After school, when Sophie was waiting for Edaline to pick her up, Sophie got a text from Tam—which was a little shocking.
Sophie looked over at Tam from where he was walking to his motorcycle before reading the text: I'm worried about Linh. She's been super protective over Wylie since he left for College. It's super weird.
Sophie read over the text a couple of times before responding with: What if she likes him!?
And all Tam sent back was an eye-roll and barfing emoji.
Sophie laughed before she spotted Edaline and walked to the car. Her theater friends would be arriving around four o'clock, so she had time to change and cleanup the house a little bit.
As they drove, Sophie carried on her conversation with Tam. They talked about why it was bad that Linh might have a crush, and why Tam had decided to tell Sophie the information.
Both of his answers were pretty vague, so Sophie decided to end the conversation there and agree to talk to him about it later.
When they got home, Sophie spent twenty-five minutes cleaning the house, and then she got dressed in some sweatpants and a hoodie.
Sophie jumped on her bed and got on her phone. She was about to text her friends and say that they could start coming over, but there was a knock on her door.
"Come in," Sophie said, putting down her phone.
Grady came in with a on smile his face. "Hey kiddo,"
"Hey," Sophie grinned at her dad. "What's up?"
"I just got a text from one of your friends," He told her, looking slightly confused. "They said that they're here,"
Sophie blinked. She never remembered giving any of her friends her dad's phone number, but she still nodded and made her way downstairs. When she walked outside, she saw Keefe sitting at the bottom of her houses porch steps.
"How on earth did you get Grady's phone-number?" She asked, sitting down next to him.
Keefe smirked. "The same way your mom got my number last year,"
Sophie laughed. "I totally forgot about that—but all Edaline told me was that she had her ways,"
"Well," Keefe said. "I have my ways,"
Sophie rolled her eyes, but she still had a smile on her face. "So..." She tried to think of something interesting to talk about. "When is the first football game?"
Keefe grinned. "It's in a couple of weeks—do you wanna go?"
"I might," Sophie said, nodding. "It depends on if I'm busy or not,"
Keefe nodded. "Well, if you're there, we'll win for sure,"
Sophie laughed as she shook her head. "You think what you want to—but I have no luck whatsoever,"
"You met all of us," Keefe said, nudging her. "You got pretty lucky when we all agreed to be friends,"
Sophie shrugged. "That's not luck, that's destiny,"
"Pfft!" Keefe exclaimed as he nudged her again. "Foster, you're probably the only person that doesn't think you're lucky. You need to start having higher self-esteem."
Thankfully, Sophie didn't get to respond to that because Tam and Linh pulled up on Tam's motorcycle. They all talked for a little bit before Jensi came, and then they made their way up to Sophie's room.
Sophie was going to ask Edaline if she could bring up some snacks, but then she remembered that she wasn't allowed to bring food or drinks up to her room anymore.
"Alright," Linh said, pulling a notebook out of the bag she was carrying. "Where and how do we want to skit to start?"
They talked over a couple of ideas before they finally decided the skit would start with the queen introducing the Prince to the Princess. Then they started writing the script, but that was a little hard.
"No Keefe," Sophie said, taking the notebook away from him. "Skits are supposed to be a few minutes long. You're making it an hour long."
"But my ideas are so good," He said, trying to grab the notebook back. "I mean, someone has to pull Bangs-Boy's weight,"
"Hey!" Tam argued, but Linh put her hand over his mouth to stop the potential fight.
"Keefe," Sophie said, putting the notebook behind her back, and pushing him away with her other hand. "If you don't cooperate, I won't go to any of the games this season,"
Keefe's eyes got wide before he stopped struggling and sat down like a good little boy.
"Alright," Sophie said, handing the note-book back to Linh. She took out her phone and realized it was already 5:35. "We'll write another scene, take and break and eat, and then maybe talk a little more."
"And then we can meet tomorrow!" Keefe exclaimed with a grin.
"No way," Tam said. "How about we meet on Monday's and Thursdays?—plus, we have time to work on it in class."
Keefe looked like he wanted to argue with Tam, but then he glanced at Sophie and crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine—we'll meet on Thursday,"
After they'd all put the reminders in their phones, they started working on another scene—which was when the Princess was falling in love with the "dude".
"I think they should kiss," Keefe said, earning a murderous glare from Sophie. "It was just a suggestion,"
After another thirty minutes of script-writing, they all headed downstairs, and Edaline fixed them some Mac n' Cheese.
During the part of their dinner when Keefe, Linh, and Jensi were talking about Oakley, Tam slipped away. So Sophie decided to follow him.
She found him on the stairs, looking through his phone. She sat down next to him and smiled. "What's up?"
"Nothing," He said, not looking up from the game he was playing—which, hilariously, was Candy Crush. "What's up with you?"
Sophie shrugged, "Nothing much—you just looked a little lonely over here," She pursed her lips. "So—in real terms—why are you so against Linh liking someone?"
Tam put his phone down and looked at Sophie. "I'm not against it—I just don't want her to get hurt. If Wylie's not the right guy for her, he might have to break-up with her, then she'll cry and it'll make me mad and I'll probably hate Wylie." He told her. "I don't want to see my sister hurt, and I don't want to hate one of my friends,"
Sophie nodded. Even though he'd said it in less-then-comforting way, it still made her smile to see how much he cared about his sister—and his friends.
"But...what if Wylie is the right guy?" She asked, tilting her head. "Would you be fine with it then?"
Tam nodded without hesitation. "Of course—I just want Linh to be happy,"
Sophie grinned. "You're a sweet guy Tam,"
Tam scoffed. "I've only been called sweet by one other person—and that was Linh. I'm 100% sure I don't want you calling me sweet,"
Sophie smiled, standing from the stairs and holding out her hand. "Just speaking the truth,"
Tam looked at her and smirked before grabbing her hand and walking back into the dining room with her.
§§§
"Why are you up at four-fifty in the morning?" A very sleepy Biana asked when Sophie had face-timed her.
Sophie shrugged. "Sorry—but I can't sleep,"
Biana sighed. "Well, I expect pay-back for this, because I was in the middle of a very wonderful dream,"
"What do you want?" Sophie asked with a smile. "I'll give you all of my fancy dresses,"
Biana's eyes lit up. "Very tempting Miss Foster, but..." She tapped her finger on her chin. "I'm thinking of something more dramatic,"
"Like what?" Sophie asked. Other than getting hurt all the time, Sophie's life was only ten percent dramatic.
Biana thought for a minute. "Like...have you and Fitz talked about Prom?"
"Prom?!" Sophie questioned, trying her hardest to keep her voice down. "Prom is eight months away. Besides," Sophie said with a sigh. "Fitz didn't go to Prom last year, so why would he go this year?"
Biana rolled her eyes. "Because it's his senior year—plus, the only reason he didn't go last year was because you were in the hospital because you got hit with a chicken! Wylie, Keefe, and Fitz agreed that they wouldn't go to Prom because they wanted to make sure you were okay,"
Sophie blinked, telling herself not to cry. She honestly had wonderful friends that cared about her so much that they'd miss a wonderful part of their High-school year. But Sophie still answered Biana's question with a smile.
"No," She said. "Fitz and I have not talked about Prom,"