I usually rode to school with Carson every morning but he told me to get a different ride today since he had to drive a friend to school. That wasn't usually a problem since i'm cool with all his friends, but he said it was different this time because this was a "new" friend.

I don't know why he was being weird about it. If he was picking up a girl he could've just told me.

So I drove with Leah this morning. We stopped by a drive through to get some coffee before heading to school. Leah was obsessed with iced coffee and I liked it too, I just didn't drink it as often as she did.

"So I know he told you." Leah said over the quiet song playing as she took her first sip.

"Who told me what?" I played dumb.

"I know Tristan told you about how he spends his Saturday nights."

"How did you know before me." I threw my hands up in disbelief.

"Honey of course I knew, that's why Tate and I were only a summer thing. He said he was going to get really busy with it and that he didn't want to keep me waiting. But as it turns out, I think he was the one who didn't like waiting." she took her eyes off the road for a second to wink at me.

"Okay but why didn't you tell me?"

"It wasn't my secret to tell. Plus, I knew Tate wanted him to tell you first so he kinda pushed the situation at hand."

"He's sneaky," I thought out loud, "I like him."

"Anyway," I changed the subject, "you only got us two coffees and I noticed we aren't driving in the direction of her house, where is Maylan?"

"She said she was getting a ride from someone else today. I don't know who though, she was being all secretive about it."

"Ew you don't think it's Riley do you?" I asked and then I took my own first sip of my coffee.

"No, she's smarter than that." Leah said confidently.

And then I choked on my coffee because a sudden thought occurred to me. Leah looked horrified at me while a had a coughing fit. She reached out and slapped my back a couple of times.

"Oh my god," I said as I caught my breath, "Carson told me he couldn't give me a ride to school this morning because he was driving his new friend." I put air quotations up when I said the word "new."

Leah opened her mouth to say something but closed it again and frowned at the thought. Then her eyes clicked with recognition.

"Those sneaky bitches thought we were stupid Ada."

"Carson always parks in the back of the school. If he hurry we can hide out and spy on them."

and then she floored it all the way to the school.

When we got there, we parked far away in the back, behind a big truck so that they wouldn't recognize Leah's car. We did end up making it before Carson did so we both got out of the car and went to hide behind a wall.

"Oh shh, here's his car." I said as he parked in our line of vision.

We waited patiently but he just stayed there in his car with who we assumed to be Maylan.

Out of no where, a voice disrupts our spying, "what the hell are you two up to?"

"SHHHHHH!" I aggressively shushed and pulled Tristan down to duck behind the wall with us. He grunted a little and I remembered that he was still recovering from his injuries. "Sorry! we're spying on my brother though, you could have blown our cover."

He peeked his head over with us, "why did you sush me, he's like a mile away and in his car."

"The same reason you're whispering. It goes with the detective vibes."

"Look, here we go!" Leah whispered and the three of us looked over the wall to see Carson walking to the other side of his car to open the door for his ride.

and then Maylan walked out with a smile on her face.

and then all three of us gasped out loud.

——————————

At the end of the day, I got to detention before Tristan did. In fact, I was the first one in the classroom. I was just sitting there alone, scribbling down different math equations for my homework, when Tristan threw a small bag onto my notebook.

It was a bag of our favorite gummies and I gasped out loud. I could practically feel my eyes light up in excitement.

"Would've given it to you earlier but we were a little distracted."

I told Leah and Tristan to keep what we had discovered to ourselves so I could grill Carson about it when we got home. Leah had a hard time with it during lunch because she would drop some shady comments about it, but from what I could tell, neither of them caught on.

"Wait, what's this for?" I asked suddenly suspicious but picked the bag up anyway.

"You helped me clean up Saturday night and gave me a place to stay," he said keeping his face neutral, "plus you let me use your favorite pillow."

"You didn't have to pay me back for that, I'm glad it happened. But thank you."

"You're glad it happened?" he asked the corner of his mouth slightly rose.

I nodded my head with a smile, not missing the fact that he asked with his tone slightly flirtatious.

"Would you have still come if Tate hadn't said anything?" I asked, thinking back to the time that he had basically exposed Tristan being an underground fighter.

"I mean, probably not. I didn't really want you to find out, especially the way that it did." He said and then after a moment he added, "Tate's an idiot. I told him I didn't want you finding out and he still told you anyway."

"You talked about me with Tate?" I knew he did based off my conversation with Leah this morning, but I didn't miss a chance to tease Tristan about it.

I saw the top of his ears turn red, which stood out against his black hair.

He didn't get the chance to say anything back because the rest of our small group of detention joined us then.

Before the teacher had the chance to walk in and silence us completely, I whispered to Tristan, "Do you regret telling me?"

He looked at me for a while as if considering this and then he whispered back, "no."

Only in that moment I don't think either of us knew he really meant, not yet.