if you're the bird, i'm the worm

[DJ Trighton]

She'd spent so much time inside lately that DJ was pretty sure she was going insane. People needed to be outside. Vitamin D and such. So she'd taken her computer and headed for the park. Maybe it wasn't the smartest thing ever to run around alone with a killer on the loose, but she really didn't like bringing other people along when she had work to do. She felt bad for ignoring whoever she brought alone with her, and if she was trying to entertain them, she'd never get any work done.

She pulled on the first thing she found in her closet and headed out the door, computer in hand. It took her all of about ten minutes to get to the park, and DJ headed straight for her favorite bench. It was nestled under an oak tree that was now bare of leaves. DJ set her computer down on her lap and opened the file she'd been working on.

Fifteen minutes later, DJ had only gotten a paragraph written. Her greenish brown eyes were scanning the park for something that might pull her out of her rut. Luckily, she wasn't the only person who had decided to come to the park today. Her eyes fixated on a boy a few yards away. Biting her lower lip, she fought the blush building in her cheeks. She'd always been horrible at talking to people, so she was just going to have to wait for him to notice her.

[/size]

[Colt Reynolds]

Colt was in his room, working on beating the campaign of the latest Call of Duty video game. Uncle Steve got it as a birthday present for him a few days ago, and all he did was play online. His friends told him the storyline was amazing, so he gave it a shot. They were right. The mission he was playing had his team storming a Russian gulag to bust out Prisoner #627. At the end of the mission, he was surprised to find out Prisoner #627 was Captain Price, who Colt thought died at the end of the previous game.

Well, that was all the Call of Duty he could handle for the day. He turned off the system and almost immediately after, he got a call from Jimmy telling him to come over to the park for some football. It wasn't that cold outside, so he figured the dark blue collared shirt and jeans he had on were fine. He told Uncle Steve and Aunt Michelle where he was going and set off on foot, since the house wasn't very far from the park.

When he got there, he could see Jimmy and Dan already throwing the ball around. "About time," said Jimmy as he threw the ball to Colt. He jumped up, caught it, and threw it to Dan. Dan threw it to Jimmy, and so on. Looking back, he could see a girl sitting on a bench nearby. Was she looking at him? He didn't spend too much time looking at her, as a yell of "Heads up!" brought him back to the game. Jimmy overthrew the ball and Colt chased after it. Since he was looking up, he couldn't see the bench coming up. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground, clutching his stomach. He could hear cries of "Ooh!" and laughter coming from his friends' direction. "Ow," was all Colt could manage to say. He didn't want to get up.

[DJ Trighton]

The last thing she'd really expected was to be caught looking at him. Her eyes abruptly refocused on the computer and she pretended she hadn't just been checking the boy out. Every so often, though, she'd peek up over her computer screen to see what was going on. It looked like she'd distracted him from his game just long enough to cause a problem. Rather than catching the ball neatly as he'd done before, he ended up chasing it, and DJ tried hard to keep her attention on the computer screen. She typed a few words that actually had nothing to do with what she was writing and then looked up just in time to see the boy crash into the bench she was sitting on.

Her eyes went wide and she pushed the computer off of her lap and onto the bench beside her before rushing to kneel beside him. Yeah, she'd never met the guy, but she did sort of worry about people even if she didn't know them. It was part of her personality. [color-pink]"Oh my god... Are you okay? I'm sorry! I should have said something or something so you would have noticed the bench before... Just... Are you okay?"

[/color] Maybe she was being redundant, but she wasn't exactly good with social situations. She'd been an author all of her life, and she didn't exactly get out often enough to understand how she was supposed to behave in a social situation. Maybe she'd get lucky and she wouldn't make a complete fool of herself.[/size][/blockquote]

[Colt Reynolds]

Colt's eyes were closed, one arm was still over his stomach, and the other arm was lying on the ground. Part of him wanted to stay on the ground until nighttime, when everyone was gone. The other part wanted to get up and punch Jimmy and Dan right in their faces for not checking if he was alright. He wasn't even sure what the two were doing right now, but he knew they weren't checking on him. They probably left the park. If not, they got the football and kept playing without him.

A female voice was asking if he was alright, apologizing for not saying anything. He opened his eyes to see a beautiful girl, a few years older than him, kneeling next to him. He was almost certain it was the girl who had been on the bench, but he didn't get a very good look at her the first time he saw her. "I didn't think crashing into a bench could kill you," he mumbled weakly, a grin starting to form on his face. Was he really about to bust out that old line? It was sad, really. But he made a commitment, and it was too late to take back what he just said.

[DJ Trighton]

DJ leveled a glare at the boy's friends, who had moved on with their game, hardly interested in what was going on. Weren't friends supposed to care about each other?? She huffed and raked a hand through the boy's blonde locks, hardly registering the fact that she didn't know him and probably shouldn't have been touching him. According to her father, most serial killers were male, and that made every guy she came into contact with a suspect. Danni hadn't ever been one to act like most other girls, though. She didn't catch on all that quickly to social norms, and she never went into a situation expecting to get hurt.

His comment brought a soft smile to her face, though she had too little experience with guys to recognize it as flirting. She simply let out a little chime of a laugh and ruffled up his hair. "How hard did you hit your head?" she teased, smiling softly and reaching up to fluff her own hair. He was cute, and she really couldn't resist the way his eyes were looking at her. It made her want to smile. Just thinking about it brought a blush to her cheeks.

It took her another second to realize that she probably shouldn't be all that excited about this. A guilty feeling began gnawing away at her stomach. Technically speaking, she was single, but she had a feeling anything she did with this boy wouldn't make James all that happy.