After spending another very long few hours at Sages house, explaining every detail of mine and Calebs relationship, Sage, Ashley and I all went back to my hotel room where my mom now was, unpacking the many, many shopping bags.

"What's up mom," Ashley grins plopping on the couch in our room, turning the tv on in the process.

"Holy shit how much stuff did you get?" I grin, walking over to her bed, and looking through the clothes.

"I had fun" Cheri smiles "and your father is going to kill me for all the money I just spent but I'm trying to figure out a way to do the whole 'get in the house and to the closet before dad sees' trick once we get back, but I think he might notice an extra suitcase. So if I'm banished, at least I'll have four pairs of my favorite sweatpants"

"Sounds like a great way to go out to me" Sage laughs from her spot on my bed

"Exactly!" Cheri grins "Sage gets it"

"I really do mama K" She doesn't even lift her head as she shoots my mom a thumbs up

"So when are the boys due back?" Cheri question, continue if her folding and putting away of clothes

"Anytime now, Jordan said it shouldn't be any longer than two hours" I say "I hope it went well for them"

"Well you did wish them good luck" Ashley simply smirks. They'd been teasing me about the hug since I walked back in the house even though they were the ones that had encouraged me to do it in the first place. They were stuck on the whole hugging part, they didn't hear the princess part. That's what I was stuck on. It was the first time that he's called me by my nickname since we basically broke up. I never realized how much I'd missed it.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Cheri grins at me. Like my dad, she'd known all along too. Still surprised the hell out of me.

"After they left, miss Bailey-Belle here decided to run out after them and wished a certain brown eyes boy good luck with a hug" Sage's smirk mirrors Ashley's. I swear I hate them so much.

"So you two are talking again?" Cheri questions, eating up the teenage talk I guess.

"Not really," I start to say before Ashely butts in

"They were teasing each other when we were walking out of Leland's,"

"And he still looks at her like a loved struck puppy" Sage adds to her comment

"Granted she looks at him the same way" Cheri feeds into the conversation until I'm just an observer... in a conversation about myself and my relationship.

This is fun.

Thankfully all talk of that subject stopped as they two boys walk into the room, smirks as big as Texas painted on their faces.

"How'd it go?!" Ash is the first one to jump up

"It was great" Jordan grins glancing at Co

"Yeah, it was awesome" Co nods "Coaches love us, fields amazing, that fucking stadiums awesome"

"Wasn't he the one that hated the bears?" Sage questions Cheri and I who just nod in response

"They said we have a chance at being drafted too" Jordan grins, "Low chance we'll be on the same team but imagine us playing against eachother"

"That would be fun for all of them, imagine the betting goin on at home" Caleb just laughs looking at our excited faces "Nothings definite yet, we aren't getting our hopes up yet, we just have to wait and see" Caleb clarifies. It was going to be hard, they were teenagers fresh out of high school going against guys that have four plus years of experience on them. I couldn't believe the draft was in less than a month. Three weeks from today, exactly. April 22nd through the 24th they're gonna be gone in Vegas.

Plus I knew Co was still weird about it, he'd officially gotten accepted to University of Florida earlier this month, I was the only one that knew though. He was still debating on the whole college or pro's thing.

"Right. We're just gonna go and see what happens, if we don't get drafted, then we have our back up plans" Jordan shrugs

"Ah I'm so excited for you boys!" Cheri semi-yells "So what are y'all gonna do now?"

"Navy pier? It's like a fifteen minute walk" I tell them. Co had said earlier that he wanted to go, so why not?

"I'm always down for Navy Pier, at night it's even better" Sage grins

"Yep we're in" Jordan and Ashely nod

"You wanna come mom?" I ask Cheri, but she's already laying out a robe and towel

"I'm good, I'm actually going to Sage's. you kids go have fun, I'm gonna have my own little spa night with Mrs.Mendoza" she grins

"Okay, lets go!"

————————

"Okay I snuck on the yacht one time!" Sage rolls her eyes

"Dude you almost got arrested" Ashley and I both laugh

"But did I? Nooo"

Last year, on a day off from school, we came here and a whole bunch of people were walking into the yacht for this high profile dinner party or something and Sage decided that she wanted to go too. She got kicked out within the first fifteen minutes and some old lady almost had her arrested. Thankfully Ash and I were there to diffuse the situation..and the lady.

"You guys seemed to have a lot of fun here" Jordan looks at the three of us

"Yeah, well Sage and I have lived here our whole lives, Bails was our little adopted country girl" Ashely laughs. It was true, I never lived in a big city nor had I been to one longer than a few hours, and even then Dallas and San Antonio were minuscule compared to Chicago.

"I was" I smile at the boys "Okay so what are we going to do now?" We had gotten out of the funhouse a little while ago, and were now walking the boardwalk in the lake with classic Chicago dogs with the bright green relish.

"These are really good" Caleb says taking another bite of his dog

"Oh yeah, nothing's better than Chicago food" Sage grins

"Ice cream!" Jordan yells, pointing to the dip n dots stand that looked to be just about closing

"Dude it's like thirty-five degrees out right now" Caleb huffs, shoving his hands in his pockets

I would make a smartass comment about me being right in regards to bringing the jackets, but I decided against it

"Bitch it's always a good time for ice cream" Jordan snorts, pulling me with him to the dip n dots stand. "Hey could we get some ice cream? I'm sorry if it's late," Jordan tells the guy at the stand

"It's no problem kid, what can I get you guys?" The guys at the stand stops packing up to grin at us "I'm out of rainbow"

"Okay, we'll take- guys what do you want?" He yells back to the other three

"Two banana split and an cookie dough!" Caleb calls back over

"Okay make that three banana split and two cookie dough" Jordan tells him, handing over the twenty dollar bill. The guy just shakes his head though

"Keep your money, I had to get rid of the last of this anyway" the guy smiles "You kids have a good night"

"Thank you" Jordan and I smile at him. Jordan however takes the bill and tosses it into the tip jar

"You too sir," Jordan bids him goodbye before he and I walk over to our friends.

"Okay co, here's your cookie dough," Jordan passed one of them to him before giving Ashley her banana split, and I give sage hers.

"I missed these" Caleb smiles down at the little cup "I haven't had these since we went to the beach,"

"Oh yeah" I grin "that was a fun weekend" That one nights been stuck in my head forever. Sitting out with him one the beach late at night was the first time I felt truly home. Looking back, I wanna punch myself for never realizing the thing between us, cause it was definitely there.

"Is that what you guys do in Texas?" Ashley questions "I don't know, I always wondered what you guys did, Bails said you're from a small town, and I've never known what that was like so," she shrugs "Whats it like?"

"Hm" Jordan says looking between Co and I "Well, no we don't always go to the beach, it's like three hours away, we only go there a few weekends in the summer or when it's still warm, we usually stop goin from like November to February-ish" He says simply.

"What else do you guys do?" Sage pushes further

"Party" Co and I say at the same time. We've been doing that a lot lately, it's getting creepy

"There's a party almost every weekend from March to November" I tell them. It was true. That time of year, we simply called the party season. In the summer, there were sometimes three to four parties a week.

"Oh and eat, we eat a lot" Caleb adds "Our favorite place is Kane's"

"Kane's?" Ashley questions

"Yeah it's a little diner owned by one of my older brothers friends, best food in town. It's like our own little Leland's" I explain further "We also drive around, hang out in the woods. It's where I go when I need to be alone"

"So that's where you went that one day" Caleb says looking at me

"Yeah" I shrug, looking from him back to the girls who just smirk at me.

"Oh we also make up stupid games," Jordan grins "Slip n slide beer pong flippy cup is our favorite. We also have this one where we shoot each other with air soft BB guns but we haven't played that one in a while" Jordan says "They were the plastic BB's of course,"

"When you guys come down, we'll show you how to play slip n slide flippy cup beer pong" Caleb grins at their excited faces

"We do have to go down this summer," Sage tells us and Ashley who just nods in agreement

"Okay we should be getting back," Ashley says, looking down at her phone

"We never got to go on the Ferris wheel" Caleb pouts, looking up at the gargantuan Ferris wheel. It was huge and possibly one of the safest Ferris wheels in the country, I still refuse to go on it.

"We can come back on Monday before you guys leave" Sage grins "Goodluck getting this bitch on there though, she's terrified of those things"

"Oh I know," Caleb just smirks at me as we all start walking back to our hotel "I'll get her on."