"This is it! Today's the day!" Valerie said happily, practically bouncing in her seat on my bed.
"Yeah." I mumbled, going around my room to make sure there weren't any dirty clothes laying out, cleaning up anything to make my room presentable.
To say that I was nervous was an understatement, I was more than nervous. The last time I saw Wyatt we weren't on speaking terms, I was more than upset because of the things that Ellie said in the group chat, then the comments I was getting on my Instagram post. If I knew it was such a huge deal to post those pictures, I'd have never done it.
"Are you alright, Col?" Valerie asked, and I stopped picking up my room for a moment to look at her.
"Of course, why?"
"Nothing. You seem out of it. You know you're not obligated to wear a bra, right?" She said, and I knew she was going to keep bugging me until I talked to her about what was wrong. But I really didn't want to talk about it. Not to her, or anyone.
"Has anyone texted you telling you how close they were to being here?" I changed the subject, turning away from her as I finished cleaning up the small mess in my room.
"No. They text you more than me, obviously because Wyatt knew you for a while and I think they just find it awkward to talk to me." Valerie replied.
"You're in the group chat, it's not awkward for them." I simply said, sitting down at my desk.
"Well still. You should check your phone to see if they're almost here or what," Valerie said. "I'm really hungry."
"You're always hungry," I said. "And the last text I got was from the group chat which you saw, so they must be on the plane still. It should be landing anytime soon now. I guess since they're still on it and they have about a fifteen to thirty minute drive to my house we could see if we can go to the store and get some snacks and finish setting up for our movie night tonight?" Valerie nodded with a smile before jumping off of my bed and walking toward the door.
Grabbing my phone, I turned it off completely as we made our way downstairs to where my mom was in the kitchen baking goodies for Wyatt and the others.
"Hey mom?" I asked, shoving my phone into my pants pocket.
"Yes, honey?" She asked, turning away from the cookie batter and toward me.
"Val and I wanted to know if we could get some snacks from the dollar store down the street, to set up in the Theater Room for our movie night tonight." I said, leaning against the counter.
She nodded, turning back to the cookies. "My purse is in my room, you know where I keep it. Only take fifteen dollars though, I need the rest of the money for something else." She answered, and I nodded before walking down the hall and to my mom's room. After grabbing the amount she told me to, I walked upstairs to my room and grabbed my wallet, shoving the money in there and making my way back downstairs to where Valerie was patiently waiting on me.
We said goodbye, walking out of the house and along the sidewalk quietly.
"Are you sure you haven't gotten any texts from the others?" Valerie questioned after a few moments of silence, and I looked over at her.
"No." I said, turning my face away from her and back at the sidewalk in front of us.
Of course I have. Jack and Wyatt had been spamming me, which was why I shut my phone off in the first place. I knew for a while they weren't able to talk, which was right after I disabled the comments on my Instagram post, but I also knew the moment they noticed I did that they'd message me.
And they did when they were able to get on their phones.
"Alright, I guess." Valerie finally gave up, turning her attention ahead of her. We made it to the dollar store, getting different types of candies and snacks, including popcorn and ice cream. After getting snacks we got some two liters of soda and some juice in case someone didn't want soda, then checked out before struggling to carry all of the bags back to my house.
"Do you think they're almost here now?" Valerie asked, speaking for the first time after I kept shutting her down for asking about getting text messages.
"Probably I haven't had a chance to check my phone, so I don't exactly know." I replied, which I was being honest on that part. Even though my phone was shut off, before I shut it off it was on silent so I wouldn't know if I got any texts, and it's been in my pocket along with my wallet due to us having to carry all of these bags.
We walked up the sidewalk to my porch, me dropping the bags lightly on the ground so I could get the door open. Once I had, I picked up the bags I'd been carrying and shoved my way inside, freezing when a chorus of 'SURPRISES' were heard.
"Holy macaroni." Valerie mumbled, looking down at the couple of bags that had fallen out of her hands.
"COLLETTE!" I heard my best friend yell, and I looked away from Valerie and up to see Wyatt running toward me, not caring I had bags in my hands. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly and I took in his scent as I hugged him as best as I could.
"Hey, Wy." I mumbled, smiling at him as he pulled away. He made a face, but ended up smiling back anyway, before helping me carry my bags to the kitchen.
Valerie picked up the bags in her hands, carrying them to the kitchen also and the others followed us.
"I can finally meet you!" Sophia's beautiful voice said, and before I could react she'd wrapped herself around me for a hug.
"Yay." I quietly said, hugging her back before hugging Jaeden and Finn. After I'd gone down the line and met Jeremy and Chosen, I was face to face with the one person I was SUPER nervous to meet.
Jack.
"Collie." He smiled, pulling me in for a hug before I could say anything to him. I hugged him back, hearing a couple of 'awe's' from the others.
"Well, I made cookies!" My mom ruined the moment, causing Jack and I to pull away from each other. I cleared my throat, making my way back over to the bags of snacks.
"We got ice cream, popcorn, soda, juice, and candy." I commented, starting to take the contents out of the bag.
"I'm so excited to spend these next few weeks with you." Wyatt told me, and I just smiled at him. "Are you okay Col? You're not yourself."
"Are you kidding me? I'm definitely myself." I mumbled, before grabbing the two cartons of ice cream and walking over to the freezer, finding room and shoving them in.
"Now Collette, I need to go to the store in the morning, if there's anywhere you need to go you'll need to come with me then, or wait until I get back because even though this is very special to you I still have things to do." My mom said, putting the warm cookies on a plate for us.
"Alright, I'll figure out what we're doing once we get settled." I said, putting the popcorn in the microwave.
"Alright, good. I'm going to go out and get some pizza since your dad is going to be home late, don't burn the house down, okay?" She asked, and I just nodded as I got bowls out and waited for the popcorn to finish.
After my mom left the microwave beeped, and I waited a bit before taking the bag out of the microwave and poured it into one of the bowls. I poured all of the candy into another bowl, before popping another bag of popcorn since there were nine of us all together, and I didn't know how much everyone would eat.
"I'll go ahead and take the drinks into the Movie Room, then come back and grab the plastic cups." Valerie said, grabbing the bags with the soda and juice.
"Why don't we just each grab a cup now, and write our names on it so we don't forget who's is whose and such?" Jaeden suggested.
"That's a good idea," I said, and before I could get the plastic cups out or the sharpie, Wyatt had beat me to it.
"Thanks, rat." I smiled at him, and he just smiled back before getting a cup and writing everyone's name on it.
"Hey, this isn't fair! I didn't want 'Fred Savage' written on mine!" Jack whined.
"That's okay, Jack. He wrote Molly Ringwald on mine." Sophia let out a laugh, and I rolled my eyes as I poured the second bag of popcorn in the last bowl.
"And mine says Harry Styles which is so unfair, we don't even look alike!" Finn let out a frustrated sigh, sending Wyatt a death glare.
"Okay, maybe not. But don't think I haven't seen all of those memes where they put a photo of you on Jimmy Fallon next to a photo of Harry Styles. I see the resemblance." Wyatt smiled, and I turned to him before taking his cup and the sharpie.
"What'd he write on yours, Jaeden?" I asked, and Jaeden looked down at the red cup before his face tinted a red.
"B-B-Bill." Looking over to Jeremy, I waited for a response.
"Hot stuff."
We all burst into laughter, at the same time Valerie walked back into the room.
"What? Is there something on my face or something?" She immediately asked, her hands flying up to her head.
"N-no, definitely not. Wyatt is writing everyone's names on their cup, and he wrote 'hot stuff' on Jeremy's." I answered her, handing her a bowl of popcorn. "Here, you can carry this to the room."
"What's mine?" She asked, as I handed the other popcorn bowl to Wyatt.
"I wrote val pal since I didn't really have another nickname for you," Wyatt said. "And I WAS writing names, until she stole my cup and the sharpie."
"You wrote Harry Styles for Finn, Fred Savage for Jack and Molly Ringwald for Sophia. My turn." I smirked at him, before taking the lid off of the sharpie and scribbling the name down on the cup.
He took the cup back, his face turning a deep red as he chucked it at me, almost spilling the popcorn. "WHY MUST YOU MAKE ME REMEMBER BYRON?!" He said, and Jack looked between us before chucking his cup at Wyatt. "DON'T THROW STUFF!"
"That's okay, look at what I wrote on yours." Wyatt smiled in victory, and I snatched my cup off of the table and read the scribbled writing.
"YOU DID NOT!" I said, my mouth open as I looked up at the dying curly headed boy.
"You didn't think I forgot about 'Strawberry Shortcake', did you?" He asked, and I squinted my eyes at him.
"We all know if I were a cartoon character it would be Kim Possible, not Strawberry Shortcake." I glared, grabbing the candy bowl off of the counter and walking up to the Movie Room. The group followed me, and I sat the bowl down along with my cup so I could brighten the lights while we got ready.
"Whoa, your house is so nice!" Sophia commented, looking around the Movie Room. There were six seats, meaning three of us would have to sit on the floor but that was alright. We had already made a palette, and Chosen, Jeremy and Finn took the floor.
"I call sitting by Collette!" Wyatt immediately said, earning groans from Jack and Jaeden.
"Well how about this, tonight since Wyatt called it first he'll sit on one side of me, and since Jaeden called second he can sit by me too, then tomorrow I'll sit by Sophia and Jack?" I offered, and after they agreed we each grabbed a small blanket out of the hall closet to keep warm.
Putting on some random horror movie I'd heard Valerie call out, we all grabbed our own snacks and drinks and I dimmed the lights, getting ready for our first night together.