I Hate You, I Love You { mitch grassi }

XIII

Two Days Later

Scott is supposed to come by later and help me finish up cleaning the debris.

Yesterday, Izzy and I orders a repair man to fix the Windows, door, case, and basically any other glass surface. It only cost about $400 because the workers were Scotts friends, but it was still a huge dent in our budget.

We got the basic foundation fixed, but it was still a mess.

Izzy and I get started and work on cleaning it all up.

***

"I was thinking we could paint the walls a dark, navy-like blue and highlight it wits black and a maroonish color."

"Yeah! And we could get black and blue chairs, and ooh- we could get black tables but get metallic sharpies or something and sit them at every table where people can write hate we they want on them. People can make their mark on Astoria. It'll be grand."

"Wow, babe. You should've been an interior designer." I heard Scotts voice from behind us.

I turned around quickly and ran to him. I hugged him and just kept like that for a good minute and a half.

"I've missed you so much, you don't even know." I told him.

He laughed, "I bet I have an idea," he hugged me again and rested his chin on my head.

"Be quiet, Scooter. I'm a hopeless romantic, I can't help it." I laughed, and let go enough to where we were just standing beside each other with his arm around my waist.

"Hey, it's cute. Anyways, I missed you too, Texas. For three days I had to settle on Starbucks. Which isn't nearly as good as your coffee, by the way."

"I'm actually going to punch you in the face." I laughed, looking up at him.

"I love you, too." He said, leaning down and kissing my cheek.

"Get a room!" Izzy started laughing so hard she nearly choked. "Anyways, we need to start gathering money for the new machines. At $250 each, they'll be $750 all on their own. For paint it'll be $50 ish for all of the paint needed, And for a set of four chairs it's $50, and each table is $20. Which means it'll come out to roughly $1780 all together. And if Cress and I have $750, we're going to need $1030. How are we going to get that?"

"I have an idea." Kirstie said, walking in with Avi, Kevin, and Mitch by her side, I go to all of them, giving them a hug individually.

Suddenly, Mitch hands me a check with $2500 written on it. I gasp and cover my mouth with my hand.

"No, we- I- we can't. It's way way more than we need." I say, handing it to Izzy before she does the same.

"The extra money will help you get started again after you get back up on your feet." Kevin said.

"I can't thank you guys enough," I say, hugging up on Scott.

"You don't have to." Avi smiled, "When Scott told us, we immediately booked a flight here so we could help."

"Okay, so it's 8:30 right now, and we have to be back by noon tomorrow. So I suggest we get to work." Kirstie said.

"Let's do it." I looked at all of them one more time.

This is honestly like a dream come true. It's a bittersweet dream, though. I have to rebuild what I spent my whole like working towards, but I get to do it with people that I care about. People who actually wanted to help, and who will be there every step of the way. Although I do feel terrible from taking their money, they won't let me say no. So, with what we have, we're going.