Chapter Sixteen

I choose not to tell the others about what happened with Christian. Instead, I lie that his mom called and needed him to watch his sister. If they don’t believe me, they keep that to themselves.

It’s been several days since then, and there have been no further developments, whether with him or my mom. I have made attempts to talk to her, but it seems that she’s purposely avoiding me. Every time I enter the same room as her, she gets up and leaves.

To avoid the crippling depression of being at home, I decide to message Ace and see if he’s free today to take me driving. I’m not in the mood to drive to be honest, but with Ari at Justin’s, he is my next choice for human interaction. He responds saying that he finishes work late tonight, but he’d be happy to pick me up after if I feel like hanging out.

I accept his offer, and occupy myself by watching movies to pass the time. Ace comes to get me around 9 o’clock. When we get to his house, we pass Don and Addison in the kitchen. She’s on the counter with him between her legs as she stares lovingly into his eyes. Deciding not to interrupt their disgustingly cute moment, I skip the greetings and follow Ace up the stairs to his room.

Collapsing onto his bed, I watch as he switches his work shirt to a clean one, and pulls off his sweatpants, revealing a pair of shorts. After this, he grabs his game controller and turns on the TV before joining me on the bed.

“Adonis is moving out,” he says, fumbling the joystick to select the Netflix application.

“With Addison?” I ask, an image of the couple still fresh in my mind.

He shakes his head. “Nah, but they’ve been getting pretty serious and he’s 24 now, so I think he just wants his own space.”

“That’s true. The only reason I’m still home is because I get to spend half of the year at school,” I admit. “When is he leaving?”

“He found an apartment last week so he’ll be gone by the first of next month,” Ace answers, settling on a comedy movie.

In a couple of days, there will be one less Scott in the house. The thought of it almost makes me sad. “Can I have his room?”

“Of course not,” he laughs, “that would mean seeing your face every day.”

I try to push him off of the bed, but that boy is like a boulder. Ace starts dying with laughter at my lame attempt and I say, “Just the other day you were saying that you want to spend more time with me, now look at how you’re treating me.”

“I was joking, My,” he assures. “Mom and dad would love that, but after a week of you and Ariel together, they’d be glad that they stopped at five.”

The thought of living here makes me smile, but I know that I would miss my dad. He’s the type to swear he’s okay with me moving here as long as it makes me happy. We settle into silence as the movie plays, until I feel a pair of eyes on me. I turn towards Ace and flash a smile.

He responds with a small grin. “Tell me about your program.”

To his random curiosity, I begin explaining the field of forensic psychology and criminology. By the end, I’m ranting about how flawed the legal system is, especially for marginalized communities. I finish with, “To call it a ‘Justice System’ is completely wrong. They don’t care about justice, they care about themselves.”

I need to catch my breath after rambling for several minutes. When I finally meet Ace’s eyes, he has a dreamy look. “I love how passionate you are about this.”

Looking away from the intensity of his gaze, I say, “Well, yeah. It’s fucked up.”

Rather than replying, he pulls me into a hug. As he pulls away, I’m reminded of that night at the lake, as well as Christian’s words the night that I slept over.

He stops when he’s far back enough that he can see my face. In the darkness of his room it’s hard to fully examine his face, but I can tell without a doubt what’s going through his mind.

We’re frozen in time as we listen to the sounds of each other’s breathing. My heartbeat pounds in my ears and I can’t believe that this moment is happening. Ignoring my thoughts for once, I find myself leaning in. Milliseconds feel like minutes as our lips finally meet.

As a little girl, I would fantasize about this moment often. None of that could compare to what I’m experiencing now. His lips are unimaginably soft, as if they could never hurt me even if they tried. Our mouths move together as he begins to pull me closer. With one hand around my waist and the other cupping my face, I nearly explode at the sensory overload. The scent that has become so familiar to me that I barely register it in the rest of the house fills my nose and I can’t help but breathe it in deeper.

At last, our lips depart but neither of us move further than that. He lets out a sigh, “You can’t imagine how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“Isn’t this incest?” I joke, a habit of mine when I feel nervous.

He lets me go and I shuffle back to my side of the bed. “Way to ruin the moment.”

Nevertheless, we laugh and he opens his arms. I crawl over and lay my head on his chest. His heart is still beating rapidly, but I know that mine is an exact mirror. “I-”

“We don’t need to have that talk right now,” he interrupts as if reading my thoughts. “We’ll save it for another day.”

I hum in response, agreeing that that would be best. In the back of my mind, I already know that I’m going to break his heart and I’d rather save that for a time very far away from now. Snuggling a bit deeper into his side, I enjoy the rest of the movie with one of my closest friends.

*

“You did what!?” screams Ariel from the other line. I watch her surprised face on my screen and my face heats up.

Ace dropped me home after the movie, and I texted his sister to call me as soon as she got home. This is the current situation and I lay on my stomach, ready to bury my face in my pillows.

“Are you mad?” I ask in a small voice.

“Why would I be mad?” she asks incredulously. “I’ve been waiting for this day my entire life. Just wait until I tell our mom about this.”

A bit of weight lifts from my shoulders but instantly replaces itself by the end of her sentence. “Ari, don’t tell your mom yet. I don’t know what is going to happen with us yet.”

“Maya, I want you to be completely honest with me,” she turns serious. “Are you just doing this because of whatever happened between you and Christian?”

My jaw drops, not at her audacity to assume such a thing, but because I never considered that. After a moment, I respond, “I don’t think so. You know that I used to have the biggest crush on Ace, but I chose my friendship with you and my relationship with your family over that.”

“At the end of the day, you’re my best friend, but he’s still my brother. I need to look out for both of you,” she sighs.

I nod, completely understanding what she means. He’s her blood. To turn the conversation to a lighter note I say, “I’ve been looking for places that offer hot air balloon rides.”

Ariel instantly perks up. “Any luck?”

“Hold on, let me send it to you,” I say, before texting her a screenshot and a link to a website.

“They have a Canada Day special! We should go then,” she suggests.

I check the calendar to see that Canada falls on Saturday. “Time isn’t real, how is it July already?”

“It’s like summer barely even started, but at the same time it’s almost over,” she agrees. “Thinking about it, it’s crazy how in high school they only gave us two months between school years, but now, we get off in April.”

“Everything about high school was stupid,” I add.

“I’m going to put the guys in the call so we can talk about Saturday,”

I wait while their names pop up on the screen, Adrian being the first to connect with a huff. “There’s literally only a wall separating our rooms, Ariel. Why are you calling me?”

Ariel sticks her tongue out at her twin while I say, “I’m taking Adonis’ room when he leaves, then we’ll all be together!”

Adrian’s eyes widen in horror. Before he can object to my plans, the faces of the others appear one by one.

“Heyo,” greets Eli.

“Miss me already?” Justin asks Ariel.

She rolls her eyes, but I know that she wants to say yes. All of this love in the air lately makes me sick. Instead, she ignores his comment and says, “What are you guys doing on the first?”

Justin shrugs, while Eli says, “Probably partying,” and Adrian agrees with him.

“I want to book a hot air balloon ride,” I inform them before sending a link to the website. “The place is about an hour away, but if we go early, we can still come back and party in the nighttime.”

They all agree and I tell them that I’ll book the place when we end the call. We all begin to say our goodbyes, but just before I hang up, Adrian asks, “So, Maya, which one are you inviting?”

I raise my brow in confusion.

“Christian or Ace?”

My finger hits the red button at the bottom of my screen, but not before I glare at the smirking face of Adrian. He sends the group chat a bunch of laughing emojis to which I respond with:

Neither, and now you're not invited too.

______

A/N:

Whooops loool

Next chapter will be the hot air balloon ride and the chapter after that, we'll figure out what's been going on with Christian. Good luck to anyone writing midterms right now! I have a six page paper due tommorw but ofc I'm writing this instead because priorities x

I wanted to enter this in the 2020 Wattys but I didn't end up finishing on time, we'll see how 2021 goes.