😙✌🏼

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"I'll ask her out," Dylan declared, starting to walk in her direction.

"Now, wait a minute, I spotted her first," Zach argued, grabbing Dylan's arm and pulling him back into the circle.

Dylan rolled his eyes, "Dude, this isn't the sixth grade. You can't just call dibs."

The month of July had passed by rather quickly, and with senior year now less than two weeks away, the six of us decided to take a road trip to Hilton Head and rent out a beach house for the week as a final hurrah.

Anyways, today we were spending the day at the beach. Luna and I had just come from swimming– strutting out of the water like the fucking goddesses we are– to join the boys at our little area in the sand where they were playing their "intense" game of Spike ball.

However, when we had caught up with them, they had all been distracted by a girl a bit further down the beach. Now, they were all arguing over who got to go up and talk to her.

I shook the water out of my hair and made my way over to Carson as Jason practically shouted, "Let me ask her out! I've never asked a girl out before, and I wanna know what it's like. Let me experiment!"

"That's literally such a waste!" Dylan exclaimed. I rolled my eyes as they continued to argue over her like she was a prize or something. Honestly, they were acting like she wouldn't reject all of them anyways.

"Please, step aside, boys. Let a real man show you how it's done," Carson boasted, puffing out his chest.

I snorted, "Oh yeah. Real man, okay."

"Shut up, you brat," He retorted, throwing an arm over my shoulder.

I rolled my eyes, "You still have a teddy bear and you refuse to eat chicken nuggets unless they're the ones shaped like T-Rexes. You're about as close to a real man as Zach is to graduating high school."

"You're an ass," Carson responded.

"At least my face doesn't look like one."

He scowled at me, "No, you're right. You're face doesn't look like an ass. It looks like a baboon's ass."

"And they say modern romance is dead," Jason cooed.

Dylan cut us off in a tired tone before I could say anything else, "I thought that you two being in a relationship meant we wouldn't have to put up with your fighting anymore."

"You should stop thinking," Carson responded.

"Anyways," Zach said, changing the topic. "It shouldn't be you, Carson. Your girlfriend is standing literally right next to you."

Carson turned to look at me, a small smile playing on his lips as if asking permission to go hit on another girl. You see, this could go a few ways.

Option one: I let Carson try to ask her out, he fails miserably, we all laugh at him and I win.

Option two: I let Carson try to ask her out, by some miracle she finds him charming, she asks for his number, and Carson wins.

Option three: I don't let Carson go, Dylan or Zach ends up asking her out, she falls in love, gets all clingy, follows us back to North Carolina, and we're all forced to move to Kalamazoo, Michigan and change our names.

It occurred to me that it might be important to see what this girl looked like before sending Carson off to go hit on her. I peeked over Jason's shoulder to catch a glimpse of her. Once I had made out enough of her features, I smiled.

The girl was pretty, no doubt about it. She was laying back in a beach chair with sunglasses covering her eyes. She had short, black hair with natural waves. She was clearly pretty tall due to her long legs and a bikini that looked really good on her. She had very pale skin, which made a very intricate (and very familiar) tattoo on her ribcage all the more eye-catching.

"Go ahead, real man," I answered, patting his shoulder and smiling. "Show us how it's done."

"Thank you," He said, swooping his head down to give me a quick kiss on the cheek before stalking off in the girl's direction.

We all watched him as he tapped her shoulder. He had clearly startled her as she jumped before lifting her sunglasses and sitting up to look at Carson. Since she didn't shove him away or reject him outright, they moved into a conversation, which they both seemed to be enjoying.

"That's a lot of self-control, Mads," Luna said skeptically.

I clicked my tongue, "Yeah, except it really isn't. She's gay."

They all tore their eyes off of Carson to look at me. I shrugged.

"I'm sorry, how do you know this?" Dylan asked.

I rolled my eyes, "Please, I just know. It's a bisexual thing."

"Oh don't even, Maddie," Jason laughed. "I recognize her tattoo and so do you. That's the girl you hooked up with when you and I came last June."

"Okay, but I still knew then that she was gay."

"She asked for your number."

"Lots of people ask for my number for reasons unknown to me."

"She asked if we wanted to come to a Pride parade with her later that night."

"She could have just been an ally."

"She was wearing a shirt that said 'VAGITARIAN' on it in big rainbow letters."

"Okay, fine, whatever," I huffed. "Fact of the matter is: she's gay."

"Okay," Dylan said, "So if she's not interested, how much longer is she gonna entertain that idiot?"

We all looked back to Carson and the girl (Claire, if I remember right), who were now laughing over something one of them must have said.

"They seem to like each other," Zach noted.

They carried on talking and laughing for a few more minutes, before she pulled out her phone and handed it to Carson. As he moved to leave, she kissed him; it was on the cheek, of course, but still in that seductive way that says 'if we weren't in public I would've kissed you somewhere else.'

I stopped breathing for a second. My hands balled into fists at my sides as I tried to keep my cool.

"Perfect gaydar, huh?" Luna said, biting back a laugh.

"Well, you can't say you didn't set yourself up for that one, dipshit," Dylan reasoned. I rolled my eyes.

Carson came sauntering back over to us, his hands in the front pockets of his swimming trunks (I should probably note that he, of course, is undeniably attractive in swim trunks), and a smirk playing at his lips.

"Don't look so happy about it," I grumbled.

"What?" He asked, a smile still curling his lips upwards. "You don't like me being friendly with my spit sister?"

I crossed my arms over my chest, "You knew?"

"I have a pretty good record of my competition."

"Right, I forgot you've been obsessed with me since I was 11."

He rolled his eyes, "Actually, I didn't know until she saw all of you staring at us. She recognized you right away, Maddie, and once I figured out that you set me up, she was more than willing to help me win."

"Whatever," I groaned.

"She says hi, by the way," Carson added. "And also to call her when you and I break up."

"Well, she might be in luck. Tomorrow seems like a perfect day to dump your ass."

He grabbed my chin in one hand, and, staring down at me, said, "Fat fucking chance."

* * *

"Okay, okay, give me a second to think of one," Luna said, holding up four fingers, far more than any one else. "Um, never have I ever ran from the cops?"

"Alright, I'm out," Jason said.

"Me too," Zach sighed.

Luna shrugged and turned to Dylan, who now only had one finger up, as did I. Carson had been the first one out, quite a while ago, and was sitting back in his seat, making snide remarks every now and then.

"You know what, Luna, we'll give you this one," Dylan said. "I'm getting tired of this game."

I nodded in agreement, putting my finger down.

We had all been sitting outside in front of the fire pit in our pajamas for the past few hours. It started that we had wanted to watch the sunset over the water, and then we decided to make s'mores, which ended shortly after Jason accidentally lit his hair on fire and Dylan spent 20 minutes scolding him on his lack of caution, which Jason tuned out by crying over his charred hair.

Anyways, after consoling Jason that his hair really didn't look that bad, and no one would really be able to tell, we ordered pizzas and started playing middle school-esque games.

After a moment of silence, Zach spoke up, "Anyone else freaked that we're going to be seniors in two weeks?"

"Me."

"Me."

"Me."

"It's just weird," Luna agreed. "I still feel like a freshman."

"I'm over it," Carson shrugged, "One more year until college and we can escape this hell hole."

I tried not to give him the sympathetic 'you're a kicked-puppy' look that Carson says I always give him without my realization. I knew the reason he was so unexcited about the upcoming school year had nothing to do with the prospect of college, and all to do with getting away from the place his sister and his parents left him.

I caught his eyes for a moment before darting them off to look at Jason, who was saying something about wanting to go to a big state school with lots of parties.

"What about you, Mads?" Dylan asked. "Where do you wanna go?"

Honestly, I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to the same school my parents met at, and where they fell in love. I always knew that's where I wanted to go, but I didn't want to face that right now.

I shrugged, "I don't know yet. There's a lot of factors."

"Like what?"

"Like me," Carson said.

"Right," I said, blankly. "You."

The conversation continued on, Luna wanting to go to a small, private school, and Zach hoping his grades weren't bad enough this year to keep him from graduating. I only half-listened, still preoccupied with my own thoughts now.

Sure, it had crossed my mind that our choices of college would have some effect on our relationship, but I hadn't really thought about it until now. I knew that, although he would never say it, Carson was hoping we would end up at the same college, and, although I would never say it, I was kind of hoping the same thing. But I didn't want our relationship to be they key factor in my choice.

When I had finally snapped out of the internal spiral, I noticed that we had all grown quiet and Zach had stood up from his chair and was stretching his arms out.

"Alright, I'm going to head to bed," Zach announced, letting out a large yawn.

"Me too," Carson said. "You coming?"

I shook my head, "In a little bit."

He nodded his head and gave me a kiss before following behind Zach.

Luna and Dylan had gotten up from their seats shortly after and were heading to their rooms. Jason was still sitting, completely involved in his phone.

"Hey, J?"

"Yeah," He said, looking up for a moment so that I would know he's listening.

"Are you, I don't know, worried at all that once TK starts college-"

"We broke up."

"Seriously?"

He nodded.

"Are you, um, alright with it?"

He nodded again, "Yeah, we ended on really good terms."

"Why'd you decide to break it off?" I asked.

He shrugged, "We couldn't rationalize staying together now that he's going off to college, especially since he's going so far away. I mean, I'm going to miss him and everything, but it was the right decision for us."

"Oh."

"Hey, Mads?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't put yourself in inner turmoil about this right now. You have a year to figure this shit out. And you never know, Carson could cheat on you during that time, or vice versa."

I rolled my eyes, "Thanks, Jason. That was really comforting. I feel so much better."

"What do you have to be upset about? At least you still have all your hair."

"One day, I'm going to shave your head while you're sleeping and I won't feel bad about it.

He placed his hands over his hair in an attempt to hide it from me, "You're a menace. And I'm going to bed. Goodnight."

"Night."

I followed Jason inside, pretty tired myself.

The house we rented only had four bedrooms, and both Zach and luna insisted they each got their own room, which meant the rest of us had to share. Dylan and Jason were sharing a room, which, of course, meant that Carson and I had to share a room as well. Honestly, it's such a horrible situation we've got going on for us.

"There you are!" He exclaimed, sitting up in the bed as I entered the room. "I've been waiting."

"Waiting for what?" I laughed.

"You're dumb," He huffed. "I was waiting for you."

I rolled my eyes as I climbed into bed beside him, "Sorry, babe."

"You should be," He said, rolling on top of me. "The bed was so cold without you."

"I told you that I packed Mr. Snuggly Wuggly in your backpack."

"It's not the same. You're warm and soft, and not an inanimate bear."

"An inanimate bear that you almost cried over when you lost him last week."

"Shut up, I did not almost cry. And you should be thanking me for waiting to go to sleep until you came in. It obviously shows that I care about you."

"That's really great and everything, but could you maybe get off of me? You weigh more than a fucking elephant."

He gasped, "I know you did not just call me fat."

"Whoops."

He lifted himself up, so that he was now sitting on top of me. Such a great improvement. Before I could make any sort of protest, he had lifted his shirt over his head.

He pointed to his toned stomach and said, "Does this look like fat to you?"

"Um, yes," I said, lying through my teeth and shooting him an innocent smile.

He grabbed one of my hands and placed it on abdomen, guiding my finger over every muscle. "I'm fucking ripped."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," I groaned. "You're also crushing me, so get the fuck off."

Carson rolled his eyes before rolling us over so that I was on top of him and bringing the blanket over us.

"This better?"

"Very much."