The Buddies Rule | ✓

Chapter 4

"You think Alan said something to Chase? Like about his feelings for you?" Lewis asked, his eyebrows popping up in surprise. I shrugged, almost feeling exhausted by the conversation. Which, was the last thing I needed considering I still had classes to attend. It was barely ten in the morning.

"I don't know. Chase will be fine. Let's just drop it." I spoke gently, trying to brush off the topic.

"No, he's not," Lewis kept on. "He's got something going on, and I think the term we're looking for is jealousy," he sighed.

Lewis did have a point. Though I wasn't taking his side about the jealousy thing, there definitely was something going on with Chase. I just needed to figure out what it was, on my own. Getting Lewis or Alan seriously involved in my little Chase investigation, could ruin our friendships. Besides, Chase was my best friend. What would he have to be jealous about?

"He is not jealous." I shook my head, clutching my phone tightly in my hand. I always found myself trying to squeeze the life out of inanimate objects whenever Lewis got this persistent about something. "And what would he be jealous of? Your killer bowling skills?" I shot back snidely, giving Lewis a quick glare as we continued down to the center of campus.

"He's jealous of Zac, idiot," Lewis laughed smugly. "One thing you might be blind to is just how much Chase is in love with you. And it's evidently the same from you to him since we all know how in love with him you are." Lewis' voice had carried just enough to catch the attention of the man walking ahead on the path. At least twenty paces in front of us, the man stopped and turned around to reveal one of our best friends. A best friend that I hadn't seen in what seemed like forever.

"Alan?" I called, watching as a smile spread across his face. I picked up the pace of my steps, trying to get to Alan as quickly as possible. I knew just how awkward it would feel to be near Alan now knowing his true feelings for me, but Lewis was getting on my nerves with the whole jealousy thing. I would much rather stress over keeping up a conversation with Alan than having to discuss Chase's feelings for me. Or my feelings for Chase, for that matter.

"I thought I heard you and Lewis talking." Alan greeted happily before he lazily tossed his left arm around my shoulders.

"It's kind of hard to miss one of Lewis' rants." I laughed back at Alan. Lewis raced to catch up to us, his breathing becoming irregular by the time he was able to stand next to us.

"Hey, buddy," Lewis mumbled, fixing his hands around his backpack straps. Alan nodded over towards Lewis as a reply. The two weren't even trying to seem cordial with one another.

"How was bowling, Bree?" Alan mused, pulling me forward with our third member following slowly after.

Lewis' face scrunched up at the mention of our first class. There was a weird air between the two of them, one that I had never felt before. Alan and Lewis had always clicked in the way that best friends usually do. But things seemed to be changing a lot within our group. "Why should we tell you?" Lewis muttered, cutting into the conversation as his sight fell to his feet.

Alan quickly let out a sigh as he shook his head. "I was just asking Bree how she thought things went. No need to get defensive. I'm sorry that the admins messed up my schedule-"

"Oh yeah." Lewis laughed, a snider tone to his voice. "The admins messed it up."

Alan rolled his eyes. "You already interrogated me about this once. Why go through it again?"

"Because," Lewis paused as we came to a stop outside the school's newspaper classroom, "we made a pact. The four of us were going to take one class together every semester, and then you had to go and f- it up." Lewis reminded without skipping a beat.