Nya's POV

"Hey Nya, can you help me dry the dishes?" I'm surprised when I walk out of my room and see my bother in the kitchen. He has a sponge in his hand, a towel laid out next to him, and a towel in his other hand.

"Of course," I can't help but let a smile spread across my lips. For once, he didn't put all the work on me. "What motivated you to do the dishes?"

"I had nothing else to do, and I thought it'd make you happy," he shrugs, plunging a cup under water. He scrubs it before placing it on the towel for me to dry.

"Nothing else? No ulterior motive?" I raise my eyebrow.

"Well, I was hoping we could hang out today. It'd be fun, just me and you," I look at him with confusion once I understand his words.

"Did you do something to my brother?" I joke.

He laughs a genuine laugh for what feels like the first time in forever. "It's been a long time since we hung out."

"I'm actually going to an art museum with Jay today. I've been wanting to go for a while, and he surprised me with tickets yesterday," I feel surprisingly guilty turning him down.

His expression drops,"I cleared my schedule to hang out with you. Can't you go another day?"

"They have up a special exhibit today of nature work. Maybe another time?" I suggest.

"You're always hanging out with Jay. It's like I can never see you anymore," he huffs, continuing to wash the dishes.

"You haven't showed interest in seeing me for the past 2 years. Why would I keep the slot open?"

"Cause you don't need to spend all your time with your one friend," he rolls his eyes, putting a pan out for me to dry. There's a knock on the door, so I look at the time. It's 1:55, five minutes before Jay is supposed to pick me up.

I head to the door, ready to tell him that he can come in, but that I need to finish doing the dishes before we can go. I'm surprised when I open the door, and it's not Jay. There's a man, who looks like a mailman, holding a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

"Are you Nya Smith?" he asks, looking at the name tag on the flowers.

I feel my heart rate increase,"That's me."

"Aren't you a lucky girl?" he hands over the flowers. I just assumed that Jay and I were going to the museum as friends. I didn't know it was a date and that he'd send flowers.

"Thank you," I smile at him, closing the door.

I walk into the room, the bouquet in my hands, a smile on my face.

Kai notices and raises an eyebrow "Flowers?"

"Yep, from..." I look at the little tag for verification, but when I see the name on the from line, my smile falls,"Cole." He wrote a little letter on the back, but I don't read past the "I'm sorry".

"You're such a hypocrite," he rolls his eyes at me, now drying the dishes I didn't.

"Excuse me?" I glare at him.

"You were all giddy when you thought the flowers were from Jay, but found them revolting once you found out they were from Cole," he elaborates.

"Almost like there's a difference between getting flowers from the guy you like and the guy who touched you without consent," I roll my eyes.

"Ha! So you do like Jay!" he exclaims, his finger pointed at me.

"Yeah, and? At least I can stick to one person."

"What did you say?" he asks, his glare hard on me.

"You say you're fully committed to Skylor, yet if Harumi asked for you back, you'd melt at her touch," I smirk. He clenches his jaw.

"I would not," he denies.

"Oh really? Then what happened with you and April? You two seemed happy, but then Harumi came, and you dropped her in a heartbeat."

"Skylor and April are two different people. Besides, this isn't about me," he crosses his arms.

"Then what is it about?"

"How you're a major hypocrite."

I walk over to him, placing the flowers down on the table. "You never fail to come to his defense. I swear, Cole can do no wrong in your eyes! You defended him even after you found out what he did!"

"You think I wasn't mad at him?" he grits. "I went off at him! We got in a literal fist fight!"

I raise my eyebrows at the statement. I don't remember that happening, and it's unlikely he would keep it from me that long. "You're lying."

"I don't lie to you Nya. Remember how he broke his wrist right after the accident?" I nod. "He said it was cause he fell down the stairs, but he actually broke it in the fight."

"If you were pissed enough to break his wrist, why the hell do you want me do get back together with him?" I cross my arms.

"He made a mistake while he was high! He's been apologizing for two years already!"

"That doesn't excuse what he did! High or not, he traumatized me! That night is forever engraved in my memories, and it's never coming out! Sometimes, I'll wake up in the middle of the night shaking because I had a nightmare about it! But no, I should get back together with him because 'he's said sorry'," I lash out.

"You want to know the reason, deep down, I want you to get together with Cole?" he asks, a deep look in his eyes.

"He's your best friend," I answer for him, rolling my eyes.

"Why do you always assume that?" he snaps, the fire flaring in his eyes. "It's because he's been tortured for the past two years over that night, and he'd never let you get hurt again!"

"I don't need some man to protect me, especially not the one who hurt me in the first place," I glare at him.

There's a deadly silence that floods the room. He has nothing to say, and neither do I. We both stand there, holding our ground. Neither of us want to be the one who breaks the silence.

After what seems like an eternity, the silence is broken by a knock on the door. Before I can move to grab my stuff, Kai is already on his way over. He opens the door, and he comes face to face with Jay. They're around the same height, but Kai is decently more muscular, even though I have noticed that Jay has bulked up a bit since we first started talking.

"Hi, Nya isn't available right now. She won't be available ever again, actually, so never come back," he glares at Jay before closing the door in his face.

"And to think, I felt bad about not spending time with you," I make a snarky comment as I grab my phone off the counter. As I go to walk out the door, Kai steps in my path.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Out with my friend."

"Nope, you're grounded," he smirks. He leans against the doorframe.

I laugh,"You think you have the authority to ground me, and on what grounds? Now, let me by."

"No," he deadpans.

"I hate to do this," quickly, I grab his phone out of his pocket and step back, so I'm out of reach.

"What are you doing?" he asks, an immense amount of concern on his face. I type in his password, which is of course his birthday, and fake making a quick phone call. I put the phone up to my ear, faking that I'm waiting for someone to pick up.

"Skylor, your friend with benefits isn't letting me go to a museum with my friend, and I was hoping you could tell him that he's being ridiculous," I smirk as Kai's eyes widen. "I understand. I'm putting you on speaker."

"No, no, no you can go," Kai quickly moves out of the way. With a smirk, I open up the door, placing the phone in Kai's hand. Jay is still waiting there, a nervous look present on his face.

"Let's get going before mister anger issues changes his mind," I suggest, linking my arm through his. I close the door behind me, and the two of us head to the car. Jay starts talking excitedly about what he had for breakfast, but all I can focus on is Kai, and how his glare stays on us until we disappear from view.

---

Skylor's POV

I'm sprawled across the couch, looking at the flash cards in my hand. The friend group decided to have a free weekend with no plans, so I decided it would be a good idea to get some studying in.

"Clouse, what the heck is a hippocampus?" I ask, furrowing my eyebrows.

"The hippocampus is a brain region that's a part of the limbic system. One of its most important jobs is encoding explicit memories into long term memory," he tells me, but it all goes over my head.

"The what system?"

"Clousey-Clouse, I need to talk to my daughter," my dad walks in, shooing him off with his hand.

"What is it dad? I'm a bit busy here," I glance over at him before looking back at my flash cards.

"I don't like the decisions you've been making lately," he crosses his arms.

"What?"

"Come on Skylor. You're ignoring your school work, and you've turned down the job I offered you at the noodle house."

"I turned down the job because I want to enjoy my high school experience. Is that a crime?" I set down my flash cards. I look over at him, but he has an unreadable expression on his face.

"Your friends, they are bad influences," he insists, grabbing the remote from off the table. He starts randomly pressing the buttons. The lights turn on and off, the blinds open and close, the chairs recline. He lets out a laugh of delight.

"They're not. Is it a bad thing I have people I want to hang out with?" I raise an eyebrow at him.

"Then why has Clouse seen you come home with that boy every day? You said Harumi took you home?"

I curse myself for forgetting that Clouse has a sense that detects when something is wrong. "Harumi added another extracurricular to her plate. Kai offered, and I didn't want to interrupt your work." I flawlessly lie, not an hint of nervousness anywhere.

"Always interrupt if that's the case. I'd rather not have you alone with some boy," he shivers, his short attention span drawing him somewhere else.

"Bye dad," I wave as he walks into the other room with no goodbye.

I go back to studying, but my brain lingers on one question.

Are my friends bad influences?

A/N: finally, I've had parts of this for a while, and I finally put it all together

Updates are going to be slower until after May 22 because of AP testing, but I'm still going to try to update. I'm taking both ap world and ap psychology 

Any predictions for this book?

I'm also thinking of making a random thoughts/ random things Ninjago book if anyone would like that