Love to Hate You

Chapter Eighteen

“What does that even mean?” she laughs.

I let out a deep breath and shrug. “I don’t know,” I answer truthfully and kick my feet up on the coffee table. “I never understood the appeal either, but the more time I spent with him the more I got used to him and just kind of…fell for him. Unwillingly, that is. He kind of just stuck. I don’t know how to explain it. It just sort of happened and I can’t get rid of him now. He’s annoying, and stupid, and everything I hate. But, he balances me out and I guess we work.”

Laney laughs in my ear and pokes my side teasingly, “You’ve got it good.”

I scoff and slap her shoulder, “Do not! You do, Miss Heart Eyes.”

“I do not give Sean heart eyes!” Laney argues defensively, giving my shoulder a light push.

“You do.” I state with a devilish smirk, “I feel like I’m intruding whenever I’m around you two.”

She swats my arm and shakes her finger in disapproval, “You’re just jealous!”

“Ha! Nice try, but no.” I tell her and she giggles.

Things get pretty messy after that. We begin throwing food at each other and running about the house, which results in us waking up her parents and getting scolded. When we finally get around to sleeping we’re both still laughing to ourselves and giving one another random slaps here and there before completely crashing.

~*~

“How did last night go?” Sean asks me from across Justin’s garage. I look up from the mic I’m holding in my hand and eye him suspiciously. He doesn’t seem to notice as he returns his gaze to his keyboard and casually runs his fingers along the keys. Justin glances up from his guitar as well and waits for me to answer. For some reason, the topic of Laney and I is very interesting to the entire band. They can’t seem to understand how I’m putting up with her.

“It was great, actually.” I answer while rolling the mic in between my hands. “It’s nice to hang out with another girl.”

“Is it?” Alex asks and raises his eyebrows, “I thought you and Stephanie hung out.”

I sigh. If only they knew my relationship with Stephanie was much more complicated then I let on. Sure, now she’s alright, normal, even, to an extent. But, they shouldn’t be kidding themselves by saying they don’t remember how she used to be not that long ago. She was childish and slightly creepy. We can’t pretend that never happened.

“Yeah, but that was different. She was different, I was different…everything was different.” I frown slightly, remembering how everything used to be. Things were simpler in some ways, more complicated in others. A lot has changed in a couple of months. I know I never imagined I’d spend my first day of summer vacation standing in my ex-enemy’s garage with his friends.

I realize I’ve kind of zoned out and flinch when Justin snaps his fingers in front of my face.

“Earth to Carrots,” he grins. I roll my eyes at the nickname and shove his shoulder back lightly.

“I never left,” I say simply and flick red hair over my shoulder.

Austin picks now to speak up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes even though it’s past noon.

“Remember when your hair wasn’t red?” he asks with a lopsided grin, “It was orange—“

“Was not!” I interject quickly and point a finger at him warningly.

“Oh, I remember that,” Justin smiles amusedly and twirls a lock of bright red around his finger, “That’s where Carrots came from. I still liked your old hair better, you know.”