The Seaside Café

Chapter 11- Why Aren't You Baristing?

Chapter 11- Why Aren’t You Baristing?

Emma's Point of View

“Carter!” Claire coos coming into the house on Friday evening. Since Claire loves Carter so much, she agreed last night to watch him tonight, because Michael and Caroline were going out and I had to go to the café. Caroline was only okay with it because Carter was feeling much better than he was at the beginning of the week.

“He just had dinner,” I warn Claire as she throws him into the air and he explodes into giggles. “so don’t throw him around too much.”

She immediately puts him down on the ground. “Oh, no. I mean, he’s cute, but him throwing up on me is so not cute.”

“Didn’t think so.” I laugh. “Anyway, Bubble Guppies will keep him occupied for a while and then you can play with him.” I sit Carter on the floor in front of the couch just as the Bubble Guppies theme song comes on and he cheers, dancing around the floor on his butt.

“He’s the cutest thing ever!” Claire giggles as we sit on the couch behind Carter. “But that could be because he comes from that God-like brother of yours.”

“Or it could be because he’s a baby.” I supply. “And all babies are cute until they throw up on you and pee in your bed.”

“Yeah, that could be true too.” She agrees with me. “Anyway, we need to talk about Jace Parker.”

I frown at that. “Why do we need to talk about Jace?”

“Well, for this New Year thing, we all have dates. Mason actually grew a pair and asked Harper, although they’re justifying it as ‘just friends’ or whatever, Mel obviously has Luke, and I invited Jonathan, who said yes.”

“Oh, the guy who punched me in the face.” I tease her. “Cool.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “He feels really bad about that, and you can’t say that it wasn’t your fault, you jumped in between two fighting boys, what did you expect?”

“Okay, sure,” I sigh heavily, running my fingers through my hair. “but do you really think it’s a good idea to invite Jonathan to something with Mason being there? I mean, I’m sure they still hate each other, or at least Mason hates him.”

“Yeah, well I talked to Mason and he said that he wouldn’t particularly enjoy it, but they’ll be civilized, so that’s good.” She informs me. “So you need to ask Jace.”

“What?” I laugh because I clearly misheard what she had just said.

“You need to ask Jace.” She repeats, totally serious.

“That’s kind of ridiculous.” I inform her. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you like him, and don’t say you don’t because you do.” Claire warns me.

I shake my head in the negative but I don’t say anything because I know that she’ll just fight me on it until I give up. I don’t like Jace like she thinks I do, I mean, I’m terrified of the guy and you can’t really base a crush on fear, that’d be all wrong, I think. “I’m not asking him to spend New Year with me.”

“Jonathan is going to be there, so it’s not like he’ll be missing out on spending it with his friends.” She points out.

“What about Chace?” I ask her. “Then he’d have to spend it by himself.”

“I’m sure he can come with us and just get a date of his own.” She justifies.

“Claire,” I whine loudly. “No.”