18

❦𝓡𝓸𝓼𝓮❦

From: Blake

What are you doing?

Blake and I have been texting more after the run in with his mom last week.

Not surprisingly, she hasn't bothered any of us since. I really don't think she will after the only outcome she got was her getting banned from the arena.

To: Blake

Nothing much, I'm at the park. You?

The weather today is spectacular, the sun is shining brightly, but it's not overwhelmingly hot. I couldn't score any jobs today so I've been hanging out at the park all morning.

It has the typical playground, but also a pond with flowers and ducks waddling around. It's a great place to be as long as you watch where you step and keep an eye on your food, if you bring any.

I've lost many sandwiches to the ducks while I was lost in thought and sat at a picnic table around the pond.

From: Blake

Want to come over? The boys will be here later with lunch.

The amount of food they buy me still makes me somewhat uncomfortable. I offer to chip in every time, but I'm usually scolded when I say anything of the sort. Once money isn't so tight I plan on buying all of them dinner.

To: Blake

Sure. Should I come over now or after lunch?

I feel like Blake and I have grown closer, I've noticed that he always stands the closest to me and I catch him staring at me sometimes.

I'm just not sure what that means, I'm not experienced in having friends. I'm not sure if it's normal how protective he seems to be with me, or if he's interested in me as more than a friend.

It's a lot for me to have a friend again, I can't begin to imagine what I would do if something more was added to it. I need time to adjust, I've been mostly alone my whole life.

From: Blake

Now is good. What do you want for lunch? I think they're going to that sandwich shop again.

I'm still getting used to it, them caring about me is just so strange.

To: Blake

It's ok, I don't need anything:)

I still have a few bags of chips and some nuts left from the bag Jean gave me at the beginning of last week.

From: Blake

Stop that. If you aren't hungry just take it home, but tell me what you want. We've told you countless times, that when we eat you get food too.

It's true, everytime they get food, they get me something too. Even if we just ate and whatever they ordered didn't fill them up so they order again, I have to pick something else or they will do it for me.

One time Ace went in for seconds at a restaurant that sold all kinds of food. I wouldn't tell him what I wanted because I didn't want them spending more money on me, he came out with a whole pizza for me! The thing was huge! I ate on it for days because the guys said that it was mine and wouldn't touch it.

To: Blake

Fine, just get me whatever you're getting. I can't remember the menu, but I trust your taste.

I'm really not a picky eater and most things that Blake orders look delectable.

From: Blake

Done. Are you almost here?

I look down at my feet still planted in front of the pond, I haven't even attempted to move towards my car. Oops.

To: Blake

No.

Short and sweet. I force my feet away from the pond and towards Jack. I wonder what they have planned for today, it always seems to be something different when I meet up with them.

From: Blake

TF? Why not?

He worried a little too much sometimes, although I can't really blame him with all the stuff that's happened in the short amount of time we've known each other. And it's kind of nice, makes my heart flutter a little when he worries about me in situations that no one ever has.

To: Blake

Don't worry, on my way now.

He doesn't text me back, he knows that when I'm driving I refuse to use my phone anyway. Not only is it dangerous, but also illegal and getting pulled over would lead to a ticket, and then my name would be documented somewhere, and that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

Twenty minutes later I'm pulling into the visitor parking at Blake's apartment. I guess they have security that does rounds around the parking lot, so Blake had to give my license plate number to the office so my car doesn't get towed.

I lock Jack and walk up the stairs to his door, they have an elevator but I'm just not fond of getting stuck in it with a creepy dude or something. I just know it would happen to me.

Blake opens the door after the second knock. "Hey Rose. Come on in." He steps back so I can pass through then shuts the door behind me.

"Do you want something to drink?" He asks sweetly as I take my shoes off and step further into his house.

"I'm good. Thanks." He gives me a look and once we get to the kitchen he slides a glass of water across the island for me anyway.

I whisper a thank you and take a seat at the end of the island. The other guys must not be here yet, it's way too quiet for them to be anywhere nearby.

"Oh I got you this." He slides me a bag. I opened it up to find an ocean blue phone case. "I know the screen is already cracked, but I figured that this would keep it safer when you scale roofs and cliffs and shit like that. That way if you fucking hurt yourself you can call for help." He says grumpily. His nose twitches a little in worry whenever he thinks about me getting hurt. It's pretty cute.

"Blake.." I start to decline the gift, he's already given me so much.

"Shut up, I don't want to hear it." He walks into the living room before I can argue with him. Cop-out.

Knowing that he won't take it back I go ahead and place it on the phone. How did he know I love this color?

Blake and I sat around talking about random stuff for an hour before the boys showed up with the food. Freaking Blake pulled one over on me and decided to order a crap load of food for himself, and since I said to get me what he was getting, I also have a large stack of food in front of me.

"And another large fry for you." Ace grins as he sets another item on my side of the table. I may or may not have been glaring at the boys for the last five minutes as they sorted the food.

I currently have two large sandwiches, two large fries, five chocolate chip cookies, a bowl of soup, a salad and a cup of pink lemonade the size of my head.

Ace crumples up the last bag that is now empty and tosses it in the trash. My shoulders sag in relief, if he put one more thing on my side of the table I was going to pass out.

"Is that enough for you, Rose?" Blake snickers before he takes a massive bite out of his first sandwich.

I shoot daggers at him, he knows I will barely be able to finish one sandwich on its own.

"Funny." I feel my eye twitch in annoyance.

With all the food they have been buying me when I hang out with them, my normal eating routine has gone to crap. I used to not eat much and my stomach would be not fully content all the time, it was something I could push to the back of my brain and not think about.

But now I stuff myself to seem normal when I'm with them, and the next few days are horrible as my body acts like it's starving when I go back to eating food from Jean.

It drives me nuts, but I don't know what else to do.

Blake only smiles at my comment and continues eating his food, I bet he'll eat all of it and eat dinner later. I want to be mad at him, but I can't. He doesn't know what's going on in my life, and simply thinks that they are doing the polite thing by getting me food.

But I was fine before, and all these inconsistent food amounts day by day leaves me with hunger pains and headaches. It makes it hard to work and focus on anything, I even find myself hyper aware of smells as I drive by restaurants, making me all the more hungry as I ration the food Jean gives me.

I get tempted to buy food, I even did once. But I need to save money, especially because the people who broke into Jack stole all I had saved.

I need emergency money for when he breaks down, or I can't get jobs, what if I got sick and my insurance bill came up? I don't have enough saved right now to be able to cover the payment if I'm down for a while.

So food isn't something I should be spending money on, especially when I was doing fine before.

"What's the plan for today?" Isaiah speaks up as he munches on some of my fries, I slid them over to him when I saw he didn't order any. The other boys shrug their shoulders and continue shoving food in their mouths.

"We could go to the movies." He suggested, only to be shot down immediately. After a few more ideas are shot down he sighs.

"We could hang out at my pool, it's nice outside today. My mom complains that no one uses it." He grumbles, "The last time it was used was when Rose fell in." He added, I laughed and almost inhaled some pink lemonade I was trying to swallow.

"Speaking of, did you say the munchkins could go swimming there? You got Lilly all excited." I say.

I stopped by their house the other day and she brought it up again.

"Yeah, you should see if they can come! My mom won't be home till later today, but it would make her week to have little kids running around our backyard again." He says ecstatic.

The other boys haven't objected to the idea so I guess they don't mind. "I could text Bob and see if it would be ok?" Then I could give the kids some of this massive pile of food in front of me.

"If that's ok with you guys?" I add, directing the question to Blake and Ace. They both shake their heads yes, so I send Bob a quick text. I pick up the first sandwich and take another bite, I've managed to eat half of it and I'm already full. Blake on the other hand, is on his second, and has finished his fries.

My phone dings.

From: Bob

Yeah, they would love that. I'm not home so they would need a ride. Lilly knows where the spare key is to lock up.

"He said it's ok. I have to pick them up though." I place my phone back on the table.

"Perfect. Finish your food so we can go, Cupcake." Isaiah smiles at me trying to get under my skin. I laugh ironically at him as I silently plot how I'm going to get him back one of these days.

⇿♡⇿♡⇿♡⇿♡⇿

"Are you guys hungry?" I ask as I strap Cole into his carseat.

"Yeah, we didn't eat lunch yet." Lilly speaks up. They were both surprised and excited when I knocked on their door.

Then almost exploded when I told them to get their swimsuit if they wanted to go swimming at Isaiah's.

I hand Lilly the bag of food I had leftover from lunch.

"Eat up then." I smile at them as little hands dig through the bag and come out with cookies instead of the sandwich.

I jump in the front seat and back out of the driveway.

"Are all your friends going to be there?" Lilly asks, excited. I guess Ace promised to throw her in the pool after Isaiah said they didn't have a slide, and she was all for it.

"Yeah, they should all be there already." They went straight to Isaiah's house when I went to pick up the kids, that way they could get the pool ready.

"Yay!" Lilly yells, Cole mimics her, but his mouth is full of cookie so you can't really tell what he said.

The kids are out of the car and running around to the back as soon as I park.

"No!" I hear Cole yell. I can't see what happened, I'm still getting out of the car, but when I hear him yell I'm running to the back as fast as my legs will carry me.

I dart around the corner, terrified that he hurt himself. I almost smash into Isaiah who is laughing hysterically at little Cole running after Ace.

"Mine!" Cole yells angrily, his face turning red.

Ace stole Cole's cookie and is pretending to eat it as he runs around the grass area. I push my hand to my chest trying to stop my heart from beating out of it.

"Holy cow. That scared me." I whisper. I'm too old for this.

"Lighten up, Cupcake." Isaiah laughs and pats me on the back, nearly knocking me over.

"Give him it back!" Lilly yells, her fist closed and in the air as she tries to land a punch on Ace.

"Ace!" I snap. The kids are about to go from cute little angry people to crying balls of sadness in a few seconds if he doesn't stop messing with them. He instantly stops, Cole running into his leg when he does.

"What?" He asks, looking a little panicked at the voice I used.

"Give him the cookie. You're going to make him cry." I stomp over to them and kneel down in front of Cole, he runs to my arms and buries himself into my neck. He's still only three and can get overwhelmed easily, especially when it comes to food.

"Shoot, sorry little guy. Here." Ace said gently as he held out the cookie to Cole. He took it, in a flash his mood was back to happy and he was running around with his big sister again.

"I have inflatables!" Blake's voice travels over the backyard as a moving tower of inflatables with feet sticking out the bottom comes into view.

The kids, of course, run over to it yelling excitingly.

"Can I have this one!" Lilly asks Blake as he sets the pile down by the pool. She's pointing to a huge unicorn inflatable that they probably got just for her.

"Of course you can." Blake places it in the pool for her and helps her onto it, then pushes her out to the middle.

Ace and Isaiah already hoped in to keep an eye on her.

She knows how to swim but better safe than sorry.

I fasten the last buckle on Cole's life jacket as Blake puts the pizza inflatable for him in the pool.

After he's situated on the inflatable I roll the legs on my overalls up to my knees and sit on the edge of the pool.

"You're not swimming?" Blake's eyebrows are creased as he looks at me.

"No. I don't have a swimsuit with me." Or anywhere, I don't own a swimsuit at all.

"Oh, ok." I expect him to join the others, but he sits down beside me instead.

"You're not going swimming?" I ask him this time. He shakes his head no.

"I'd rather hang out with you." He says smoothly, causing my cheeks to burn.

"Rose watch this!" Lilly yells as Ace yeets her across the pool. She surfaces next to Blake laughing so hard that he has to reach out and hold her up so she doesn't drown.

"Me!" Cole yells as he holds his hands up to Ace. "Oh, he's going to regret that he started this." I laugh at Blake. "They won't want to stop." I add.

Lilly has already recovered from her laughing fit and is swimming over to Ace again.

"He loves the attention." Blake points out. Ace has a grin on his face that only seems to get bigger every time they ask to be thrown across the pool.

"Rose, can I ask you a personal question?" He asks.

My heartrate picked up a little trying to think of what he might ask me.

"Yeah." I say nervously, keeping my eyes focused on the kids so he can't see how worried I am.

"Was your childhood happy?" His voice is level, but I can almost hear the way his words are digging for information that I'm not yet willing to give.

"Sometimes." I keep my own voice level. I can't lie to him, but I also can't tell him my story.

'Sometimes' is a truthful answer.

Sometimes, you can find happiness in anything, you can even find joy in the smallest grain of sand if you're desperate enough.

"Ok." He says. I don't know his story, and he doesn't know mine. But he knows enough to understand that 'sometimes' isn't a good answer, and also that 'sometimes' means not to pry.

I respect him for that, I know it's eating at him to stay quiet, but he understands my need to keep things to myself for now.

"Can I ask you one more question?" He shifts closer to me and my heart does a jump in my chest. I nod my head once.

"Are you safe?" His voice becomes slightly deeper, more serious, as he asks this question.

He desperately wants me to say yes. To say that I have a safe home to go to at night, and a warm bed and plenty of food. But I don't.

"Sometimes." I replied again.