it really didn't take kat and devyn long to convince their friend to skip class and come have a friends day out, however; harlow didn't need too much convincing. kat, devyn, and xepher gave harlow half an hour to get her shit together and be ready downstairs for the girls.

moving at record speed, harlow managed to finish up her editing and get herself downstairs before her friends had even arrived. after another hour of driving, the four girls finally arrived at the pier.

"see harls isn't this better than morning class?" dev asked while grabbing her bag out of katrina's back seat.

harlow laughed in response. "as long as i don't get an email about my attendance, yes"

"it's college, why the fuck would they even care about attendance?" the blue-haired girl asked.

"we're a competitive program i guess," harlow shrugged while following devyn and xepher out of the parking lot.

the girls made their way towards the pier, listening to devyn scream about how excited she was for dippin' dots every five minutes. it was only about 11 in the morning, but devyn swore that it wasn't weird.

xepher and harlow waited at a table for katrina and devyn to come back with dippin' dots. just as harlow was about to ask xepher what the girls wanted to do for the day, someone came up behind her, put their hands on her back and shouted, "what are you doing here?"

harlow screamed, spinning around in her seat ready to punch. as she looked behind her, she saw her brother, manically laughing at his younger sister who he just scared shitless. "fuck you, elton!" harlow glared at her brother, shoving him away from her.

behind elton was jake and tara, sam, colby, griffin, and jay. harlow assumed that corey had managed to find devyn by the dippin' dots stand.

"you're just too easy to scare!" elton managed to get out between laughs. "but hey, what the fuck? thought you had classes on wednesdays?"

"i do," harlow responded. "kat and dev managed to convince me to miss classes,"

"c's get degrees!" harlow heard katrina shout from the stand, grinning wildly at her friend. harlow held up her middle finger in response.

jake, tara, griffin, elton, and jay squished at the empty table next to the girls, while colby and sam sat at the table with the two girls. "so, what do y'all wanna do first?" corey asked as he, devyn, and kat made their way back to the group.

after a few minutes, the girls had managed to convince the boys to play the games first.

"i'm ready to fuck some shit up!" harlow laughed, grabbing kat's arm and tugging her over to the whack-a-mole game. "i have lots of pent-up anger towards profs who give me shitty grades, so i'm so ready,"

katrina laughed at her friend, knowing how intense harlow was about high grades. "let's do this,"

the group followed the two girls and watched intensely as harlow and katrina played the game. harlow stayed true to her word and intensely focused in on the game, while kat spent most of her time trying to whack harlow to cause her to lose focus.

in the end, harlow was able to pick out a small stuffed animal. as she held it in her hands, she looked at her blue-haired friend, "if you play fair maybe you can win one, too," harlow teased, making elton and sam laugh.

"not fair," kat whined, "you were fuelled by anger,"

elton nodded in agreement, "she is right, that's an unfair advantage,"

harlow rolled her eyes at the two. "alright, round two, let's go,"

her friends dramatically made "oooh" sounds, as if they were suddenly back in middle school and were watching a fight about to break in the teacher's parking lot after school.

"everybody place your bets now," jay announced, cupping his hands around his mouth. "our previous winner, harlow castee, stands at about 5'5'' and weighs in at-" before jay could finish his sentence, harlow shot a deathly glare his way, shutting him up.

the two girls played one more round of whack-a-mole, this time earning cheers from their group of friends each time one of the girls hit something. as predicted, harlow won a second time, just hardly beating kat.

harlow turned on her heel and bowed for her friends who began clapping for the winner.

"impressive, h" elton said while giving his sister a high five.

harlow shrugged, "i mean i don't wanna brag but..." she coughed, which somewhat covered up her "humble brag" after she trailed off.

the group of friends slowly made their way through the games, meeting up with the other half of their group in the middle. although harlow spent the first forty-five minutes of the day obsessively checking her email to make sure her missing attendance wasn't noticed, she was glad she skipped her classes. during classes, harlow often sat at the back of the lecture halls, hoping to avoid contact with her peers. this was a good change.

again, harlow silently thanked her brother for making her go to the party in the first place. if he wouldn't have, harlow would be sitting in psych taking notes and downing iced coffee like it was water.

"harlow, are you coming?" colby asked, snapping her out of her trance.

the group of friends was already making their way towards the ticket booth, but colby was standing a few feet in front of her waiting.

"oh, uh, yeah." harlow quickly made her way over to colby. "what are we doing? i kinda zoned out,"

colby laughed, making harlow's stomach do flips. "i could tell," he said, then stopped in his tracks. "they wanted to go on the roller coaster, so they're getting tickets. but you know.."

colby trailed off, leaving harlow staring at him in confusion. "what do i know?"

"bet you we could sneak off and have a smoke break," he half-whispered to harlow, who was standing right beside him.

this time, it was harlow's turn to laugh. "i'm starting to think you're using me for my smokes," harlow joked. before colby was able to respond, harlow was talking again, "yeah, lets go. but i still think you should tell e you smoke. then we wouldn't have to do the whole sneaking part,"

"sneaking is half the fun, though" colby joked back while leading harlow off the pier.

colby wouldn't tell harlow, but he used the whole "smoke break" thing as an excuse to sit and talk to the girl alone. in fact, colby usually didn't even smoke, just the odd time when he drank. but now he was committed to the excuse and would continue to smoke if it meant he got to spend time alone with harlow.

the two chatted about things they had got up to in the week as they walked around looking for a spot to sit off the pier. eventually, the pair spotted a picnic table and sat down. harlow passed colby her pack of smokes across the table.

"so, who had you glued to your phone for most of the morning?" colby asked while lighting the smoke between his lips.

harlow couldn't help but wonder if the boy in front of her was a bit jealous. "my email," harlow laughed, stealing her pack back. "i've never skipped a college class, and my program is uh, intense, i guess. we can only miss one class and then we get notified,"

colby watched as the girl across from him lit the smoke she was holding between her lips. god, was she ever beautiful, he thought. "well how many are you missing today?"

harlow inhaled, then held the smoke between her fingers. "just two," she answered, "i don't know if it's like, one per class or just one total, so i kept checking to make sure that it was one per class," harlow held her phone up to show colby her emails. "so far, no new emails,"

colby saw a window open, and decided to shoot his shot, "you know, speaking of phones.. if i had your number, it would be a whole lot easier to do this whole sneaking around thing,"

harlow tried to contain herself, but she could feel her insides exploding like fireworks in the sky. he's asking for my number! then she remembered jada's advice - friends first. keeping a neutral expression, harlow handed the boy her phone. she watched colby pose as he took a contact photo, and then passed it back to her.

a photo of colby sticking his tongue out was above his name "colby" harlow laughed, "cute pic,"

"text me," colby said, continuing to puff on his smoke.

"why?" harlow asked, "you just gave me your number,"

"i need yours,"

rolling her eyes, harlow texted the boy sitting across from her. she saw kat had texted her a few times, not realizing it earlier as her phone was on silent. she turned her phone on vibrate before opening her friend's messages.

where did u go?

harlow

wait i have ur location

wtf

omfg r u with colby

i don't even have to try to set u two up

i love love

stahhhp

where u at

we will finish up and come find u

WAIT OMFG NOT LIKE THAT

I DIDN'T MEAN THAT

SMOKING

harlow tossed her smoke on the ground, squishing it underneath her shoe. "we should probably head back in, kat won't stop texting me,"

"yeah, ok,"

the two began heading back to the pier, this time in comfortable silence. as they neared the entrance, the pair could see their group of friends sat at a table eating pizza and burgers.

still out of earshot of their friends, colby spoke up, "hey, uh, do you have classes tomorrow?"

"just one, bright and early," harlow answered.

"well i have to film a video tomorrow because i post on friday's, but after i'm finished you should come by the house,"

for what felt like the hundredth time that day, harlow's stomach did flips. just friends, just friends, just friends, she chanted in her head. "yeah, just text me when," she responded as calmly as possible, although red alert bells were ringing in her brain and all she wanted to do was text her group chat to report back.

"yeah," colby stopped walking. "you go ahead, i'll be right back,"

harlow looked at colby, confused. "ok?"

"go be sneaky, harley"

harlow laughed at colby, but continued walking towards her friends while colby walked back out the entrance. harlow reached her friends, sitting down beside jake at one of the two tables.

"where did you go?" corey asked.

be sneaky, be sneaky. "i just went out for air, crowds make me a little anxious," harlow answered honestly.

elton, who had tuned in to the conversation, loudly whispered, "air means a smoke,"

"very sneaky, e," harlow laughed in response.