"Sorry, I wouldn't have mentioned the commercial if I knew it bothered you," Nick apologized for what seemed like the hundredth time as he carefully cradled Dumbledore (my hamster, if you've already forgotten. Not the actual Dumbledore, dear God) in his arms.

We'd finished having our dinner together but my mother insisted that the family stay over at our place a little longer. The McConell's seemed to be getting along well with her, they seemed to have a lot in common as well. And my mom had also spent a fair amount of time embarrassing me at the dining table by telling Nick's parents about my soda-boy commercial. Those were the most dreadful twenty minutes of my life. I've never wanted to escape a situation so badly before.

Nick didn't want to spend time with the older generation so I invited him over to my bedroom so we could chat in private. Him and I seemed to share a lot in common as well, surprisingly so. We'd spent the past hour debating on whether water was wet or not before the conversation took a turn and he went back to apologizing to me for having brought the commercial up.

I thought it was quite thoughtful of him to be so apologetic, but after the millionth time of him repeating the word 'sorry', I was just about ready to throw my water bottle at his face. Harsh, I know.

"You can stop apologizing now," I chuckled. "I forgave you the first time."

"I still feel bad," he huffed in response. "Anyway, let me make it up to you."

"You're acting as if you ate my hamster," I said with a raised brow. "It's alright. You don't owe me anything, you didn't know it would offend me anyway."

"Still, I should have known better," he protested. "How about we make a deal?"

"A deal?" I questioned, intrigued.

"I'll buy you lunch for this entire month."

"That's unnecessary, Ethan's already doing that for me," I said with a proud smirk. "And seriously, Nick. Just forget about it. It isn't that big of a deal anyway."

"Alright then the least I can do for you is let you spend time at my table during lunch, right?" he suggested with a hopeful expression on his face. I was about to deny the offer when I realized that I should probably be making friends anyway. It was my last year of high school, I had nothing to lose right? And I could definitely use some time around people other than Peanut-Brain Ethan and Barbara - no offence to the duo, my brain's the size of a single grain of sand.

"You know what? That actually sounds like a good idea," I began. "As long as I wouldn't be bothering you guys."

"Aw, don't worry about it," he reassured me. "You can bring Ivanov and Schneider too if you wanna. The more, the merrier. I'll introduce you to my friends too."

"How come you call them by their surnames?" I snorted.

"It sounds cooler," he stated bluntly with a shrug. "What's your surname anyway? Calling you Kairo is like a tongue-twister. No offence."

"None taken," I chuckled. "Who names their son Kairo anyway?"

"Aw, no it's not like that," he began. "I think your name sounds cool, it's like a dragon from a video game or something- oh hold on, no that's Spyro. My bad."

I stifled a laugh at his helpless rambling, "My surname's Alden."

"Alden," he repeated, testing the name on his tongue. "Still sounds like a tongue-twister to me. Can I call you Kai instead?"

"Sure, that's fine by me," I began before deciding to ask him something that'd probably give me away. "Hey, do you know Alexandria Miller by any chance?"

"Huh? Isn't your squad friends with her?" he questioned, striding over to Dumbledore's cage so he could place him back inside. "I've seen her around class a couple of times. We just exchange a few hi's and bye's here and there - nothing more, nothing less. Why do you ask?"

"I'm just curious," I shrugged. "Hold on- did you say that my squad's friends with her?"

"Yeah, I thought she was close with you guys," he shrugged simply, sitting back onto my bed. "Is she not? I'm sorry, I must've been mistaken then."

"You apologize a lot, don't you?" I said with a small grin. "But what made you think that in the first place?"

"Oh, it was nothing much," he responded. "I've just seen her hanging around with Schneider a lot more often these days."