Just as the five of us are prepared to pile into Ryan's SUV, a metallic silver Minivan pulls into the parking lot two spots over, honking its horn multiple times until we collectively turn to face the vehicle. The passenger seat window rolls down, and there appears Daniel, leaning across the from the driver's spot to stick his face out the window.

"Get in, losers!"

Jasmine instantly reaches for the backpack resting at her feet, slinging it over her shoulder and racing towards the car.

"Shotgun!" she calls out as Daniel falls back in his seat, laughing. She yanks the door open to slip into the seat just as Ryan locks his car and we all head over.

We always have a constant argument on how I always get forced into the back seat seeing as I'm the 'shortest and tiniest' of the group, but I'm already exhausted due to all of the day's events so I climb into the very back with no complaint.

Mateo follows, sitting next to me, and I watch as Bryce sits in front of me.

"Nice ride. You've reached full soccer-mom status," he teases.

Charlie snorts loudly, and Jasmine reaches an open hand back for Bryce to high-five. I kick the back of Bryce's seat, and he seems satisfied. It's his turn to reach back now, as he pinches my leg much to my objection. I swat his hand away and he grins back at me.

"So what's the plan? Bowling again? Daniel asks, pulling out of the parking spot and driving over to fit into the line of cars waiting to exit the parking lot.

So this is what he did as he skipped last period, it seems.

"Hell no, Lexi's just going to win again," Jasmine argues. Daniel and Ryan nod in agreement, and I want to crawl into a hole and hide. Mateo places his hand atop of the seat with his palm facing the ceiling, and I set my hand down on his. He intertwines our fingers, giving my hand a brief squeeze.

"How about mini putting?" Bryce offers.

Everybody seems to ponder the suggestion, until Jasmine says, "Sounds good. She'll still win but I'm sure it won't be as pathetic as bowling last month."

Mateo drums his fingers on the window a couple times to gain everybody's attention. "It's really not her fault she's great at everything. Maybe you should try to get a few less balls in the gutter next time."

Daniel practically wheezes and I hear Charlie snicker a tad bit.

"Well screw you," Jasmine huffs from the front seat, and it all just reminds me of how thankful I am to have met this group of people.

The ride to golfing was fairly quick as there's a Putting Edge located fairly close to our school. It was a quiet ten minutes, apart from when some Ariana Grande song came on the radio and Daniel turned the volume on the stereo up so loud I feel some permanent hearing loss coming on. Him, Jasmine, and my brother ended up screeching all the lyrics at the top of their lungs, and it's a blessing when the songs and singing comes to a conclusion. The radio volumes gets turned down, and Bryce turns to my brother with some smart remark at the tip of his tongue.

I kick his chair again to stop the words from leaving his mouth.

Mateo chuckles lightly, and I remove my hand from his as the car comes to a stop. I unfasten my seat belt but I still catch Charlie's death glare for Bryce out of the corner of my eye.

"I'd like to see you do better," Charlie retorts defensively, and Jasmine spins around to face me before she climbs out of the car.

Even though she doesn't actually say anything out loud, something in our best-friend-telepathy allows her to still get the exact message across.

'Another thing Lex'll beat us all at!'

We all exit the car and shuffle into the golf place, and I'm reminded once again of my shortness as Bryce leans onto me, his chin fitting perfectly above my head.

"Can you not?" I spit, moving away from him and resting my back against a bare wall.

We seem to have a second to ourselves as the other four are waiting in line to get some golf clubs.

"Remind me to wear my highest pair of heels on Monday so you can leave me alone and we can have an actual conversation."

Bryce blinks down at me.

"Hey Blossom?"

I raise a brow in response.

"You should wear heels on Monday."

He's wearing a goofy grin, despite he's pulled out one of the oldest jokes in the book.

"You're so funny!" I exclaim, my tone dripping with thick sarcasm.

He bows, and I can't even contain my giddy smile. There's something about him that just makes me so damn happy.

When he straightens up I notice how close together we're standing. It doesn't help when he reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair away from my face and back behind my ear.

The section of my cheek he had just touched tingles, and I suck in a breath as his hand lingers at the side of my face.

"I thought about you a lot," he confesses, and I'm extremely reassured by that. I really haven't stopped thinking about him for more than a week at a time.

"Me too," I say, feeling the blush rise to my cheeks. He takes note of it, and I feel his thumb stroke my skin gently.

"I wanted to reach out to you but we hadn't seen each other in so long and I was kind of a jerk for leaving with out a word, so I didn't," he explains

"Don't worry about it. You're here to stay now, until college?" I ask and he nods.

"Why'd you move back?"

Bryce looks up to the ceiling for a second to collect his thoughts. "You'll find out soon enough. Just be patient."

He says it like a promise, and it extinguishes the urge boiling inside me to blurt out that I'm not a child and I don't need for these things to be hidden from me. I then recall that despite the nine years of friendship we had together all those years back, from kindergarten to eighth grade, we haven't seen each other over the past four years. The same years where we arguably would've changed the most.

So I don't pry yet.

"Okay."

Before he can continue with any more sweet talking to make me faint in the heart, Jasmine pops up right beside us.

"Calm your hormones, kids. Let's go," she demands, handing us each a golf ball and club before turning around and strutting away towards the entrance to the actual golfing area. The guys are standing around waiting for us, so without hesitation I walk past Bryce directly to them, barely giving him enough time to grapple onto my free arm.

The main area is very dimly lit, as the place has the standard glow in the dark theme, and I end up walking straight into Daniel's back.

My parents should have made 'embarrassment' my middle name.

We begin golfing, and I'm confused how everybody seems to be messing up the first round; all they have to do is putt it straight forward. I die of laughter inside a little bit when Mateo ends up hitting the ball so hard that it bounces out of the track, hits a wall, and then rolls back to land at his feet.

When it's my turn, I quickly set the ball up, calculating a completely straight line, than easily putt it in with a single stroke.

"Showoff," Mateo mutters jokingly and I beam up at him.

Unfortunately, as easily as that, Bryce steals my thunder by doing the same and putting the ball in with one hit.

"Looks like you have some competition," Charlie says from beside me, marking a '1' next to Bryce's name on the scoring sheet as well.

When I feel a presence take Charlie's place as he goes to finish the round with everybody else I make a fighting statement.

"You're not going to win," I state, almost trying to reassure myself. Bryce reaches down and across to retrieve our golf balls, handing mine back to me.

"We'll see." He says it in such a cryptic voice that I explode into a fit of giggles, leaving him to roll his eyes and turn away from me.

"You three have gotten yourself in with some real characters," Bryce taunts in a hushed tone that Charlie still manages to catch.

He replies with a simple, "No shit," before following Jasmine.

"Just wait until you meet Jordan," I add as we join the others who seem to have settles down.

Bryce looks at me in question. "Who?"

Right. An explanation would suffice.

"Our other friend. He never seems to be short on energy. He's been visiting family in California, but he'll be back sometime next week."

Bryce bites down hard on his lower lip before looking up to make sure everybody is distracted.

"Mateo's competition?" he questions.

No he did not.

"What do you mean?" I blurt out quickly, although I know exactly what he means.

He raises his shoulders into a shrug, and I catch the muscles in his arms flexing slightly.

He notices my wandering eyes and grins, then says, "The guy obviously has a thing for you. He looks like he'd enjoy fucking slaughtering me in my sleep each time I talk to you."

He's probably just concerned that Bryce'll steal my attention away from him; we've gone out together a couple of times in the past and he's even kissed me before.

I've been meaning to cut things off between us for awhile but I still haven't worked up the courage to do so yet.

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure he's only a little jealous since we had gone on a few dates before. It's no big deal."

I take notice of the fact that he has absolutely no change in expression at that small addition of information.

"Well, should he be jealous?"

My heart drops to the pit of my stomach. Maybe that day did mean something to him after all.

"Lex! Bryce! It's your go."

Golfing is going fine. It really is enjoyable but I would rather be sitting down and chatting with Bryce instead. He hasn't bothered saying anything else to me after his last line but I really just want to talk about other life and other stuff. After all, we were extremely close before. We had just enough in common but just enough of a difference in traits to be good friends.

Around halfway through the courses, my score was at a pretty solid sixteen, Bryce's still only at nineteen. I was only winning by three points but it's still better than losing.

But now we're onto the last round and Bryce is actually beating me. I haven't even came close to to not winning when we go out for one of these things in a really long time. My score is at thirty-three, Bryce at thirty-two.

He finally breaks the silence between us by whispering, "I told you you may be getting knocked off your throne."

We each putt once, neither of us getting it in. On Bryce's second stroke he almost gets it in, the ball rolling right around the rim of the hole in the ground.

"Yikes," he breathes almost silently. And then he groans when I easily get hit mine in, where it falls down into a tunnel to somehow end up back at the front desk. He doesn't even bother waiting for his next turn to easily tap his ball in, leaving us Lexi: 35 - Bryce: 35.

"Well played." I hold out a hand for him to shake.

"You technically still didn't beat me," he tries to reason but we both just end up laughing. It all becomes even funnier when Charlie hands us the scoring paper, where we see how terribly him and Mateo lost, both at a staggering ninety-two.

Jasmine and Daniel high-five at their slight victory from at least doing better that that tragic mess of a score. We exit the golfing area, paying for our time and returning the clubs before congregating around the Minivan waiting for us in the parking lot.

"Dinner?" Daniel asks, and I sadly have to shake my head no.

"Our parents want us home tonight, but you guys go ahead without us," Charlie answers. Daniel looks around for opinions until Mateo gives his thoughts.

"We'll just reschedule for next week. Let's just head back to school so everybody can pick up their own cars."

The idea seems to settle nicely as we all shuffle into the van, same positions as the ride here, where we end up spending the ride mocking Mateo for how awful of a loser he is. I end up tuning everybody else to gaze out the window.

I love autumn. It's only early October so the crisp leaves are just beginning to fall down from the trees. They've all already began to shift from their usual shades of green to warmer hues of red, orange, and yellow. There's a slight nip in the air but it hasn't became too chilly outdoors yet.

It's gotten fairly late, seeing as we must've spent an hour or so at the local mini golf place together. The sun is setting in the distance, mimicking the tones of the leaves but with a slight extra tint of vivid magenta and dreamy violet.

I'm snapped out of my own world quite literally. As soon as my eyes adjust to what's before me, I see my brother snapping aggressively if that's even possible. "We're here. Let's go."

I exit the vehicle with Mateo on my trail who gives me a quick wave before heading in the other direction of the now deserted parking lot where he must've parked his own car. Jasmine stays with Daniel who had offered to drive her home, and the last thing I hear her say before they disappear into the distance is a shouted, "Where the hell were you this afternoon?"

"And then there were three," Bryce jokes, walking with us around to the other side of the building. We pause in front of my brother's car, which he swiftly climbs into, but Bryce haults me before I can do the same.

"Can I see your phone?" he asks.

He's smiling and laid back per usual, so I don't question him; I just unlock my phone with my finger print before handing it over to him. He swipes over a screen, undoubtedly searching for something in particular before tapping on an app and typing something.

When he gifts the device back to me, I see he's added himself into my contacts, his number showing up beside his name.

I look up to meet his eyes and for some reason they're suddenly a little darker than usual, a little less amber and a little more emerald.

Just like that he leaves to walk a few spots over to the deep red pickup truck I spotted this morning, the last car in the lot.

There's a shocker.

"Text me, Blossom!" he calls across, and I give him a goofy grin just as he drives away.

I hop up into the passenger seat of Charlie's truck, buckling my seat belt before reclining the chair a little bit and leaning back into it with a sigh.

"How are you holding up?" Charlie asks.

"Fine, I guess. Just confused."

"I'm happy he's back. You are too?"

"For sure."