Two weeks pass, and I find myself to really be hitting it off with Gene. He has always been incredibly kind to me, and my free days are spent more with him than with my family. . . even if that sounds horrible.

But now there's no day off, and I'm stuck in the studio with the ding dongs. Maybe we should've named ourselves Y/N and the Ding Dongs.

Placing the money down against the table after I count it, I sigh and look up to the two Zvahl siblings. Vylad is in the recording booth.

"We're short," I say, sighing. We need a little more money in order to buy Vylad the camera he wanted, and we don't want to go to our parents for the extra cash. I don't know what to do before then.

Laurance looks down at the stack of money like I'm crazy. He picks it up, trying to quickly count through it thinking that I can't do basic math and count dollar bills.

He looks at me and drops the money back on the table in defeat. He knows we're short and doesn't want to admit to it.

"I could use what money was going for Laurance's present," Alex says, looking down at the table. "That'll add some money."

"Hey!" Laurance says, beginning to pout at the announcement he'd be losing a present from under his tree.

"Be selfless," she sasses.

"No, no," I say, waving it off with my hand. "This is something we need to put our heads together for. We all can't just rely on one person to fix the problem."

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

"You look better in my jacket than I do."

Gene looks down at me with a satisfied smirk. I roll my eyes, looking up at the sunset from the swing. I refrain from making a snarky comment. Though, if I wanted to be flirted with, I'd go to Laurance.

Surprisingly Laurance has been focusing a lot on the band lately. He's attending practices and meetings while Aphmau appears less often. It makes me wonder if there's trouble in paradise. Even then, it's not my problem. Or, maybe he didn't like having to sign all those CDs by himself.

"Tough crowd I see."

The swing creeks when he places his weight on it. I snicker even though I know the swing did the same exact thing when I sat down. Old swings plus a teenagers body equals squeaking.

I let out a hum to support his remark. It's freezing outside even with my coat on. I don't understand how Gene isn't cold from one layer being stripped off.

I begin to carve little circles into the packed snow under my feet, finding the silence between us to be rather awkward. Neither of us know what to say, but I don't even know if I'm in a talking mood. My mind has been trailing back to Christmas later and what still has to be done for it. Finding the extra money is sometimes annoying, but I've been talking to Leo trying to figure some things out. I've never been one to budget before.

"Y/N, I have a question for you."

My attention is back on Gene. He has somehow managed to get out of his swing and stand directly in front of me without making a single noise. Either that or I wasn't paying well enough attention.

"What's up?"

"Do you think that you could ever see us getting together?"

My eyes widen. I knew something like this would happen, but I wasn't expecting it for quite some time. Now that it's here, I truly didn't think that well about it. I guess I've really haven't taken the time to think further on this matter.

I begin to discuss this with him. When I started, I felt horrible for the thought never even coming up. Then when it did, it was only for spilt seconds and never lasted long or got far.

He seems to understand as he hums and nods his head with what I have to say. There's occasional comments to respond with something I said, but it's mainly silence on his end. So much so I begin to worry that I'm scaring him off.

"You probably hate me now," I tell him, forcing an awkward chuckle past my lips while I rub the back of my neck. Now I feel incredibly awkward.

"Incredibly," he says, and my heart drops. I slowly look up into his eyes to see that he's trying his best not to brush out into laughter from my reaction. He reaches for my hand, and I look down at it. "I'm just kidding. Actually, I want to try for a relationship if you're comfortable with doing that."

I look at him for a short minute, trying my best to weigh everything before nodding. "Alright. That sounds good to me."