You V.S. Mafia

Chapter 16: Party Time

Liza's POV

I look around the room, trying to make sense of the people standing in front of me. To my complete surprise, I spot some very familiar faces. It's my friends from high school!

Trisha, my best girl friend, stands closes to me with her boyfriend Spencer. They wear matching colours of blue and white. I smile broadly at her and race to give her a hug.

The other person in the room is one of my best friends from my childhood. His name is Xavier and we were the best of friends in elementary school. When we got to high school we kind of split our separate ways, but since he lived just next door, and his parents are friends with mine, they would come over and hang out still.

I look over his appearance before going in for a hug. He used to have long, brown hair that reached down to his shoulders, but it's cut short now with a little length on top. I go and give him a hug and then quickly realize that they probably have a lot of questions. I pick up Melanie out of Claire's arms and carry her carefully over to my friends.

Trisha loves babies so she immediately asks to hold her, and I agree because I trust her. I don't really know how much I would trust Spencer and Xavier to hold her. Maybe if they sit on the couch I'll let them.

Tyler walks over to us and smiles. "Are you surprised?" He asks.

"How in the world did you know today was my birthday. I even forgot that today was my birthday!" I'm shook. How did he know this? And how did he organize this so fast?

He scratches the back of his head, "I woke up early this morning and noticed your phone on the kitchen counter buzz. So I looked at it and saw a calendar notification saying it was your birthday. So I, uh, got into your phone and called some of your friends." He fishes for something in his pocket. "By the way, here's you phone back." He hands me my phone.

"I've been searching for this stupid thing all day and it's been in your pocket the whole time?" He forces a nervous smile and I chuckle, shaking my head.

"Thank you." I smile and give him a quick hug.

"I wanted to do something special for you." He says and walks further into the kitchen, grabbing a cup and filling it with water. Why does he have to be so kind?

I follow him and stop him. "Seriously Tyler. Thank you...for all of this." He smiled and came back over to me.

"You're welcome." He says as I take Melanie back from Trisha. He gestures for me to hand her to him so I do. "I'll put her to bed because it's getting late. You go see your friends." I watch him walk away with her for a moment and then turn back to my friends.

Trisha jumps up and gives me another big hug. "Liza, we've missed you so much. And you've missed so much!" She says with a sad tone to her voice. I've been keeping in touch with her every so often and she knows everything that's been happening to me. I made her promise not to tell anyone though. Not even my parents or Spencer.

"I've missed you, too." I reply. "So much has happened."

"Same here." She says and holds up her hand, showing an engagement ring. I immediately get all excited and happy for her. We squeal and jump up and down like little school girls who just found out they could have a sleepover.

We don't speak of anything involving my struggles or Joey or why I'm here. We briefly talk about little Melanie and how adorable she is, before I notice Xavier sitting at the island on his phone.

"Go talk to him, he missed you." Trisha whispers to me, noticing my attention turn to him. I nod my head, leaving Trisha and Spencer to talk to each other. I walk around the island and stand in front of him. He looks up from his phone and smiles.