•What are you gonna do?•
Carlos's POV
Boca Raton, Florida
Tuesday
"So, you finally did it? I didn't think you'd actually go through with it."
I turned my head over to Justin who was sitting in my desk chair on his phone.
"Did what?"
"You know what I'm talking about Carlos, don't play dumb."
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, cause he was talking to me sideways and because I really didn't know what he was talking about.
I sat up on my bed a little straighter and he puts his phone down to look at me for a second.
"You cut Ariana off."
I don't see how or why he'd know that, but I guess if he knows then he knows.
Somebody gotta stop talking in our group cause I like to keep some things private.
"Who told you that?"
"Your sister."
Ariana must have told her that I was "cutting her off" after she found out from me.
I never actually said I was cutting her off, I merely said that I wasn't gonna be able to kick it with her like I used to because of the situation and due to India not being comfortable with it.
Never once said I was cutting her off.
"I didn't say that, and why is my sister even talking to you?"
He shrugs.
"I don't know, I guess she feels like maybe your friends will have a better chance at getting through to you than she will."
She was right about that when it came to other things, but this situation is a lot different than some of the things I'd gotten myself involved in in the past.
"Well, I didn't cut Ariana off. I just told her that we couldn't hang out at India's discretion." He looked at me blankly and I just shrugged in response to that cause I didn't know what else he wanted me to say.
"That's cold, I can't believe you actually did that. You and Ariana been friends since you moved to Florida, you two dated and stayed friends through the breakup and now all of sudden you're gonna drop her just like that because some girl who has no merit whatsoever is telling you to?"
"You would do the same thing if Bianca had told you to stop associating with a friend that you had."
He shakes his head almost immediately when he heard me say that.
"No, actually I wouldn't. You wanna know why?"
He didn't give me a second to answer before cutting in again.
"Bianca actually trusted me around the girls I was friends with, and if I'm not mistaken Ariana trusted you as well. There has to be some reason for India to just basically diss Ari and tell you to do the same, I don't see why she'd just out of nowhere want you to stop messing with her when they're friends as well."
I'm not admitting to anything, it's not the right time, place, or person to be telling these things to.
Actually I wouldn't tell any of my friends what I did, it's just not their business.
I tell them most things, but my relationship business is my business and mine alone at the end of the day.
Plus they like to talk, so I'm not gonna put myself at risk.
"I don't know, maybe Ari did something that India didn't like and she just felt like it'd be best if we distanced ourselves from her to keep anything else from happening."
The look he was giving me told that he wasn't buying anything that I was saying to him.
If I was being honest with myself, I didn't buy it either and I was the one saying it.
"Either your girlfriend is fake as hell and we've all just been too slow to see it cause I don't see why she'd agree to go on a trip to a whole other state with Ariana and her friends cause you know those girls back Ari up against anybody one hundred percent. Or you're simply just trying to cover your ass cause you did something that you shouldn't have."
I shook my head and got up from my bed.
"I'm telling you, I think it had something to do with Ariana."
He raised his eyebrows at me when he heard me say that to him.
"Your girlfriend is fake then, I don't see why she'd still tag along with the girls if she wanted the both of you to distance yourselves from her. Either way though you're both wrong, I wouldn't simply cut my best friend off to please someone else and that is exactly what you did."
He got up heading for the door to my room.
"Where are you going?"
He shoves his phone into his front pocket and twisting his hair some.
"Antonio is watching the game over at his house and the guys are gonna be there. You didn't get the invite?"
I shrugged and shook my head in a no cause I hadn't.
"Nope, I didn't hear anything about that."
His eyes widened slightly and he too shrugs.
"That's tough. Well I'm gonna see you later then, unless you just want to come with me?"
I debated it in my head, but I didn't think that's be a good idea considering the fact that I'm not really cool with Antonio's friends and his friends aren't cool with me.
Plus, I had some thinking that I needed to do.
I really threw Ariana under the bus today, and that wasn't cool.
"No, I'm just gonna stay home for today. You can go ahead, just let me know if something goes down though."
He nods in agreement and we do our usual handshake before he goes to leave only stopping at the door for a second.
"Maybe reconsider dropping Ariana, I wouldn't do that. Otherwise you might end up dropping the rest of us as well since she runs in our circle too and we're not gonna just let you do that to her."
He didn't say anything else and neither did I, I just watched him walk out of my room closing the door behind him.
I simply retreated to my bed opting to contemplate my actions.
_____
I decided after about an hour of thinking that I would leave the house and clear my mind during my drive over to Antonio's house.
I know I said I wasn't gonna go earlier because of the whole friend group issue, but it turns out that none of the guys he was friends with were gonna come around this time.
It was just our group that was gonna be at his house.
He claimed that he didn't want it to be any drama between our groups like always so it was just us this time around.
Once I pulled up and actually made it inside of Antonio's house, I made my way down to the den where everyone else was.
The game must've still been on cause all you could hear was them yelling at the tv as if the players playing could actually hear them.
No one seemed upset to see that I had actually showed up, so that was a good sign.
When I spoke to Antonio, he had told me that he did invite me and that he had told Kimetrius to tell me about it, but of course he forget so that was the reason why I apparently didn't get the invite from him.
Eventually the game came to an end, not that I was really watching though cause basketball was never really a sport I got into unless it was the playoffs.
I'm more of a football head, but once it ended we just messed around on the game for a bit before turning a movie on.
It was a good forty five minutes of us watching the movie when Damian got a notification on his phone.
He leaned over to show some of the guys and at this point they were basically drooling over the phone making me curious as to what they could've possibly been looking at.
Then eventually we all got the notification, so he must've sent it to us.
More notifications came in from the girls snaps and Instagrams.
My only guess was that they were finally able to document some of this trip that they were on cause they haven't really posted much since they left for LA last Friday night.
"It's a shame man, the girls didn't even think to invite me to go with them to LA. Then they're gonna post this knowing I can't do anything about it, they all look good."
The girls had posted some pool shots and some videos of them hanging by the pool just to let everybody know that they were indeed enjoying their time there.
I found it hard to disagree with what Justin said cause they did look good.
"You and Bianca should get back together, you know you want to and this is only gonna make you want her back even more." We laughed at what Isaiah said to Justin and he shakes his head.
"She kissed my brother, I'm content with just looking for right now. I'll consider it though, cause it's only a matter of time before some other dude try to get at her and I'm not having that."
The guys just continued there meaningless chatter about the girls while I narrowed my focus down to two specific girls on the first picture we had seen.
Justin's words rang clear in my head.
He was right and I was so clearly lying to him and everyone else.
I just don't know what to do right now.
It's either lose out on a relationship just for the sake of staying friends with a girl who has a boyfriend still somehow, or I can choose to toss her to the curb just to satisfy a girl I wasn't even so sure about until the beginning and lose all of the people I've built relationships with over the years.
I had a tough choice to make.
_____
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