we're not kids anymore || boyxboy

Chapter 18

Friday
02:44PM

"Best friend!"

Kingston shuts the door of his car, snickering at the way Jaeda is obnoxiously waving at him. He puts his Louis Vuitton backpack on his back before locking his car and going over to where Jaeda is.

"Hey Jae,"

"Don't 'Hey Jae' me — I'm mad at you, nigga."

"Girl, what did I—"

"Ignoring my texts and calls like I'm just some nigga who has nothing to offer you but mid dick and vibes."

"You're so unserious," Kingston laughs as Jaeda and him start walking down the busy streets of the city. He falls into step with her and she takes his hand, intertwining their fingers. "It's too hot to be holding hands."

Jaeda squeezes their hands so that Kingston can't let go of hers. "I don't care, I missed you and need to be disgustingly close to you for the next ten minutes. Also I need to make sure you don't go running away from me when we go to Santo's—"

"Jaeda—"

"I need money and that nigga got money." Jaeda argues before Kingston can get more than her name out of his mouth. Her best friend comes to a halt, halting her too, and she looks at him. "King, I'm not getting involved. I promised you that I wouldn't. Santo and I are still good. He doesn't even know that I know about your talk or whatever you want to call it." She assures him.

"It's not about you getting involved, Jae," Kingston sighs as he starts walking again. "It's you taking me to his shop, knowing that things are the way they are between us. We haven't spoken in nearly two weeks." He says. Chrisanto hasn't bothered to reach out to him and neither did he to him either since that night in his bedroom.

Jaeda looks at Kingston while they walk. ''How are things between you two?'' She wonders. Kingston hasn't really spoken to her about things with Chrisanto after she went over to him in the middle of the night because he had called her in tears that Sunday. She thought that her brother and her best friend confessing their feelings for each other one day was going to help fix things between them. Or at least help them figure things out some way for the better. Clearly the opposite happened.

In all honesty, Kingston doesn't really feel like talking about what happened between Chrisanto and him. That night left him feeling sad. He was confused at first, but then Chrisanto's behavior towards him in the past started making some sense. Not that his best friend's behavior is justified, but a lot of it just started making sense to him. And he can't even fully blame Chrisanto for the way he acted back then. He can only imagine how the older guy must have been struggling trying to figure himself out. Kingston could never fully hold those things against his best frienf. Although he does believe that they, especially Chrisanto, could've handled things differently. They were best friends, they could have talked about this and figured it out together. But they didn't and now they're barely on speaking terms once again.

"Things are the way they are." Kingston answers vaguely. He might talk to Jaeda about things with Chrisanto, but at the end of the day everything revolving around them is really only between his best friend and him. Nobody else.

Jaeda sighs. She hates it when Kingston is trying to shut her out when he's clearly struggling. That's how they ended up not speaking for weeks, months even, back when he was with Darrius. Her best friend would refuse to talk to her or fully tell her about what was going on. ''Yeah, but what way are they?'' She questions.

They come to a halt again because Jaeda stops walking and Kingston looks to his right, reading the bold black letters on the window that read Santo's. This is only the second time he has come here. ''I don't really know.'' He sighs, turning his head to look at Jaeda. ''The only time we saw and spoke to each other was last Thursday when I ran into him at your parents' place. We barely spoke, just very rushed and dry heys."