Just Friends [✓]

19. Salt Meets Wound

Jake was impatiently tapping his feet and looking at his watch. Perhaps not oddly, he was dressed in a flannel shirt and washed up jeans. "What was so important that you had to take a day and a half?"

"I was speaking with Karla." I retorted, stepping close enough to place a kiss on Ethan's cheek and take both our bags away from him.

Jake's eyes grew just slightly. "How is she? Is she fine? Okay? Did she say anything?"

I raised a brow, "She's fine, she's okay and say anything about what exactly?"

His cheeks noticeably reddened but he looked down to avoid anyone else seeing it. "Nothing." He looked back up once most of it had disappeared. "Let's go watch us a falling star!" he shouted excitedly.

And while Ethan hooted, Abby growled. "For the hundredth time, it's not a falling star. It's a satellite that the government is deactivating and letting fall to earth and it just so happens to be falling very close to Idaho."

"Yeah," Jake laughed. "We'd be lucky if it doesn't kill us."

"Awesome." Ethan chimed in, opening the front door and leading us to the front of the lawn where Jake mom's minivan was parked on the curb.

While Russo was probably in the van itself, Suzy opted to be on the outside leaning against the exterior of the silver vehicle.

Ethan noticeably slowed once we started to get closer to her. At one point, he even tried to fake "ankle pains" before I guided him closer to where she stood. She took off her shades and darted her eyes between the both of us. "I see the awkward tension as all but disappeared." She noted, sarcastically so.

Ethan swallowed, "You look nice today, Suzy." I eyed him. "I mean you don't look great?" She eyed him. "I mean you look...I mean you don't look...I'm going to go inside the van now." He muttered, trying to take the bags out of my hand.

I snapped at his fingers and he recoiled. "You're having ankle pains, remember?"

He rolled his eyes, "Will you stop treating me like a kid? I sprained my ankle, not my manhood."

"That made no sense whatsoever." I retorted and opened the side door for him where the others were waiting – sans Jake who was still putting bags in the back of the van. "Now get in and sit comfy."

He grumbled something under his breath about me holding him by the balls but got in anyway, slamming the door behind him.

Suzy snickered, "Is he really going to be a child through this entire thing?"

"You can bet on it." I responded, heading to the back of the jeep while Suzy reopened the side door and got into the van. Resting both Ethan and my luggage down, I leaned on the car with my arms folded; watching as Jake placed the bags in one by one.

At first he paid me no mind, glancing up just momentarily before returning to filling the trunk, but after a few more stolen glances in my direction, he stopped what he was doing and eyed me down. "Is there a problem, Spence?" he asked, sounding rather annoyed.

"You want to remind again why you asked us to pack an entire duffel bag of clothing when this satellite thing is only happening for a few seconds?"

He rolled his eyes and started to pack things again, "Because," he strained as he lifted one of the girls' bags, "I was thinking that if we enjoyed being in the cabin that we could stay for the entire weekend."

"And is there any particular reason you're dressed like the guy on the Brawny Tissue and smell like a dead cat?"

He sighed. "It's called being a man, Spence."