending all day inside.

"Well, I though maybe we could go paint balling, then if you want for some diner or something? I don't know its up to you really..." He answered looking nervous again. He was so sweet! My heart was racing again and them sodding butterflies had returned. I didn't want to ask if it was a date or not, although I secretly hoped it was.

"Yeah thats cool, I love paintball!" I said enthusicasticaly, when the truth was I had never been and was pretty scared that it might hurt when I got hit.

"Cool, well, shall we set off after you've had your breakfast? Even though its practically the afternoon now?" He said laughing, we had both became more comfortable around each other now, and was sat next to each other chatting away about the day ahead of us when Marissa returned with breakfast.

She handed each of us a plate full of blueberry pancakes and a knife and fork, and put the syrup on the table in front of us. We all chatted lightly as we ate, but the pancakes were so good that I hardly joined in with the conversation. I ate all of my breakfast ina round two minutes, leaving a dumbfounded Declan and Marissa staring at me with a mix of amusement and confusion.

"What? Everyone know I make the best pancakes!" I said rubbing my full belly and leaning back in my chair to bask in my pancake glory.

"I never knew that..."

"No, me neither..."

They both said totally ruin my smug moment. I huffed and jumped up, taking all the empty plates into the kitchen, laughing as I did so. I totally do make the best pancakes, there a bunch of liars if they disagree!

I was loading the dish washer when I felt a pair of hand wrap around my wait. I stood up slowly, scared because I didn't know what the hell was going on. Although my heart was pounding and I could smell from the incredible Cologne that it was Declan. I stood up fully and could feel the warmth of his body from behind me.

"So, is this a date then?" He asked whispering into my ear, sending shivers down my spine.

I spun around quickly, with a playful smile on my face. It obviously wasn't the reaction he was looking for as he looked shocked for a moment, but returned to his flirtatious mood when he was me smiling.

"Depends on how good it is, Dec." I said walking past him and giggling like a crazy woman. I put the syrup back into the fridge with the blueberry's.

"Well, I'll try my best! And if you call me Dec im gunna call you Jode. Your aunty Marissa told me you don't like it." He had laughing.

The atmosphere had lightened up again now, and was less serious because, although I do like him, I was more interested on having fun and getting to know him, then rushing into a relationship with him. I'd only ever had a few boyfriends, and only kissed one of them. It was nothing too serious, at the time we thought we were madly in love. Now looking back on it we were way too young to even know what love was, and when we split up neither of us cared much.

"I won't call you Dec then...Dec." I said laughing my head off. Man, I bet I seemed seriously wierd to this guy! I'm surprised he hadn't run out screaming by how me and Marissa were acting.

Just as I was thinking about her, Marissa walked into the kitchen and asked where I'd put those headache tablets. I told her and then made a few jokes about her not being as young as she thinks.

Me and Declan both said goodbye to her, and I slipped on a Jacket and we walked outside to get into his car. He opened the passenger side and bowed and I climbed in. I sat there laughing my head off as he got in the drivers seat. I could tell that today was going to be really funny!

Dec ( wich is now my new name for him, despite any repercussions!) turned the radio station on and turned the music down slightly, so that we could talk but also hear the music.

"So, what course are you doing in college?" I asked him, trying to get to know him a little better.

"I'm doing architectural design, my first year." He looked at me smiling, If I had one million guesses at what he was studying I would have never guessed that!

"Oh wow, that must be pretty cool. Do you have to be ble to draw and stuff for that?" I asked interested.

"Yead, its all pretty simple the tings were doing though, only just getting started, and I did art in school so I'm pretty good."

"Oh that's good, I cant draw anything! I think I'm gunna start a business course when I finish school. My dad owns a restaurant, and a few other small businesses, so I think it will come in useful."

"Wow, guess your pretty loaded then huh?" He asked nudging my arm playfully.

"We do okay, I guess." I answered not wanting to sound snobby. Truth was we did very well, we had a beautiful home, a holiday villa, two cars and still a huge amount in the bank.

We fell into a comfortable silence, I looked out of the window, watching us drive pat the beach, beautiful buildings and lots of greenery. I would look at him occasionally, and he would look at me too. We'd smile at each other and go back to enjoying the car ride. Even though I told him I didn't know if it was a date or not, I think we both knew it was. And I knew that it would be a pretty good one.

We pulled up outside what looked like an old farm, only with a huge board outside that read 'Paintball!!!' I didn't think it was a very imaginative sign, but it was down to the point I guessed. We headed inside and Dec payed for us both. We were given a paint gun, protective clothing and a huge box of refills. We could see a group of about twelve kids putting their gear on too. We were told by the manager that we could play in teams, so we all got talking and formed teams, luckily Dec didn't suggest that we split onto different teams. I tied my hair up and got my gun in position as I ran behind a huge stack of hay with my team mates.
Chapter Five

Chapter Five


We hid in silence behind a 7 foot pile of hay, waiting for one of the boys on our team to give us the signal to strike. By strike I met run out and shoot the other team, with I was kinda scared about. I really didn't want to get shot and loose the game straight away, the other guys on my team seemed excited about coming up against our opponents even thought I was dreading it. I hoped I wouldn't seem like a wimp in front of Declan so I pretended to thrilled at the idea of getting painfully hit with small balls.

The pain ball site itself was nothing special, although I had never been to one before so I wouldn't really know. All along the floor was that fake, plastic grass, covered with pieces of hay and sand. There were a large wooden shed with paintings of trees and tractors on, and numerous hay piles scattered around.

One of the teammates nodded to another, who turned around and repeated it to the others untilDeclan turned to me and did the same. I looked confused and mouthed 'What?' to him, but he wasconcentrating on lifting a small kid above the stack so he could see over it.

He dropped the child onto the floor again and snook around the side of the hay pile to peek out. "NOW!" shouted Declan and everyone dispered onto the filed in front of us. I stood slightley to the left of the hay, unsure of what to do- I couldn't see any of our 'enemies' so didn't really get what we were doing.

Declan saw me and must have realised that I was confused as to what we were doing, he ran over to me and grabbed my hand, pulling me across the field and behind a fake tractor.

"There over there." He said pointing north. "If we wait a few minutes then they should come to attack. Just point your gun like this, and press that." He said angling my gunna upwards and showing me which trigger to use. I mimicked him by standing with one foot in front of the other and looking down into the eye piece of the gun. We stood still for a few more seconds until we saw movement.

Suddenly I was really getting into it, I tapped Dec on the shoulder and pointed to