Chapter fourteen

Okay, so here it is!

This chapter, I have to admit, was fun to write. I love when Mia, Kelsey and Kayla all make an appearance at the same time. They seriously have the best kind of friendship and I love all three of them to pieces.

Anywyas, here it is and I hope you like it!

Enjoy ~

- NickyMb <3

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“ You touch your hair one more time, I’m killing you.”

I look over at Mia as she straightens out my review mirror and looks at Kayla in the back seat. Kayla, with her hands entangled in her hair and bobby pins in her mouth, glares up at Mia. I go to turn back in my seat, when Mia decides to take her eyes off the road and look at me instead.

The look was pure evil.

“What?” I say as innocently as I possibly can. To be honest I have no idea if she was mad about the fact that I threw my drink all over my blind date or that I ruined an important phone call.

When I walked out of the restaurant, I could see from the doors that Mia was talking angrily at someone through the phone. Who? I have no idea. Kayla was still talking to the gas station guy, so she didn’t notice me until Mia did.

At first, they both looked shocked. Like I said before, I never go back on a promise. Ever. It was something I felt was important and they both knew that. But, the shock was short lived. The moment I was close enough to hear them, Mia was the first one to talk.

“He must be having a heart attack or be dead in his soup. There is no way you would just up and leave for no reason.” I didn’t even get to say anything before Kayla turned from her gas station buddy and looked me up and down.

“I assume you have a good reason?” I looked at them both and... laughed.

I didn’t know at the time if I was laughing because it was seriously funny or because I was still running on pure adrenaline. All I knew was I threw a drink on a complete stranger, something I should have been horrified about, and I agreed to meet Julio.

I still don’t know which one is the more scary conclusion.

They both looked at me, each other, and then back at me. I leaned one hand against my car as I scrubbed my hand over my face, my laughing coming to a sad end. “Your taste in guy’s are plain awful.” I said with my hand over my face. Then, of course, that made me think of my blind dates face after I poured the water on him, and I laughed again.

“Am I seeing this correctly or am I hallucinating again?” Kayla says aloud and I don’t even bother to comment.

Not once in my life have a done anything as extreme as that. I’m not saying I am miss goody good girl, because even I have had my share of daring moments, but I have never acted on such... impulse.

Usually Kayla was the impulsive one. Hell, even Mia had her impulsive days. I was usually the girl along for the ride.

Never was I the girl actually coming up with the things in life. In that moment though, In that moment when I had no idea what was going to happen next, was the best feeling I have had in years.

Now, looking at Mia’s face, I can’t help but smile. It was getting a little sickening, this smiling high, but I planned on riding it until I worked it to the bone.

Mia just shakes her head at me and goes back to looking at the road, her hands gripped tight on the steering wheel.

Of course, that brings me back to her on the phone earlier. The way she was walking back and forth, her mouth in a tight line, I knew something was wrong.

Now, watching her fold her face into a mask of indifference, I know something is wrong.

“Is everything okay?” I finally ask, taking the attention off of me and putting it on her. The place it needs to be.

Her eyes quickly dart to me then back to the road. She waits a minute and then lets out a long breath, as if she had been holding it for awhile.

“It’s nothing important...” She says in a voice that means whatever it was really was important. I feel Kayla lean forward in the back seat and I reach over and tap my radio off.

When it get’s completely silent, we all know the next move is on Mia herself.

As if she can’t hold it in any long, Mia lets the ball drop. “Mason called me asking if he could borrow five hundred dollars. When I told him I didn’t have that money, that it was hard enough for me and Aiden to make rent and pay for college and stuff already, Mason decided to give me some unsettling news.”

She takes in a deep breath and continues. “Apparently Aiden was at his dorm the other night, when I was helping Kayla study, and he was gambling.”

“Did he lose a shit load of money?” Kayla pipes in and Mia shakes her head, her dirty blonde hair falling in her eyes.

“ No he won. Seven grand.”

That sentence alone hangs in the cold silence for a moment. To be honest, I have no idea why Mia was mad.

Sure, gambling can turn into a serious problem if not handled properly, but if it was truthfully a once in awhile thing, then were was the harm?

Apparently Kayla was on the same page.

“I’m sorry Mia, but I’m not getting it.” She says, shrugging and leaning back. Mia grips the steering wheel harder for five seconds and lets off slightly.

“No, winning isn’t the problem. It’s why didn’t he tell me? I mean, sure he doesn’t have to tell me everything and he doesn’t have too, but when I asked him what he did when I was gone, he said he helped his mom with something. Why wouldn’t he tell me he was at my brothers dorm, let alone that he won seven grand?”

Now I see where this was going. I sweep my hair into a side ponytail and clear my throat. “Well, did you ask him?”

For me, that was the most logical thing to do. If you have a problem with somebody, shouldn’t you go to them first?

I have been in so many relationships to know that the one thing that will ruin them is trust. If you can’t trust the person you care about the most, who can you trust?

Mia, a mess of worries, throws one hand in the air. “ When I tried calling him, the phone went straight to voice-mail. Plus, what am I going to say? Oh, wheres the seven grand you won? What if he doesn’t want to tell me?”

Before any of us can give an answer, Mia’s phone goes off.

We all jump from the sudden noise and Mia hurriedly goes to get her phone out of the glove box where she put it. Me, not wanting to get in an accident, moves her hand out of the way and hands it to her.

The minute she gets it in her hand, she presses the talk button without even bothering to look at the caller I.D.

I lean my head against the window, letting Mia’s problems wash over me and away. I think the best thing she could do was tell Aiden what she knew.

But, even If I told her this, she wouldn’t say anything. Mia was someone who was too hard headed for her own good. The best I could do as her best friend was be there for her along the way.

“The hell? I don’t care if this is sexy talking ... Wait, Julio is this you?” Before Mia can even finish the sentence, I sit up fast in my seat. Mia eyes skate to mine curiously and back to the road.

“ Right. Huh-uh. Wait, Aiden isn’t there? Oh, he is? Then why the hell couldn’t you tell him this! Seriously? Do you two find this funny? No! I swear to God Julio ... Date? What the hell do you mean...” Before Mia even finished talking, she looked at me again and I smack my hands over my face.

Julio ....

“I don’t have time for this. Your date is on the way. Bye.” She turns off her phone and stops at a red light. With her attention off the road, she turns her whole body toward me. Kayla, who was listening to the conversation the whole time, looks at me too, her mouth wide open.

“What?” I ask them both like I did earlier.

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises.” Mia says, tapping her fingers on her phone suggestively. Kayla, who was always the one to cut to the chase, clicks her tongue.

“You know what? I don’t even care about Mia’s weird conversation or why Julio called her. I don’t even care that the gas station guy wrote his number on my thigh a little too high for my caring. I don’t even care that I got the wrong hair dye yet again last night. What I want to know, more than anything, is why the hell. No, how the hell, do you have a date with Julio freaking Hernandez. “

The sad thing is I couldn’t even answer her question. The truth was this wasn’t even a date. It was something I owed Julio in return of him actually doing the project we had in chemistry together.

If it was a date, I would be getting ready. If it was a date, I would have told Mia and Kayla right away. If it was a date, I would be stressing over a million things. Though, why did it feel like it was?

I mean, even though he infuriated me, Julio wasn’t that bad.

He was there when I needed him that one night and for some reason, which was beyond me, I liked being near him.

Mia and Kayla must see something on my face because I actually blush.

“Oh my fucking God Kayla, she’s blushing!” Kayla laughs and I shake my head as if that will make the blush go away somehow.

It doesn’t.

“Do you like him?” Kayla says, poking me in the shoulder and this time I sober up. I look at them both seriously and say with such conviction, “ No. I don’t like him like that. This is just a deal thing going on here.”

“ Huh-uh. We all know how a ‘friend thing’ ended up for me.” I look over at Mia, who was back on the road, and roll my eyes.

“This is not going to end up anything like you and Aiden. Julio and I have nothing in common.” Mia laughs as if I just told the punch line of some really funny joke.

“Oh sweetie, you are clueless. Do you honestly think I have anything in common with Aiden?”

I don’t say anything as Kayla comes forward and wiggles her eyebrows at me. “I have a feeling, very soon, I will be the only single one out of the group.”

Mia looks at her over her shoulder while turning on her blinker. “Right. To the girl who has a different guy every week.”

Kayla, who didn’t have anything to say to that, shrugs again and goes back to fixing her hair in the back seat. I see the sign for Mia’s apartments up head and I take in a deep breath.

It wasn’t a date.

A deal.

Strictly business.

While Mia turns into the complex, she cuts a look at me. “Be careful Kelsey. Julio... he isn’t like the rest of us.”

I don’t have time to read into what she says, because sitting on his motorcycle backwards, hair swaying different ways and a stressed leather jacket ever present, is Julio. His feet are crossed at the ankle and his arms are slung over backwards on the handles of his motorcycle.

His face is turned toward the sky and his eyes are closed. Aiden, on his own hood, has the same stance as him minus the leather jacket and crazy hair.

“Guess I’m stuck with loving the grass. It is some nice looking grass...” Kayla mutters under her breath as my heart picks up.

Nerves.

They run through me as I never felt before. I close my eyes and I feel my heart still pounding away. My foot moves to some sort of beat, because at this point I have to move something or I would go crazy.

This wasn’t right.

I can’t go through this.

I take a deep breath and open my eyes. My heart slows down a little and I rub my hand down my leg. Logical. I had to think logical. I bring my fingers to my neck and I count my heart beat, 1,2,3,4.

I take in another breath and when Mia pulls into the space next to Aidens car, my heart beat was somewhere near the normal range.

The thing is I can’t let that happen. If I let myself think for one moment that me and Julio could be anything more then the deal we were, I would go crazy.

Like I said, love isn't for me. With or without Julio. I think the one thing I learned after so many years of give and take is that I don’t think anyone out there will ever love me as much as I could love them.

That’s the hardest part.

For me, love is surrendering yourself, your whole self, to that person. They have a key to a chest that only they could open. The one you loved could bring you to hell and back and only you would understand everything about them.

At least, that's how I looked at love. I love with everything in me and more and I guess that’s why the bottom always drops out.

The guy’s I loved before were never in for the long run. Which, I guess is a stupid way to think. But, every girl wants the guy she’s with to be her forever. If she doesn’t, then she doesn’t love him.

As simple as that.

Julio wasn’t my forever. How could he be? His life and mine were going two different way. HIs black heart couldn’t love a girl and I couldn’t be the girl to love him back.

Right now, my life had a plan. And sadly, he wasn’t in it.

Mia turns off my car and pulls out my keys. She closes her eyes for a quick second and then pops open her door. She looks over at me and the looks says to keep my mouth shut.

Even though I think what she was doing was the wrong thing, I nod my head toward her and Kayla slings open the back door and hops out, stretching out her legs.

Me? I take my time. Because I know the minute I open the door, the night I owed to Julio will officially begin. And I was truly worried about what a night with Julio consisted of. Probably hijacking a car and drinking till one passed out.

“Can I take your car?” I don’t even have the door all the way open before Kayla asks the question. I find my way all the way out before I actually look at her.

“Why?” My car was something I cherished and I only let a few people drive it. Mia was among those few trustee’s.

She sighs and scoops her hair over her shoulder. “Look, I know I haven’t had the best run ins with cars, “

“If be run ins you mean crashing  two cars, “

“But,” She says, ignoring my input. “I have somewhere to be tonight. Just this once. Please.”

She looks up at me, her eyes wide. She blinks a few times, waiting for me to take the bait, and sadly I do. I take my keys out of my pocket and put them in her eager hands.

When she has them, she closes her hand around the cold metal and sends me a big smile.

I give her a look, one telling her that if she crashed my car there would be some serious repercussions, and she leans over and pats my shoulder.

“Oh, don’t be a worry wort. The car will be absolutely fine. I swear on Holy Mary herself.”

She removes her hand from my shoulder and with a bounce in her step, heads to the driver side of my car. Within thirty seconds, she was backing up and heading to only God knows where.

With the car gone, I know have a clear view of the earlier scene. Aiden and Julio still sit upon their  different vehicles, Mia being the only changing factor. Bringing my hand behind my back, I take in a deep breath, and take the first step.

The first step to what? I have no idea. But when Julio lifts his head, his dark eyes meeting mine, I know from just that look alone that whatever happened tonight would start something.

But when he smiled, that self-assured, womanizing smile, I knew that I was in for the ride of my life.

And Julio Hernandez was the guy willing to give it to me.