Treat You Better

Chapter Thirteen: Friends Who Always Have Your Back

We waved, mouths still open and watched them drive away.

"Did the Late Heather Frances Sullivan's son just walk out of my house or am I jumping into conclusions?" Dad asked, still in slight shock.

"You're jumping but into the right conclusions." I replied.

"You're still grounded."

"I know." I was so gonna milk it!

(╭☞•́⍛•̀)╭☞

"Sorry, Hale. I can't do dinner tonight, I'm grounded" I said into the phone at lunchtime. Hale was literally sitting a few tables behind me with his usual group of friends but I didn't turn around once to see his face.

"Omg, he looks so mad" Annie giggled.

"What kind of father doesn't let you see your own boyfriend?" Hale hissed into the phone and I shrugged.

"I don't know, I'm really sorry. This is uh...hard for me too but he's really putting his foot down about this."

"You do realize that we're going to have to go shopping for our Paris trip, right?" He was mad, really mad.

"Paris?" I asked, struggling not to look over my shoulder. Susan and Annie shared a confused look.
"You never said we were going to Paris" I only knew about this because Angelo warned me ahead.

"Of course I did, you probably don't remember because you were messing around with my cousin!"

"I wasn't-" I took a deep breath. "I don't want to go to Paris." This was far easier to say since I couldn't see him but I half expected to be impaled by an arrow from behind.

"Too bad this isn't your decision to make, mother already booked tickets and made all arrangements, we're leaving next week so I don't know what tricks to you have to pull but make your father cancel your punishment."

I held my head in my hand as I sighed, "I can't do that, Hale, you...."

Suddenly, the phone got swiped out of my grip and I looked up to see Annie grinning right at Hale over my shoulder with the phone pressed to her ear.

"You're bothering us, Frances. We're trying to enjoy our lunch but you're making our food taste bad. Get lost forever, bye!"

"Amen!" Susan yelled with a grin.

Annie smiled with self-satisfaction and handed me my phone back.
"Thanks" I mouthed to her shyly.

"So...what do you think about the AngeloXViolet account?" Susan asked out of the blue.

"Not this again," I sighed.

"Be supportive, I've gotten a hundred more followers in a few days already!" She chided lightly before showing me her phone. "Check out my latest post from this morning."

Before taking the phone, I already knew she was referring to English, the one class we all had together.
Susan was on the row next to us so she had a good shot of Angelo sitting in front while I was behind him, free to stare at the back of his head.

Anyways, in the video, I leaned forward in my seat to return his ring. I didn't know it was permanently mine, okay?
I told him thank you and he turned all the way in his seat to look at me with a frown.

I shrank back shyly as he got in my face but I held the ring out to him and said something, he said something back with a very Angelo-y eye roll and pushed my hand back to myself.

The caption of the video read, "Shh, but it's HIS ring."

The likes were coming in fast!

"What do you think, huh?" Susan wiggled her eyebrows as I looked up at her.