"So what made you decide to finally grace us with your presence again?" Flynn threw my way the moment I entered my room. The girl was splayed out on my bed with Julie sitting next to her, leaning back onto her arms. Willie claimed the bean bag chair at the foot of my bed. All three of them were looking at me expectantly.
"I'm really sorry guys. I was so busy this summer with my mom and work. I should have made more time for you-" I started to apologize but Willie interrupted me. "It's fine, Mars. She's joking. We know you had a lot going on." He sat up a little and a cheeky smile took over his face. Oh no. "And the new boyfriend, of course."
I groaned and threw my head back, sitting down on my desk chair. "I don't have a secret boyfriend." I said and sent my cousin a glare. Julie held her hands up in defence. "I just told them you were texting a boy." She was not even supposed to know about that. She accidentally saw a text from Brody last week when we had dinner at her house.
"So who's that boy you're texting. If you haven't already told us about him, it has to be a secret. We usually know exactly who you're talking to." Flynn threw her braids over her shoulder eyeing my phone that was still lying on the edge of my bed.
"His name is Brody. I met him when I was busking at the pier." I said and I could feel my cheeks heat up under their staring. "But he's not really my boyfriend."
"Well, go on! Do you have a picture?" Flynn was sitting up now. I shook my head now and Flynn raised her eyebrows. "No Instagram?" I shook my head no again. "That's kinda sus. Then ask you to send you one. I wanna see this guy."
"He won't, trust me. He's not really a selfie taking kinda guy." I tried to explain, my fingers starting to pick at the yellow nail polish on my nails. "But he's really cute. He started talking to me when I was at the pier a couple of weeks ago. He works really close to the pier and goes there after work a lot. He said he watched me play a lot. He's into music as well."
"That's great, Mars." Willie smiled at me and nudged my foot with his. "We still wanna meet the guy. Is he in our grade? He can sit with us at lunch tomorrow."
"Oh, he doesn't go to Los Feliz. He's a little older." I laugh nervously and start digging through my brain for a new topic to distract them from this. Brody would freak out if he knew I was telling them about him. Today was really not my day. But I was hoping to get them off my back by at least giving them a name. It is not like I was embarrassed by Brody, but he did not want people to know about us yet. I mean, there wasn't even really an 'us' yet anyways. He made it very clear that he does not want to be boyfriend and girlfriend yet.
"What does a little older mean?" Julie questioned and looked at me with her eyebrows slightly furrowed. "He's in college? What is he studying?" Flynn asked before I could answer Julie's question.
"Music production." I chose to answer Flynn's question, seeing as she kinda gave me an out. It was not a lie technically. Brody did study music production. I could see Julie still had more questions, but we were interrupted by the doorbell ringing. I jumped off my chair and wiped my, by now slightly sweaty, hands on my pants before pulling Willie out of his bean bag chair by his arm. "Pizza is here!"
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We decided to eat downstairs in the living room. Raf only came down to grab a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza before fleeing back to his and Diego's room. Now that my friends were here it did not feel as awkward talking to Reggie anymore. I did not know why it felt so awkward in the first place.
We used to be super close before high school. Reggie, Luke and I had known each other since before kindergarten, seeing as we all live on the same street. In the middle of first grade Alex moved to Los Feliz and joined our little group. I could still remember that day.
It was the first time Henry, the boy sitting behind me in class at the time, did not spend the whole class tugging at my hair or throwing little paper balls at the back of my head. Our teacher had told Alex to sit down next to me and Henry seemed to have found a new target that day. He kept throwing paper balls at the blonde boy, who kept his head down trying to ignore the snickering of the two boys sitting behind him. When Henry did not get any reaction out of the new kid, he started throwing other things at the poor boy's head. First it was his eraser, then a pencil, and lastly his pencil sharpener. When I looked over, I could see the tears in the blue eyes of the boy sitting next to me. I could tell his hands were shaking by the way his handwriting became less and less neat. So in one quick motion I grabbed my pencil case, zipped it up, turned around in my chair and slapped Henry across the face with it. Henry was stunned for a second before he and his friend went to run around their table to pull me out of my chair. The moment the boys touched me Luke and Reggie were out of their seats as well and a moment later the four boys were in a pile on the floor. That was also the first time Luke and Reggie were part of a fist fight for me.
After that day the four of us were inseparable until our first year of high school. That was also the year Julie and Flynn stopped being friends with Carrie and I started hanging out with the two of them more. We also met Willie, who clicked with us immediately.
I don't think it was anyone's fault that we drifted apart that year. It just happened. We were still friendly with each other. I had shared a lot of classes with Alex, and a couple with Luke and Reggie as well. Alex and I still partnered up every chance we got, knowing how serious the other took school. It was always nice having a project partner you can count on, no matter if you are still friends or not. Or in our case, something in between those two options, I guess.
I managed to distract my friends from my supposed 'secret boyfriend' by mentioning my mom's date. That, of course, grabbed their attention instantly. They told me about how their summer had been, making sure to include Reggie in the conversation. He fit right in, making jokes with Willie, intently listening to Flynn's stories and surprising Julie with his interest in musicals. We ended up watching the greatest showman together, Diego sitting between Willie and Reggie, feeling like the king of the house because he got to hang out with us.
Reggie fulfilled his babysitter duty to the fullest, not letting me do a thing. He managed to get Diego into bed in time by promising to come play with him more often if he went right to sleep and he made sure Raf finished his assigned summer reading.
My friends left before my mom got home, Willie promising to pick me up in the morning. It was after eleven and Reggie and I were cleaning the dishes in the kitchen. I was washing while Reggie was drying.
"Luke and Alex will be so jealous when I tell them I got to hang out with you guys tomorrow." Reggie said, placing a plate into the cupboard above the stove. "They were both stuck with their parents tonight."
I could tell their relationship with their parents had not gotten much better since we stopped hanging out, by the look on Reggie's face. "How is Alex doing? Do his parents know now?" I asked and Reggie shook his head no.
Alex came out as gay to us at the end of our last year in middle school. He never told his parents back then, which was probably a smart move, considering how religious his parents were. But he came out at school last semester, and I assumed his parents would have heard about it somehow. Especially because he and Luke were dating for about a month.
"No. I don't think he's telling them anytime soon. He wants to wait until he's moved out for college." Reggie answered my question, taking another dish out of my hands. "Katie knows, though." Katie was Alex's little sister, probably his favourite person next to Luke and Reggie. It made sense that he told her about it.
"I hope he's happy with that. It must be hard to keep a secret from your parents that long. He seemed different after he came out last year. More outgoing. And brighter, if that makes sense."
"Yeah, he's definitely feeling better now. Still anxious about his parents though." Reggie said and jumped to sit on the kitchen island after putting the last plate away. "And Luke has been getting into it with his mom a lot lately." Then his sad expression was exchanged with a big grin. "She tried taking away his guitar last week. You can probably guess how that went."
I let out a laugh. "I think he's going to marry that thing one day. Does he still sleep with it in his bed?" I said and joined Reggie on the counter. He bumped my shoulder with his. "Sometimes."
We heard the front door opening and a moment later my mom came stumbling into the kitchen. "Hey guys, how was your night?" She put her purse down and leaned against the doorframe, clearly more than a little tipsy.
"Great, actually. I think Reggie was meant to babysit. It's his calling." I chuckled and nudged the boy next to me. "How was your date?"
"It was okay. Kinda boring. I think he was trying to fill me up." My mom went to rifle through her purse, almost falling down in the process. I jumped off the counter to steady her. "Yeah, I can tell."
"Are the boys sleeping?" she asked as she pulled her wallet out. Reggie also jumped off the counter and walked up to us. "Yeah, Diego was in bed even before he was supposed to." he said, and my mom patted his cheek. "You're a star! Here, take this. I got it now, you should go get to bed, you guys have school in the morning." She put some money in Reggie's hand and then tried to zip her purse back up.
"Yeah, you should get home, Reg. I got her." I assured the boy, when he sent me a look, silently asking if I was okay getting my mom into bed.
"Okay. Thanks for trusting me tonight, Mrs. Romero. I'll see you at school, Mari." Reggie sent me two finger guns, grinning while he was walking out of the kitchen. I rolled my eyes, groaning internally. So he did see me doing that earlier.
The front door closed, and I slipped my mom's arm over my shoulder, dragging her upstairs. I made sure she was okay changing into her pyjamas and brushing her teeth. Her eyes were closed the second her head hit the pillow. I gently leaned down to give her a kiss on the forehead, before tiptoeing out of her room and into mine. I checked my phone before going to sleep and frowned when I noticed Brody still had not replied to my texts. However, before I could put my phone down it chimed with a new text message.
Reggie:
Thanks for letting me hang out tonight. Tell your mom she can ask me to babysit anytime. See you tomorrow! :)