It was about five; school was out for at least a couple hours now and the halls were ours. Not many people were still at the school, but if they were, they were in a classroom. So, that gave us all the freedom we wanted in that hallway and we took advantage of that for sure. Cole, Kendal, and I went to one end of the hallway set our boards on the ground, and looked down the hall, and around at the hall to our left, and to our right. We saw the coast was clear so Cole and I planted our left foot forward on the board, Kendal her right because she skates goofy. We all kicked off and started shredding that hallway! We flew down that hallway fast, looking into the classrooms as we passed by them on our boards, Cole making faces at the people he saw in the classrooms. We’re almost all the way down the hall so I look straight ahead and all of the sudden I see our school principal Mr. Jones standing at the end of the hall wearing his black suit with his red tie, and face about as red as his tie which might I add was slightly sitting wrong on his neck .
“Kendal, Cole, look who’s at the end of the hall” I said with a grin on my face.
“Ugh seriously?” Said Kendal.
“Ha! Awesome!” Said Cole laughing as we continued to skate down the hallway.
Just because Mr. Jones was at the end of the hall it wasn’t stopping us. Finally, our boards stop at the end of the hallway, my board stops about three feet away from Mr. Jones and everyone else’s about five feet. Of course, I was the one who got stuck talking to him.
“Hey Mr. Jones!” I said grinning from ear to ear.
“What do you and your friends think you’re doing skateboarding in these hallways!?” Mr. Jones said looking like I had just killed somebody.
“We’re skateboarding, duh.” Said Cole sarcastically behind me.
“All of you, my office, NOW.” Said Mr. Jones, he started walking down the hall to the office.
We all picked up our boards and followed behind; I waited for Kendal and Cole to be at my sides before I started walking.
As soon as we got into the office we saw one of our best guy friends Austin Ricky sitting in a chair across from the secretary with what looked like red paint on his the ends on his fingers and his skateboard busted sitting by his feet. I’ve secretly always kind of had a thing for Austin, I mean the blonde skater hair and those green eyes draw me in. I’ve never even told Kendal I like Austin, that’s how big of a secret it is. I looked at Austin said “What’d you do this time trouble maker” and smiled at him.
He laughed, smiled, and held his hands up revealing the red paint on his hands. I smiled at him as did Kendal and Cole; we continued to walk into Mr. Jones’ office. After about fifteen minutes of Mr. Jones telling us that what we did was wrong, it was against school rules, two hours of detention, Cole making smart ass remarks, the usual, we walked out of the office carrying our boards smiling. ”Alright Mr. Ricky lets go.” Mr. Jones said from his office, I winked at Austin as he grabbed his board and started to walk into the office. Kendal and Cole following behind me as we left the office.
We got outside of the school and just starting skating around the front of the school because Cole and Kendal had to be home at six and me, ten. Cole perfecting his kick flips and grinding on rails.. Occasionally you could hear Cole’s board hit the ground with a snapping noise followed by a few choice words. Kendal just rode around the front of the building and was texting. Then I was there working on my pop-shuvit’s and kick flips with Cole part of the time and alone the other part. Eventually after about what felt like an hour but was really only about twenty minutes later Austin walked out of the front doors, did that little hair flip he always does, and walks towards me. “Hey troublemaker” he said to me.
“You’re one to talk.” I said and laughed at Austin.
“So, what are you guys doing tonight?” Austin said to me, Kendal, and Cole.
“Well I have to be home at six tonight so I’m actually gonna head home now.” Said Cole.
“Same here.” Said Kendal.
“What about you Sage?” Austin said looking directly at me with his bright green eyes that when the sun hit them right, damn.
“Ten.” I said distracted by his eyes.
“Awesome, well as you can see I busted my board so... Sage wanna go with me to get a new one?” He asked.
“Yeah sure.” I said smiling at him.
Austin and I said bye to Kendal and Cole and started heading down to the board walk.
“So, I have to ask, how did you bust your board?” I asked Austin as we started walking to the boardwalk.
“Well” he said “I was spray painting the side of the school, because I got bored. And then I looked around to see if anyone had seen me painting like I did every so often, and this time someone was watching me, Ms. Miles, the geometry teacher. So as soon as I saw her she said “Austin Ricky! What are you doing?” As soon as I saw her I bailed and got on my board and rode down to the alley by the school to hide there for about ten minutes until everything was cooled down and she couldn’t see me but on my way down to the alley I saw a curb so I jumped it and tried kick flipping over it just because, and busted my board”
I looked at Austin and said “Dang that blows I’m sorry, well at least I know why you were in the office now.”
“Yeah pretty much” He said to me.
“Wait... Why were you and the other guys in the office?”
I started laughing and said “Oh, that, well we were just skating in the halls and then Mr. Jones caught us.”
“That’s awesome!” He said with a big smile on his face that revealed his perfectly straight, white teeth.
“How much trouble did you get in for it?”
“Just a lecture and a couple hours of detention each.” I said.
“Not bad at all.” He said smiling at me with those perfect teeth showing.
“How much trouble did you get in for spray painting the building?” I asked. “Not as much as I thought, got a talking to and then three hours of detention.” He said with a smirk on his face.

We got to the board walk and decided we were going to Bill’s Skate Shop. Bill’s is where he got his last board and I got mine. I love going to Bill’s so much, it’s my all-time favorite shop on the board walk. You walk in and the second you walk in the whole place opens up, in front on the left, skater clothes everywhere. In the front on the right, skating shoes and accessories like that. And in the back, a place where you can create your own custom board with longboards and regular skateboards on the walks and in racks next to the counter which is also a glass case. In that glass case is a bunch on different wheels. Long board wheels, regular wheels, bearing grease and tools. Jonny is behind the counter today, he was the one who helped me with my first board; he’s my favorite Mexican in this town. I’ve known him since I was about ten years old. “Hey you guys, what’s up?!” He said as he saw Austin and me walking towards the counter.
Austin held up his board about chest high so that Jonny could see the problem. “Damn boy you really busted that board let’s get you a new one!”
“’Ight” Austin said.
“And you brought my favorite girl with you huh?” Jonny said smiling at me.
“How could I ever leave this pretty girl behind?” He said to Jonny and did their little handshake. As soon as Austin said that my stomach was filled with butterflies and my cheeks turned bright red. The guys laughed and Jonny pulled out four different decks so that Austin could pick one. The first one had green, yellow, and red stripes on it. The second was purple and a yellow tie—dye looking appearance on it. I loved that one. The others were green and blue, not the most eye catching to me.
“I like the second one!” I said to Austin and Jonny.
“Me too, I think I’ll go with this one Jonny.” Jonny put the other decks behind him and Austin picked up his board and analyzed it.
Jonny got out the black grip tape and handed it to Austin with a tool to cut the excess tape. Austin put the grip tape on and I cut the excess tape off. “Clean cut there little lady” Jonny said. Austin laughed and winked at me.
“Thanks!” I said to Jonny and glanced over at Austin who had watching me cut the excess grip tape off of the deck with his eyes that the light of the shop made absolutely perfect.
I pushed the excess grip tape aside and Jonny started talking to Austin about different trucks for his board. I watched as Austin picked up one set of trucks that were lime green in color. His hands are strong, but as he was holding the trucks in his hand debating on if he wanted them or not gentle. Then Austin picked up a set of black trucks and red trucks. None of the trucks had writing on them, just the plain color. After a couple minutes of Jonny and Austin talking about the different trucks and what they’d help with on his board Austin picked the black trucks. Austin put the trucks on his board and then asked me what I thought so far, “I like it.” I said.
Then it came to the wheels, there was more wheels in that skate shop than I had ever seen in my life, red wheels, green wheels, purple wheels, and even wheels with designs on them. Austin didn’t have a hard time choosing his wheels though. He picked a purple set of wheels. Austin loves purple. Half of his clothes are even purple. Not that girly light lavender purple, but the darker shade. The purple wheels went pretty well with his yellow and purple deck. His whole board was pretty rad if you ask me. “Alright my man your board is finished.”
“Mind if I test her out quick?” Austin asked Jonny.
“Nah man it’s all good, go for it.” Austin set his board on the ground, stepped on it and kind of hoped on it to see how sturdy it was.
After that he started to skate around the shop a little bit avoiding hitting the shoes and clothing racks. As soon as Austin took off Jonny said to me “You like Austin don’t you Sage?” I looked at Jonny and started to blush a little bit.
“Yeah you do, your cheeks are turning red.” I started to laugh and Jonny. I confessed “Yeah, I do.” Jonny smiled.
“Do something about it. He likes you too.”
“How do you know??” I said to Jonny and apparently I said it a little loud because a couple of the other customers looked at me. “My bad.” I said to the other customers.
“Austin never stops talking about you when you aren’t around. He’s got a big thing for you.”
As soon as Jonny stopped talking Austin came back over by us stepped off of his board and said “She rides like a beauty!” Austin said.
Austin asked me to hold his board as he paid for it with Jonny at the checkout counter towards the front of the store.
The second we got out of the shop Austin set his board down, said “Let’s go Sage” and, winked at me. I set my board with pink trucks and black wheels down and hoped on. We rode down towards a food stand that Austin and I always go to when we’re together. “You hungry?” he asked me.
“Lil bit.” I said.
We got to the stand and we could already smell the deep fried food smell lingering in the air. Austin ordered us food and we sat down at a table near us.
“So it’s about seven thirty so that leaves us with what, about three hours left. What do you wanna do?”
The sun was just starting to set over the water as we sat there eating. “How about the water?”
“Sure why not!” Austin said.
We took about five more minutes to finish our food. As I was finishing and we were talking I felt something rub against my leg but I didn’t say anything, I just let it be and tried to pick up on what it was. It was Austin’s leg. I smiled and just kept focusing on Austin talking about when he got his first board as a kid. When we got done eating we walked to the end of the boardwalk where it meets the sidewalk and went from there to the sand. The sand was still warm and the air still a nice temperature. I had on a long sleeve shirt and jeans so I think I’ll stay warm for a little bit longer here. Austin was also wearing a long sleeve shirt and jeans but he has a hoodie too. We got out to the water, took our shoes, and socks off and rolled our jeans up to about our knees. We walked into the water slowly leaving our boards and his hoodie by the shore next to our shoes and socks. The water was warm and refreshing; it kind of contradicted the air being a bit cold. Austin leaned down to put his hands in the water and all of the sudden he splashed my shirt with water. I screamed in surprise and did the same to him. He put up the sleeves on his shirt, stuck his arms all the way in the water and then ran towards me to give me a hug. I ran from him in the water kicking up water at my legs as I ran. Eventually I got tired and he knew it, he smiled, and said “Aw is someone getting tired?”


“Little bit” I said running out of breath.
I backed up slowly and eventually stopped; I fixed my hair and prepared for his wet hug because I knew there was no stopping it. He came up to me and wrapped his arms around me. I jumped a little bit in fear the water was going to be cold. But it wasn’t, he didn’t wrap his arms around me like any other old hug, Austin wrapped his arms around me tight. I wrapped mine around him too and squeezed tight. I leaned in nestling my nose into his neck. He was so warm and he smelt amazing. He smelt like that cologne that every girl loves to smell on a guy. I could tell his hands were strong by the way he held those trucks and now, the way he held me. He put his head into my neck and we stood close together. We stood there for about twenty more seconds and as soon as we both pulled away, he put on my cheek, holding my face in his strong slightly damp but warm hand. His other hand was on my waist holding my side. He looked at me and smiled. I smiled back at him and looked right into his eyes. He leaned in, and kissed my lips gently. His lips were warm against mine. Sparks flew.