The Pretend Boyfriend

Chapter 13

“I knew you were trouble when you walked in! So shame on me now-” I answered my phone before the obnoxious song could continue.

            “What Ashton?” I snapped, putting it on speaker phone. I was trying to paint my nails and he was interrupting.

            “Why is your ringtone so annoying?” he asked, sounding bored.

            “It’s not. That’s only my ringtone for when you call-” I stopped. “Wait… how did you know what my ringtone was? I just changed it to that an hour ago…”

            “Surprise!” I screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin when Ashton burst into my room.

            “What the fuck are you doing here?” I shrieked.

            “You should’ve seen your face!” Ashton was still laughing hysterically at my frightened state, tears coming to his eyes.

            “Asshole, what are you doing here?” I repeated, capping the nail polish bottle and standing up.

            “You’re Mom let me in on her way out. Anyways, I’m taking Charlie out for mini-golf and he kept asking if you’d come too. And since I knew you didn’t have plans on this fine Saturday, I decided that I would invite you.”

            I glared at him. “Well, you wanna know what, I do have plans. I’m not a loser who just sits at home on a Saturday.”

            He looked pointedly at the nail polish in my hand. “Seems like it.”

            I threw the nail polish at him, but it just bounced off his chest and landed on the carpet. “Jerk.”

            He held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, sorry. So do you want to come?” He asked again.

            “Nope, I really do have plans. As much as I’d love to hang out with Charlie, I’m meeting up with Lee in half an hour for a movie night,” I replied.

            “Invite her too?” Ashton suggested. It was cute how much he was trying to get me to come with him and Charlie.

            “Fine,” I grumbled, sending a text to Lee. To my dismay, she was eager to go mini-golfing with Ashton and Charlie.

            Ashton smiled in triumph when I showed him the text. “Okay, let’s go.”

            We picked up Lee five minutes later, and were then on our way to the mini-golf course.

            “Who’s that?” Charlie whispered to me when Lee had gotten in the car.

            “That’s Natalia,” I told Charlie, giving him her full name. Lee hated to be called Natalia, which is why she went by her nickname in the first place.

            Lee just stuck her tongue out at us, so I pulled a face at her as well.

            “California?” Charlie tugged on the sleeve of my shirt. “When are we going to get there?”

            “I dunno, Char. Ask your brother, I’ve never been there before.” I looked down at him in his superhero car-seat.

            “Okay. Hey Ashy? When are we going to get there?” Charlie repeated the question to Ashton.

            “Fifteen minutes,” Charlie called from the front seat. He had a box taking up the entire passenger seat so Charlie was seated between Lee and I, all of us crammed in the back.