Chapter twenty six

I still don't know how I feel about this chapter. Hmmm....

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Before I even have a chance to knock on Mias door, Mason swings it open half naked. And by half naked I mean everything gone except for a too small pair of Spider Man boxers.

When it comes to seeing guys naked, I have to say Mason doesn’t fulfill any kind of fantasies. Like, at all. Hair trails down his stomach and ends in a small,surly growing,  beer gut.

Probably from college parties and living it up too much while away from home. He wasn’t big, perse, he was just what you would call an average looking college kid.

He leans against the door in front of me and scratched his stomach hair while chomping on a pop-tart. His blonde hair is disheveled every which way and he gives me a big grin.

Okay, Mason wasn’t that bad of a guy to look at. But that didn’t change how I felt about him.

“Is it christmas already?” I raise my eyebrow at the statement and he smiles, crumbs falling on his chest. He leans back and the sun hits his boxers. “I mean ... you know what? This pick up line worked last week on the girl at the hardware store.”

“Mhmmm.” I give him a weird look and he sighs, kicking off the door and turning around. He waves his hand in the air and starts to walk away, leaving the door open.

“This is what I get for trying to charm my sisters friends. Speaking of Mia, she’s upstairs.” I push through the door and lightly shut it behind me. I hear him still mumbling under his breath and I try not to laugh.

I’m about to take the stairs when Mason calls over his shoulder. “Oh and when you get done figuring out what the hell is wrong with her, tell her I have some laundry that needs done. She still owes me from that time...”

I don’t bother hearing the rest because if I did, I would probably be stuck down stairs hearing some long pointless rant. Shaking my head, I bound up the stairs, taking them two at time. The only time Mia ever only freaks out is when something seriously major went down.

I bring my hand to her door knob and twist it open when my phone buzzes yet again. Seriously it was becoming a really annoying recurring theme. With the door still half open, I pull my phone out and see it’s Kayla. I click the talk button and when I put my phone to my ear, she starts talking.

“Where the hell are you?!” Before I can answer her, she lets out annoyed breath. I hear a car honk behind her and a a snip bit of someone conversation.

“Whatever, forget it. Just if mother asks where I am, tell her I went to Mia’s or something. I’ll be home before morning.” Again, before I can say anything else, she hangs up on me.

I close my eyes for a moment and squeeze the door knob harder. It felt like things were slowly getting out of hand and while I am usually the one who put things back together, this time I just knew I couldn’t. I wasn’t the same Kelsey. The one everyone could run too when they needed something.

I was also a little annoyed that I haven’t heard from Julio at all.

Yeah, a phone can go both ways but ... whatever.

“Kelsey? Is that you? Oh my god, please say it’s you.”

I open my eyes at Mia’s urgent voice and I push the door all the way and walk in to see her pacing circles into her floor. Her hair is up in a messy bun and her her mouth is in a tight, worried line.

I take in her messy clothes and wonder what the hell happened. Worry eats away at me and when she see’s me standing there, all wide eyes, she stops.

“Kelsey you have to believe me when I say I didn’t know.” She shouts quickly, going back to pacing around. She runs her hands through her hair and I walk over and grab her elbow, making her stop.

“Mia, what happened?”

She looks up at me in between her eyelashes and she bites her lip nervously. I slowly guide her to her bed and we both sit on the edge. Her hand is sweaty in mine and her silence is making me even more nervous and worried. I drop my hand from her elbow and she finally talks.

“Remember when I told you I was staying at Aiden’s house? Because Sterling and all that?” I nod my head slowly, my eye brows drawing together. I had no idea where she was going with this...

She takes a deep breath and threads her hands together between her knees. “Well, Sterling canceled and what not. Either way, I still planned on staying at Aiden’s. You know, so I could get to know the rest of his family and all that.”

She takes in a shaky breath and she suddenly jumps from the bed, heading toward her dresser. She talks while she walks.

“Aiden’s mom needed help with something in the kitchen and he told me to go ahead and make myself comfortable. Well you knew how much it still bothered me about the money he won with Mason, so I decided to do something stupid.”

“I’m not following. What could you have done that was so bad?”

She pulls open her dresser drawer slowly and pulls something out. Her back is still to me so I have no idea what it might be. “Kelsey you know I love him, don’t you?” Her back tenses and I stand up, confused beyond belief. Whatever she did couldn’t have been that bad, right?

“Mia...”

Before I can finish, she turns around swiftly and thrusts something in my hands. I look down a little startled and when I see a jewelry box in my hand, I let out a little surprised gasp.

With shaky hands, I pull the lid open and what I see inside has to be the most beautiful ring I have ever seen.

“Is this what I think it is?” I say under my breath, my fingers running over the silver band. A small diamond rises from the middle and two smaller ones are on each side.

I see something etched into the surface on the surface and I look up at Mia and raise an eyebrow. She nods her head slowly and I lift the ring out, raising it to the light. When I read what it says I almost drop the ring right then and there.

On the front it says Forever mine and on the back of the band it says it black cursive Truly yours, Aiden. My mind runs over everything Mia said earlier and I just stare at the ring.

If this was obviously what I thought it was and if Mia has the box then that means....

“Oh my god, you stole it!” I yell, almost dropping the ring.

Mia shakes her head fast, grabbing the ring from me and thrusting it in the box like it was on fire. She shuts the lid and shoves it back into her drawer. When she turns around, she gives me a small smile.

“Well, it’s not called stealing if it is already technically mine.”

I stare at her, my mouth threatening to pop open. That was seriously the worst logic in the history of logic. “Mia you can’t be serious!” She groans and rubs her hands down her face.

“Kelsey, I saw it and freaked! It was just looking through his bag and I seriously had no idea what it was. Like, at all. When I opened it my mind kind of just went... blank.”

“You can say that again.” I mumble, sitting on the edge of her bed. She comes forward and drops next to me, her head in her hands.

“I heard Aiden coming up the stairs and I just .. I don’t know. I shoved the box in my jacket, told Aiden I had to go, and walked all the way here. In the snow, might I add.”

“Wait,” I say, catching onto what she said. “Are you telling me you didn’t tell Aiden anything?” When she shakes her head, still looking down, I groan.

“Mia, he could be on his way here any minute! Then what? It’s not like you can apologize and say you just ‘accidently’ ran off with your engagement ring!”

And I so did not want to be here when that happened. I grab Mia’s hand and pull her up with me. I fish my keys out of my pocket and hook then around my fingers.

“Okay,” I tell her, taking a deep breath.”We will go to Aidens and you will return the ring before he even notices it is missing. Then, when he does pop the question, you better act so surprise you won’t even know what happened.”

I start to head toward the door while she goes to her dresser and gets the ring. I’m about to open the door when another thought comes to my mind.

“Wait,” I turn around and lean against the door. This whole thing was kind of exhausting. “Are you going to say yes?”

She’s freezes mid step while heading toward me and I see her hand tighten around the box. She has her jacket slung over her right arm and her face seems to pale a little.

“I... I don’t know.” She whispers and I slap my hands over my face. What was worse than Mia stealing the ring? Her denying Aiden the moment he pops the question. I swear I literally wanted to kill her at this moment. I drop my hands and let out my breath.

“Okay, right. Right ... Are you out of your mind?!” I ask her seriously and she makes a sound in the back of her throat like she might start crying.

“I don’t know Kelsey! Being engaged is a huge step. I mean, do I want to live forever with Aiden? Then what about college? I mean, I’m still trying to figure out my life for crying out loud. I have no idea what I want ... I don’t know if I even know how to make a wife. Oh my god, that means my last name is going to be Cash. Mrs. Mia Cash. Oh my God, I think I am going to be sick.”

I walk over and put my hands on her shoulder, signalling for her to breath in and out. “Listen, just because you say yes doesn’t mean you are going to get married tomorrow. Engagements can last months, hell even years. It’s not the end of the world Mia.”

She keeps breathing in and out and I remove my hands from her shoulders and lightly tap her with my hip.

“Do you love him?”

“Yes.”

“Then what else is there that you need to know?”

She lets out one more big whoosh of air and I try to give her the best smile I could. Though, on the inside, I was freaking out just as bad as she was. I have no idea what I would do if I was in Mia’s place.

I never saw myself married. Hell, I never saw myself even being in a relationship that long. Which of course brings me back to Julio. Were we dating? Yes? No? Did we need the label in the first place? What if I end up getting all clingy like all those girls used to do in highschool?

Okay, obviously whatever freak out Mia is currently having is rubbing off on me. I shake my head to clear my thoughts and try to steer the conversation away from boys, rings, and relationships.

“Speaking of horrible things. Mason told me to tell you that you still have to do his laundry.” She notices the topic change and thank God she decides to go along with it.

“Yeah,” She says, putting the ring box in her jacket pocket and following me out of her room. “I called him about .. Aiden and what not. Turns out even family expects payment for news. Go figure.”

I smile a little at Mia’s words. Ever since I first started hanging around the Hastings house, Mason and Mia went at it. It was kind of cute.

“Anyways,” She continues slowly.”Mason was telling me about this college thing where girls tape their -”

“Mia?” Mia and I freeze at the voice and I look down the stairs and see Aiden kicking the door close behind him. Mia tenses next to me and Aiden looks up, running his fingers through his hair to get the snow out. His eyes go from me to Mia and his lips turn down at the side.

Oh, come on!

We were so close...

“A-aiden.” Mia stutters and I want to slap my hand over my face. Mia only stuttered when she got really nervous.

Which I am sure Aiden knew. I watch as he pulls off his gloves and stuffs him in his back pocket, taking a step forward.

“Did I do something?” He asks, anger underlying his words. Before Mia can say anything he lets out a hard breath and yanks his hands through his hair again.

“This is about staying at my moms house isn’t it? Look, if you didn’t want to you could have just told me.”

Mia seems to snap out of whatever funk she is in and I feel her take a step forward, her eyes narrowing into thin slits. “What are you saying Aiden?” Aiden gives her a hard look, a muscle ticking in his jaw.

He throws his hands up, indicating the room around him.

“Sometimes I get the feeling that everything I do lately is wrong. You haven’t told me something is up with you, but I know something is. What the hell aren’t you telling me?!” Mia takes the steps two at a time, reaching the floor faster than I ever could.

“What’s wrong? Why don’t you tell me Aiden. You are the one keeping the secrets.” She sets her hand on her hip and when she does what happens next is enough to make God have a heart attack.

Her jacket moves with her force and the ring box flips over, landing on the ground with a loud smack. Aidens eyes snap to the noise and when he see’s the box, he stumbles back.

Aiden never stumbles.

Oh yeah, this was bad. Everything is deathly quiet and I feel like I was stuck in the eye of a hurricane. Any minute things were going to go south of bad and all I wanted was to get out before that actually happened.

Tightening my right hand around my keys, I take a step down the stairs.

“So, I think -” I start, but Aiden’s voice cuts me off.

“Is that what I think it is?”

He’s voice is deathly quiet, yet it feels like it’s the only thing taking up the room. Mia looks at the box and her hands tremble, her mouth opening and closing.

Aiden reaches down and picks up the box, his fingers running over the outside. He meets Mia’s eyes and shakes his head.

“You knew this whole time?” Mia closes her eyes tightly and opens them, her words finally coming to her.

“No, no! I didn’t. I knew about the money and that was what has been bothering me lately. I wanted to tell you but-”

“But what Mia?” He asks, his hands tightening around the box. “That you couldn’t come to me when something bothered you? Yeah, I would have lied, but you didn’t trust me.” He laughs but it doesn’t hold any humor.

“You didn’t even trust me enough to ask me.”

“It’s not like that!” She shouts, reaching for his arm. He takes a startled step back and Mia drops her hand, hurt.

“It’s exactly like that.” Before Mia can say anything else, he turns on his heel and grabs for the doorknob, flinging it open. He takes a step outside and suddenly stops.

“Just so you know.” He says softly, his voice cold. “You were everything I ever asked for. I was willing to do everything for you. Here, Kitten,”

He suddenly puts the box on the ground, straightening out. “I don’t need this anymore.”

And before Mia and I can even blink, he walks down the driveway, cursing under his breath and slamming his car door.

I stare at the door and suddenly look at Mia. She stares at the box on the ground and tears fill her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. She slowly walks toward the box and picks it up, the sun bouncing off the cover.

“You know what Kesley?” She suddenly says, her voice choking on tears. I hurry down the stairs and wrap my arms around her. She snuggles her head into my shoulder and my shirt is slowly getting wet from her tears.

“What?” I ask, wondering how things went to hell so suddenly. Even though Mia was my best friend, I get where Aiden was coming from.

I told Mia before she should have went to Aiden. If she did, maybe things would be different right now. Instead she didn’t trust him and a part of me understands that too. She was probably scared, just like I was, to get too close.

“I was wrong upstairs.” She pulls back and she runs her arm under her nose. her arm shaking. She looks out the door where Aiden was now gone and she says under her breath,

“I would have said yes.”

And that’s how we stay, standing there looking out the front door, until my mother calls and tells me to get back home.