"I told him I was taking the bike and that I lived right over here. Which he knows, by the way" I added, matter of factly. ",because of his other ride."

"And?"

My cousin Harper laid on my bed in an upside down position, her hair lazily sprawled on my comforter, while keeping her legs up so that her feet rested on the wall behind the bed. She was eager to know all the details and then some about Friday night's party slash gathering of people.

"And he kept telling me it wouldn't be safe to take the bike at five in the morning all the way to my neighborhood, and-"

"And you ended up saying yes, right?" Harper interrupted me again, with another question.

"Well, what else did you want me to say?" I asked her, with an unwanted, slight tone of indignation showing in my voice.

"You know what?" I started, my voice now returning to its neutral tone, and she gave me a look that hinted for me to continue. "The next time anything of this sort happens, I'm telling them you're coming with me."

Although Harper was laying upside down on the bed, I could still decipher the expression of confusion written all over her face.

"With Kyle and Carter glued to the hip, I was practically all alone, plus Chloé says she's tired of being the only girl, so another lady wouldn't hurt their little group."

"Oh, I know her. She's in my history class."

"Great, you'll have that to talk about." There's that sarcasm that I can't control.

"Ew, no..." She dropped her legs down and sat up on the bed, before turning forward, looking in my direction while I was adjusting the dress I put on for tonight. "Zoey, I don't wanna go to a party to talk about History. Are you out of your mind?"

"Whatever, I don't care." I twirled in front of the mirror, my fingertips grazing the hem of the dress. "How do I look?"

"Beautiful!" She said with a wide smile sprawled on her face. "Now, move. I need to get my makeup done." She dragged herself from my bed and made her way to my makeup stand, where she went for the concealer first.

Harper and I are pretty much like sisters. Although we are cousins, we have always been inseparable and we grew up sharing everything, and tonight, my makeup was no exception.

We were both getting ready to go to the school's play, more precisely, the school play that Kyle was participating in.

"I just think you're missing the point here, Zo." She stated while focusing on applying small dots of concealer underneath her bottom eyelid.

"Oh yeah?" I looked at her through the mirror, while she used the tip of her index finger to spread the layer of makeup on her skin.

"Yeah." She said once she was finished with the concealer, and before moving onto the mascara that she carefully applied. "You had a blast, at what sounded like a pretty cool party, where you actually socialized and interacted with one of the coolest groups of school, not to mention you ended up having some alone time with Noah who, by the way, wanted you to stay and gave you a ride home at the end!"

I stood behind her, looking at her and her smirk through the mirror while I let out an exasperated sigh.

"Harper, I can't believe we're in the twenty-first century and I still have to point out for you how all of those things are just a part of being a decent person and not the grand gesture you're making them to be."

I turned in my heels and made my way to my closet, looking for the white bomber jacket I've been meaning to wear with this dress I had on today.

"I can't believe you're just... not seeing it. Or you're just choosing not to." I glanced at my cousin, who looked unbothered at what I had just said to her, and moved onto the eye shadow.

"This conversation is over, okay?"

"Sure, if you want it to be." She shrugged, the same unbothered look on her face.

"I do."

"Fine."

* * *

Our school's theater wasn't the biggest, but it wasn't the smallest either and yet the free seats were starting to disappear as show time was approaching. The audience was mostly parents. Kyle's parents were there and other student's parents as well, some teachers and the rest were just other students from school that I recognized from here and there.

I fidgeted with the brochure they handed us at the reception table, the paper was decorated in orange and black, with little spiders and eyeballs decorating the corners. The play was Addams Family, which seemed a little random and funny to me but Kyle had explained that this was a good opportunity for the younger kids to start taking theater more seriously and the fact that the Halloween spirit was in full swing by now didn't hurt either.

The show started at eight o'clock with a duration of forty five minutes, no breaks. Usually, if I arrived early I would go see Kyle backstage and wish him luck but since we arrived at the last minute, a text message would have to do.

Zoey: We're here. Break a leg!!! See you after the show.

Kyle: Thanks babe! Btw, you and Harper are sitting on the second row on the left, I asked them to save you some seats. Xo

My eyebrows joined at the center of my forehead, frowning in confusion after reading his text.

Them?

Standing by one of the main entrance doors, at the back of the theater, and with the privileged view, my eyes easily found the second row, on the left, and a light bulb lit up inside my brain.

"Oh, he's gotta be kidding me." I muttered under my breath in annoyance.

"What?" Harper questioned, but in the absence of an answer from me, she just followed my gaze, trying to understand what was going on.

I quickly explained to her what Kyle had done and we had no other choice but to make our way around, going down the side hallway, to our seats.

There they were. Carter sitting in the middle of the boys, Ben and Chloé sitting next to each other and, of course, Noah Wilson.

"Zoey, hi!" Chloé was the first one to notice me and Harper when we arrived.

Everyone else turned to look at us but I chose to ignore the glaring eyes, especially the dark brown ones that belonged to Noah and that made my skin crawl.

And not necessarily in a bad way, but that's neither here nor there.

I smiled at Chloé and waved in her direction. "Hi. Um, this is Harper, she's my cousin and best friend."

"Oh, hi Harper! You're in my History class, aren't you?" Chloé's raspy voice asked, her index finger pointing at my cousin.

"Yep, I am."

Being the nice kids that they are, Ben, Carter and Noah waved in Harper's direction and greeted her with a mix of heys and his.

Of course, the two seats available on that row were indeed the two seats that Kyle had asked them to save for me and Harper, which were next to Noah. Once he saw me looking at them, he removed a couple of backpacks from off the chairs, which they were using to save the seats.

"Thanks." I said in a low whisper as they started to dim the lights. In a matter of seconds and in the midst of the confusion of some people rushing down the hallway, Harper shoved me into the row, ending up with me taking the seat next to Noah's and my cousin taking the aisle seat.

During all those forty five minutes, nobody talked to each other or said anything. Utter silence. Of course there were some laughs and chuckles that were related to specific scenes of the show, but that was about it.

The play was alright, as good as every school play can be. My best friend killed it, as per usual, and at the end we all stood proudly and clapped. Kyle winked at us from the stage, after he bent down to thank the crowd, hand in hand with the other cast members of the play.

Kyle's parents met me and Harper to greet us and then left, just like everybody else started to do, unlike Noah and his group of friends.

I thought the aftershow celebrations were going to be just me, Kyle and Harper, like it usually is, but, I guess I was wrong because none of them left and were waiting for Kyle just like me and my cousin were.

"Wow, I could cut the tension between you two like a knife." Harper whispered against my ear. I gently hit her arm with my elbow to silence her, since Noah was sitting right next to me.

She didn't say anything else, but I dwelled on her previous words. I wasn't sure why that tension even existed. I mean, if I was being honest, part of me did and part me didn't.

Noah and I started off with the wrong foot and there was always this bitterness between us and whatnot but other than that there wasn't exactly something I could pinpoint that could cause this awkward as hell silence between the two of us.

We got to know each other better at the bonfire and yet, it seemed like we were just growing apart and becoming strangers again. All week long, we didn't speak much, he didn't even throw his witty comments at me during swim practice. It was weird.

However, I guess it could have something to do with what my cousin had intended on telling me.

"Hey, Zoey." He interrupted my thoughts.

Thinking of the devil.

"Hi."

Noah was about to say something else, and I hate to admit that I was so eager to know what it was, but Kyle jumped off the stage, now in his own clothes and not his character's, and joined the group. Needless to say, Noah saw his opportunity gone and joined in on the man hugs and other greetings, the conversation between us now long forgotten.

I pulled my best friend in for a hug and wrapped my arms around him. "You were fantastic out there!"

"Thank you." Kyle replied, his excitement visible in the glint in his eyes and the smile on his face. "So, we're ready to go, or what?"

The guys enthusiastically agreed and started leaving the theater. Harper and I followed them, still unaware of where we were going. When it's just us three, we usually just go to Kyle's place and celebrate there. However, his previous question gave me the impression that that wasn't the plan tonight.

"Where are we going, exactly?" Harper asked, trying to sound as chill as possible, while completely unaware of where we were headed.

"Hollywood, baby!"

"What?" The question rolled out of my tongue faster than I expected. I realized how it sounded and after sensing all their eyes on me, I popped another question, this time much more calmly and with a hint of a fake smile. "When did we plan this?"

"It was a last minute thing." Kyle rushed to answer me, his fingers wrapping themselves around my forearm. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. But you're coming, aren't you?"

His pleading blue eyes stared into mine, begging me to say yes.

"Yeah, sure." I said, a genuine smile on my lips this time.

I wasn't going to say no. But I wasn't going to act like I wasn't surprised that we were going to Hollywood, on a Friday night, with a group of people who up until a month ago were complete strangers to us.

"How are we going?"

"Ben and I are driving." Noah said. "We earned our driver's license, now we gotta make the most of it." He and his best friend shared some personal handshakes and chuckled.

Even though I was sixteen and old enough to drive and learn how to, I wasn't into it, mostly because of my negative mindset about my life.

"Wow, I keep forgetting you guys are all a year older than us." I said in between chuckles.

"A year?" Carter's eyebrows flew up to his hairline.

Chloé laughed and said. "I'm the only one who's a year older than you. The guys are all eighteen."

"What?" I asked, and when I looked at Kyle, I knew he was just as surprised as I was.

"Chloé, come on, don't try to make me older than I am." Noah said before chuckling out loud.

"Oh right." She giggled before correcting herself. "Noah's still seventeen actually. Damn, why do I always forget you're younger than Ben?"

Chloé asked her last question directly to Noah, who looked at her too, but only bothered to shrug and chuckle some more.

"How are you guys not in college by now?" Kyle's question was a pretty good indicator of the confusion he, too, was experiencing.

"Fun fact, I started school earlier than everyone so I should be in college by now, but I hate school and I hate studying, so I was held back a year." Noah explained while he twirled the keychain of his car keys around his index finger. "Ben here just started school a year later than us."

"And what about you?" Kyle asked his love interest, Carter.

"I had to take a year off school... to help out my parents."

I nodded in agreement but also in silence. The more I got to know them the more fascinated I became. I would never dream, in a million years, that these guys had all these layers with all these backstories.

"I call shotgun!" Carter shouted as he got to the school's parking lot and started running off to what I found out later, it was Ben's vehicle.

Unlike Noah's dusty jeep that could take three people in the large front seat, Ben's car was an old, gray Toyotta, that had clearly passed his prime. It could fit five people, which meant that someone had to join Noah in his jeep, that I already knew so well.

I knew that Chloé was going with her boyfriend and that Kyle wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to go with his crush, and, figuring it all out in my head, knew all too well where this was going.

"Harper, you should come with me and Noah." I said.

"Why?"

"Just..." I shrugged, trying to find a good enough reason not to be on my own with Noah for the ride. "Because Noah might need help or anything and I can't drive and you can, so..."

I could tell she saw right through me and although her eyes were telling me that I was acting weird about it, she played along and agreed.

Noah didn't object either, nor did he notice my intention to avoid any alone time with him - or, if he did, he didn't show it -, and he simply smiled at us before hopping onto the driver's seat.

Hollywood, here we come. 

* * *

author's note: here it is, chapter ten! wow, i can't believe we made it to double digits chapters already, what is time!? anyway, i really hope you liked it <3

in case you missed the announcement on my ig (which reminds me, btw, to ask you to follow me if you don't already, cause i share all kinds of cute story related content!), TBOTE is now being updated every sunday! yay! 

please vote, comment, and share this story with your friends if you're enjoying reading it, and add it to your reading list so you don't miss out on any updates!

xoxo, mars