𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 ;; 𝒶𝓊𝒷𝓇𝑒𝓎 𝓍 𝓀𝑒𝓁 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉𝓈

↳ 𝕥𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕡𝕒𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘 ( 𝕣𝕖𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥 ) ・❥・: ̗̀➛

Stop thinking like that, Kel! You have to stop before you get in too deep!

"Remember when we played card games here?" he asked to distract his thoughts. "I didn't win a lot..."

"That's because you suck at having a poker face," Aubrey answered with a smile.

"Hey, that's not true!"

She laughed, and he could feel his playful glare soften just at seeing her smile. Maybe I should—

No, he shouldn't do anything. Even if she looked absolutely adorable whenever she laughed, he should just ignore it all and shouldn't purposely make her laugh so he could so it more. That was probably selfish, in a way. Besides, he managed to ignore it this long. He could obviously ignore it for longer.

"It's always been true," she insisted with leftover laughter. "Everyone could tell when you had a bad hand. You looked so angry, and you always looked like you won the lottery when you had a good hand. You still suck at it. I saw you get embarrassed when that girl confessed her feelings to you yesterday. You couldn't look at her, and I'm pretty sure you stuttered."

"What? I—" She knew about that? How? Please don't think I'm dating her now...

"I was with Vance and Angel," Aubrey explained. "We were walking around school before we found you guys. I don't think you noticed us, but it was hilarious seeing you get so embarrassed. Actually, it was hilarious to see a girl actually liked you."

Kel did not like what she was implying by that, mainly because she was indirectly saying that she could never have feelings for him. It wasn't like he cared or anything like that, but it still hurt. But it didn't mean anything.

"Well, I'm not...dating her or anything like that," he said slowly to see her reaction.

"I know you're not. I could see how sad that girl looked. No clue why she liked you"—did she have to say that?—"but I guess she was hoping for some cute couple moments or something. Not sure you fit the part, though."

So, she was basically saying that he wasn't her type. He didn't care if others thought the same way, but why did it have to be her? He wasn't expecting her to outright say that he was someone she would date, but he also wasn't expecting her to eliminate any possibility of them dating. Again, he didn't care if they were dating or not. It wasn't his problem, and it definitely wasn't hers. It just hurt. Just a little. It wasn't big. Not at all. He didn't care.

Aubrey was frowning again. "Kel, are you okay? Did I say something wrong? Listen, you could get a partner who loves you a lot one day—"

"It's not that." It was that. But he didn't want to worry her. "I was just thinking about...Mari's cookies. Cookies in general. I want cookies. You wanna go get cookies? I think the bakery in OtherMart has fresh-baked ones for sale. They taste really good. Not as good as Mari's, but still pretty good."

Her frown didn't move, and it was worse when she placed her hand on his knee, her voice becoming just louder than a sweet, gentle whisper. "You can tell me if something is wrong, Kel. I won't get mad if it's my fault. I don't want to see you upset..."

In Kel's mind, there was chaos. On one hand, he didn't want her to worry, and he wanted to cheer her up. He couldn't answer her anyway, not when he was at the risk of losing their friendship again when he already went four years without her. On the other hand, he was so, so happy with how much she was caring about him. Her hand was on his knee, and the way she so carefully said, "I don't want to see you upset," made his heart beat at a rate that he thought was impossible.

Kel forced himself to choose the side to make her not worry about him. He made himself smile. "I'm fine, Aubrey! Really! I'll tell you if it's something you should worry about, but it's not. Trust me!" To keep her from replying and making things harder, he pinched her cheeks to make her smile.

Kel laughed at Aubrey's face as she forced his hands off her. His laughter died down when he realized she was still holding onto his wrists, even though she didn't need to now. He was going to say something when he realized she was looking out the window, and panic started enveloping her eyes. He didn't want her to look like that, so he turned to the window and tried to see what she was.

The new couple who recently moved in were coming towards the old treehouse. From their faces, it looked like they never knew the treehouse was even in their backyard—and they definitely didn't know two teenagers had trespassed onto their property to get to said treehouse. Uh oh.

- - - -

𝚈𝚊𝚢, 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎! 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚍𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚊 𝚋𝚒𝚝 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚝, 𝚜𝚘 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝, @ded1234heheha. 𝙸 𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚎𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚝, 𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑!

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 (𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙰/𝙽): 𝟸𝟶𝟺𝟸