Of course, we all caught up on everything really, dad complained about mum's book club again to Leah and Amy, who both laughed at him, and my mum almost hit him with a spoon when he said that one of them was very 'annoying and bitchy'. Amy told us all about her travelling around Europe, after going to many of the same places that I went to when I travelled around Europe with Tabs the summer I finished my A-levels. Leah told us all about university, and her new boyfriend, Charlie. It was a huge mistake for her to mention that, because my parents were on her like piranhas, asking all of the juicy details and everything.

My parents were not prudes, they knew kids had sex, and they were the kind of parents you could genuinely talk to about anything. When I had a pregnancy scare once with Jordan, it was my mum who took me to the pharmacy, got me a pregnancy test, held my hand as we waited and once we saw it was negative, told me that just to be safe I should go on the pill. However, no matter how 'cool' your parents are, telling them the 'juicy details' was not what any kid wanted to do.

"Stop asking me questions, Avery is back with Jordan!" my sister blurted out, in an attempt to try and divert the attention away from me.

"You little bitch," I threw a potato at her. I turned to my parents, whose jaws were both on the floor, before my mum then screamed, "OH MY GOD FINALLY!"

"MUM!" I shouted, "I am not back with Jordan!"

"What, why?" my mum's face fell.

"He is a lovely boy, very good at fishing too," my dad added.

"You should see the tabloids, he carried her home the other day," Leah added. I threw another potato at her.

"Stop wasting potatoes!" my mother scolded, before grabbing Leah's phone, where she had got up the photo of me with Jordan, zooming in.

"Mum, you can't zoom in!" Leah complained.

"Yeah Aves, stop throwing potatoes if you can't aim, this is how you do it," Amy grinned at me before throwing a potato at Leah.

"Girls," my dad scolded us, "this is how you do it." He threw a perfect shot, right on mum's forehead.

"MARK!" she shouted, whilst we all just giggled. "Oh, this is a lovely photo," my mother turned the phone round to show me. Somehow the paparazzi had done a lot of digging, found out that we were, and I quote, 'high school sweethearts', and had found loads of old photos of us from when we were actually dating, with the hypothesis that we had got back together.

"We are genuinely not together," I informed my eagerly listening family, "I bumped into him at one of his boxing matches and he had dinner with my flat when Erin and Edward came to visit, and then he came out for our birthday, where I basically passed out and he carried me home, but he slept on the sofa. I've seen him twice after not seeing him for four years, there is nothing going on."

"Darling, you are so cute together," my mum spoke, as though she hadn't heard anything I had just said. "Leah, can you forward this picture to me dear?"

"Ugh," I groaned.

All of my family, all of my friends, they loved Jordan, and they loved us together. It was actually so hard to have a serious conversation about him with anyone, especially my friends. If I even dared to hint to Noah or Tabs that I had the slightest crush on him, which I'm not sure I do right now, but hypothetically, the amount they would try and set me up with him would be unreal. I just knew I would just walk out of my room and there he would be, sitting on the sofa with a tea, and then for some reason they would both have to leave to 'get some cheese from the shop' or some stupid excuse, leaving Jordan and I together. That is the type of friends they were, which is all well and good, and it was lovely to have friends like that, but if anything was to happen, I wanted it to be natural, not because my friends and family had kind of pushed us into it, and I wanted us to be ready. God, I don't even know if I want anything with him.

"Wine?" my dad asked as me as I sat in the lounge.

"I need some," I answered. He chuckled before pouring me a glass and handing it to me.

"So... Jordan," he started.

"Please, God, not again," I groaned.

"Hey, I am not your mother, you can talk to me about it and I promise I won't say anything like 'how adorable'," he said the last two words in a purposeful high pitched voice to try and mimic my mother, even though her voice wasn't high pitched at all, but it made me laugh.

I took a sip of wine before I started speaking. "I've honestly no idea what's going on, I haven't seen him in four years dad."

"Do you have any feelings left for him at all?"

"I guess, I like him as a friend obviously, and it's weird, it's kind of fallen all back into place, as though there were no four years in between when we last spoke, but it's still all so weird, like him and where we left things off and... I don't know."

"Are you still upset about what happened?"

"I've no idea. Kind of. He didn't trust me, and I can't be with someone who doesn't trust me."

"Does he trust you now?"

"I haven't asked," I shrugged my shoulders, drinking more wine.

"Maybe you should. He definitely cares about you, a lot. That much is clear, not just because he still texts me asking how you are, but no one just carries someone home. He always has cared a lot for you, and I guess that is something. If it turns out the two of you are meant to be just friends, then it turns out that way. You definitely shouldn't feel pressured into dating him because other people want you to."

"Maybe, but yeah, I get you. Wait, he still texts you?!"

"Well, we go fishing sometimes, when he visits, and we watch the rugby too, and we text and call all the time, and sometimes he asks about you," my dad answered as if that was the most normal thing in the world.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I looked at him with wide eyes.

"You're the one who banned any Jordan-talk," he looked at me like 'duh'.

"You still go fishing with my ex-boyfriend... that is so weird."

"We're good friends, it doesn't matter if he's your ex or not!"

"What's this honey?" my mum asked walking in.

"Just telling Avery about my fishing trips with Jordan," answered my dad.

"Oh, the two of them are sweet, and then he always sits and drinks tea with me as we catch up, I do love that boy." Fuck me, how did I not know any of this?! This is ridiculous.

"What the fuck?" I was gobsmacked.

"Shut your mouth honey, you'll catch flies," my mother said to me, before putting her hand under my chin and pushing up to shut my mouth.

After the three of us had all finished up for the day, I picked Noah up then I picked Tabs up. Annoyingly, they were still barely talking. "Okay, I know you are annoyed at eachother, but I need friend advice, so you will suck it up and advise me," I stated, as I pulled out of Tabs' driveway and through the open gate. They both muttered a 'fine' and I proceeded to tell them exactly what had gone down with my parents. I told them about the paparazzi, the tabloids, how they found out we were 'high school sweethearts', and I told them about the fishing trips with my dad and the tea and gossip sessions he had with my mum.

"That's so cute," Tabs said.

"It is not cute it's weird!" I groaned.

"No way, I agree with Tabs, it's adorable. Anyway, it's got nothing to do with you, they're just friends," Noah chimed in.

"Thank you, we finally agree on something," Tabs added. They spent the next ten minutes apologising profusely to eachother about how they regretted the argument, and that they loved eachother and yada yada yada. However, it meant they were absolutely of no help to me at all in any way shape or form.

"Guys! Help," I interjected.

"Well, the tabloids are annoying, but I guess that's what you just have to deal with now," explained Tabs.

"Do you like him?" asked Noah.

"I don't know," I groaned.

"That wasn't a no! Affirmative, that wasn't a no!" squealed Noah.

"Time for some serious matchmaking!" added Tabs.

"NO!" I shouted at the two of them. They completely ignored me, as always, and went on to start planning exactly how they were going to 'get the two of us together'. I actually felt like just driving off a cliff or something right about now. 

***

1507 words

06/01/2021