(17) What Comes After

"Is Elle's new boyfriend coming? My goodness, I can hardly keep up with the lot of them." Louise says. I can just picture her warm smile on her face.

"His name is Adrien, and he is." I twist a strand of hair in between my fingers, "I'm sure your disappointed, now Box- I mean, Mason, just lost his shot with one of the only girls that can actually tolerate him for longer than ten minutes." I smirk, glancing in Mason's direction.

He flips me off and I respond with an eye roll.

"Hey Lexa." He pokes my leg.

I swat his hand, "What do you want?"  I cover the phone and whisper yell at him.

"It only takes me ten minutes." He winks. Jared bursts out laughing from his spot at the wheel.

Currently the three of us are on the way home from B-dubs, where we spent our final homecoming. You only live once, right?

I think a better motto would be yodo, because ultimately, you only die once, so better make the most of it before that happens.

Harsh? Nah.

As you can probably see, I talk to Louise quite frequently. Since I started watching Elodie a lot more, we've become friends, of sort.

She's a very sweet lady, I'm still not sure how she produced that thing over there people call Mason.

At least Elodie isn't turning out like him. I mentally knock on wood.

Just in case.

"Well, I've got to get going but it was nice talking to you again honey."

I smile, "You too Louise."

"Don't be a stranger dear, and take care of my baby." She hangs up the phone and I chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Mason pokes my leg.

I swat his hand away, "Nothing concerning you."

"Everything concerns me."

"Asshole."

"Alexis Anderson, foul language will not be tolerated in my car." Jared points a finger at me.

I roll my eyes, "Fuck you."

"When and where?" Jared winks.

Can he not.

-

"Finally." I sigh, seeing Elle walk into the large entrance to the resort.

Mason, Jared, and I have been sitting here for at least two and a half hours, because apparently you can only get into your booked room if you're with the person who booked it.

Parker's been a no show. I wish I knew where he went, if I could just talk to him. If I could just explain that it's not what it looks like. I miss him.

Funny how we forget the little things in life that can make us happy. Parker is one of those things.

"There was traffic." Elle laughs and links her fingers with Adrien's, "Guys, meet Adrien."

Mason rolls his eyes.

"That's Mason." Elle points, "He's the friendly face of the group, obviously." She adds with an eye roll. "That's his counterpart and my best friend, Lexa. And that's Lexa's date, Jared."

Jared and I simultaneously groan.

Elle looks at me weirdly, "Problem?"

"No." I fake smile, "It's nice to meet you Adrien. Don't hurt Elle, or Mason and I might accidentally castrate you."

"Ouch." Adrien cringes, "That'd be pretty painful."

"Did I ask?" Mason raises an eyebrow.

Jared slaps him, "Be nice, man."

Mason slaps him a little harder and responds in the same tone, "Spend more time on arms, man. That was fricking weak."

Twenty minutes later the rooms are available, bags carried to the hallway, and cards handed out.

"We got three rooms." Elle explains, "Adrien and I, Jared and Lexa, and Mason and Parker. But it looks like Parker's going to be a no show."

My eyes widen. I have to share with Jared? Obviously he's one of my best friends and neither of us feel that way about each other but he's still a guy and I'd be a lot more comfortable staying with Elle.

"Great." Mason takes his key and unlocks his door.

Jared walks to the room across from Mason's and unlocks it, "Sorry about this." He says softly once the door is safely closed, "I know Elle and Adrien are going to be getting it on and they put us in here so we could do the same..but you're one of my best friends and neither of us feel that way."

I chuckle, "You got that right."

"We could be friends..with benefits?" He raises an eyebrow.

I look at his face for signs of him playing me. Nothing.

I raise an eyebrow back.

He breaks out into a laugh and shoves me onto one of the beds before plopping onto his own, "I'm kidding loser. I need to find another one of Elle's friends and fricking date her." He mutters.

"Someone's petty." I chuckle.

"You didn't hear that." He smirks.

"I don't know." I stretch out the word, "I have pretty good ears."

"And I have pretty good tactics as well."

"Like?"

"Mason?" Jared yells, "Lexa says she wants to-"

I'm over to his bed in a second and I slap my hand over his mouth, "Shut your mouth, asshole."

"Make me."

I roll my eyes and start unpacking my bags into the dresser.

The same pattern continues for the next fifteen minutes. I unpack and tidy up everything in the room, while Jared finds as many obnoxious ways to annoy me as he can.

Typical.

-

"Where's Mase?" Elle asks, pulling herself out of the pool.

Currently it's eleven at night, and we're the only occupants in the pool.

Jared, Elle, Adrien, and I that is.

His royal highness claimed to not have owned a bathing suit and refused to come down.

"Sitting in his room like he loner he is." Jared laughs.

Adrien bites his lip, "Someone should go check on him."

"I vote Lexa." Elle yells, "I am not getting out of the hot tub."

"You're not even in the hot tub." I point out.

She grabs Adrien's hand and pulls him along with her into it, "Now I am."

I scowl at her.

"That expression is going to get permanently stuck on your face if you keep that up." Jared tells me.

"At least I don't look like you, having that permanently stuck on my face, now, that, would be absolutely petrifying."

"Reminder, we're roomies tonight." Jared raises an eyebrow. Frick.

"Fine, I'm going. Happy?" I put on an overly smiley face, yikes, this is unlike me. Hopefully my face doesn't get stuck like this.

I need the self defense of having a severe resting bitch face in my life, to scare away the optimists.

Fortunately, Elle must be immune to those powers.

I send them all one more glare before exiting the pool area and walking to the elevator.

Of course, they send me to awake the freaking beast.

Although, I'm beginning to think we're some sort of friends. I guess I don't know when it comes to him, but I've noticed his rude comment decreasing.

Here's the part where the main character declares her love for the badboy and he realizes he's changed for her and they live happily ever after. Unfortunately for me, that will not be happening anytime soon.

"Mason?" I rap on the door, "Can you please come out?"

"I'm straight." He responds, "So, no."

I can literally see him rolling his eyes right now.

"You know I didn't mean that. C'mon, it's kind of fun."

"I'm busy."

I sigh, "I'm going to change. I'll be back in five minutes."

I cross the hallway, enter my room and dig around in the dresser for clothes.

Leggings, check. Loose sweater, check.

Where the hell are my underwear?

I spend another good five minutes looking. There's no way I forgot to pack them.

I lay my head in my hands and think.

If I remember right, I shoved them into the outside pocket of my suitcase.

Quickly, I cross the room and slide the zipper to access the outside pocket. All I feel is a bag.

I grab it.

Found these from our shopping trip. Noticed you never even took the tags off. Thank me later. -E

Great. Thank you Elle, for leaving me with the not exactly skimpy lingerie, but not exactly what I want to wear in a hotel surrounded by guys.

Sighing, I tear open the bag and grab the black set I remember liking at the store.

They weren't too bad, the bottoms were a lowlying black thong, the top, also black, but a push up, with lace around the straps.

Why some girls wear this for fun is beyond me.

I quickly slip them on, and pull on the leggings and sweater over.

I look at my appearance in the mirror. No one will ever know. It's okay, I'm okay.

With a slightly trembling breath, I open the door and cross the hall again, "Mase, open up."

Surprisingly, he cracks the door open slightly and I can see his eyes look me up and down. My cheeks flush, and I push past him and into his room, "What's happening? Why won't you come down to the pool?"

"I told Elle, as I'm telling you, I do not own a swimming suit, and I am not wearing boxers in front of preppy boy, who's most likely gay."

"Preppy boy?"

"Adrien."

"He's not preppy, he's really nice."

"Yeah, that's what she said."

Now it's my turn to roll my eyes.

"Can you please just act like you're having fun, for Elle? She feels awful, knowing you're just sitting up here all alone."

"Elle feels awful?" He raises an eyebrow at me.

"Okay, I do too." I bite my lip.

"Well then, you're in luck, because I am not sitting here alone anymore."

I look away, "If only Parker was here."

"Why, you feel bad?"

Nodding, I reply, "He likes me, I think. And I don't know what I'm feeling. He's an amazing guy and I would've went with him tonight but I couldn't let J get rejected that hard. He really likes Elle and now Elle thinks I have a thing with Jared, hence why we're roomies for the weekend."

"Ah, I see how this is. You want my opinion?" He pauses briefly, before continuing, "I think Parker needs to get his head out of his ass. He doesn't own you. I'm sure other guys have liked you and I'm sure other guys will fall for you." He breathes in, "And you're not his. He can't control you like that and he has no right to be angry at you when you did nothing wrong."

"Wow. I didn't peg you to be the relationship advice giving type of guy." I blush, my cheeks probably a furious red right now.

"You're blushing." He smirks.

I wish my life was a movie, then I'd have an actual thought out comeback for these kinds of situations.

Unfortunately, it's not. And I'm left with the reaction of simply turning into a tomato.

He pokes my side, "You're cute when you blush."

"Shut up." I mumble, throwing my arm out in an attempt to slap him.

He lazily blocks my attack and grabs my wrist with one hand, pinning it down to my side.

He leans over with his other hand and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.

My breathing slows down, and my blush instantly disappears, at this simple feeling of deja vu.

He smirks, his ocean colored orbs locked on mine, the color of what gets dumped into the ocean illegally.

With a shaking hand, I reach out and trace the hard bones of his jawline.

The moment is surreal like an ocean wave, the exact color of his eyes, lapping at the muddy brown of the ocean shore.

The waves creep up and up, farther and farther into the sand, pulling back sediments of sand and tiny seashells in with them.

It's like he was the ocean, and I was the mud.

And after a quick glance at my lips,

he pulls me in.

AUTHORS NOTE

thanks for 72k reads and #59 in teen fiction. that's really amazing for me, especially since this is my first book on here.

QUESTION

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