High Hopes | Luke Patterson

★彡 TWO

"So what made you decide to finally grace us with your presence again?" Flynn threw my way the moment I entered my room. The girl was splayed out on my bed with Julie sitting next to her, leaning back onto her arms. Willie claimed the bean bag chair at the foot of my bed. All three of them were looking at me expectantly.

"I'm really sorry guys. I was so busy this summer with my mom and work. I should have made more time for you-" I started to apologize but Willie interrupted me. "It's fine, Mars. She's joking. We know you had a lot going on." He sat up a little and a cheeky smile took over his face. Oh no. "And the new boyfriend, of course."

I groaned and threw my head back, sitting down on my desk chair. "I don't have a secret boyfriend." I said and sent my cousin a glare. Julie held her hands up in defence. "I just told them you were texting a boy." She was not even supposed to know about that. She accidentally saw a text from Brody last week when we had dinner at her house.

"So who's that boy you're texting. If you haven't already told us about him, it has to be a secret. We usually know exactly who you're talking to." Flynn threw her braids over her shoulder eyeing my phone that was still lying on the edge of my bed.

"His name is Brody. I met him when I was busking at the pier." I said and I could feel my cheeks heat up under their staring. "But he's not really my boyfriend."

"Well, go on! Do you have a picture?" Flynn was sitting up now. I shook my head now and Flynn raised her eyebrows. "No Instagram?" I shook my head no again. "That's kinda sus. Then ask you to send you one. I wanna see this guy."

"He won't, trust me. He's not really a selfie taking kinda guy." I tried to explain, my fingers starting to pick at the yellow nail polish on my nails. "But he's really cute. He started talking to me when I was at the pier a couple of weeks ago. He works really close to the pier and goes there after work a lot. He said he watched me play a lot. He's into music as well."

"That's great, Mars." Willie smiled at me and nudged my foot with his. "We still wanna meet the guy. Is he in our grade? He can sit with us at lunch tomorrow."

"Oh, he doesn't go to Los Feliz. He's a little older." I laugh nervously and start digging through my brain for a new topic to distract them from this. Brody would freak out if he knew I was telling them about him. Today was really not my day. But I was hoping to get them off my back by at least giving them a name. It is not like I was embarrassed by Brody, but he did not want people to know about us yet. I mean, there wasn't even really an 'us' yet anyways. He made it very clear that he does not want to be boyfriend and girlfriend yet.

"What does a little older mean?" Julie questioned and looked at me with her eyebrows slightly furrowed. "He's in college? What is he studying?" Flynn asked before I could answer Julie's question.

"Music production." I chose to answer Flynn's question, seeing as she kinda gave me an out. It was not a lie technically. Brody did study music production. I could see Julie still had more questions, but we were interrupted by the doorbell ringing. I jumped off my chair and wiped my, by now slightly sweaty, hands on my pants before pulling Willie out of his bean bag chair by his arm. "Pizza is here!"

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We decided to eat downstairs in the living room. Raf only came down to grab a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza before fleeing back to his and Diego's room. Now that my friends were here it did not feel as awkward talking to Reggie anymore. I did not know why it felt so awkward in the first place.

We used to be super close before high school. Reggie, Luke and I had known each other since before kindergarten, seeing as we all live on the same street. In the middle of first grade Alex moved to Los Feliz and joined our little group. I could still remember that day.