"I don't know about you, but I am so over this heat." Ellie stumbles back behind the counter with a thud, throwing herself down onto the chair next to the high blast on the counter. "Working is hard, I want some fries."

I lift an eyebrow at my best friend who makes herself more than comfortable while I ring out a customer with their ice cream. She flips through a magazine–not even looking at it–while popping some of her bubblegum, a pout growing on her lips. "Come on, not like Adonis will care if we dip for like twenty minutes."

On cue, the fake wooden windows open behind us and Adonis appears with a white hat on and his blue uniform, his tie all messed up and a few lipstick stain marks covering his neck. "Actually, I would care. I think it would be against store policy if you just left during your shift to go and get french fries."

I lean my elbows back against the glass register stand, crossing both of my ankles one over the other with an amused expression on my face. "I think it's against store policy to have a girl back there during your shift, but I think if maybe we had some fries in our stomach I could..." I shrug looking at Ellie. "Forget?"

Adonis grumbles at us both, slamming the wooden windows close. I reach under the counter and grab my wallet before Ellie makes a noise of glee and we both leave to walk around the food court.

One of the agreements that I made with my mom when I came down here was to get a job, and that job just so happened to be at an Ice Cream shop in the mall. It was very popular during the summer, and since Adonis was a part time manager he hooked us up. Nothing too shabby.

"Scratch french fries, I want a fat ass double cheese pizza with sausage on one side and pineapple on the other." My nose screws up at her suggestion, following her down the food court until we stop in front of Calz's pizza. "I think bread sticks and a milkshake to top it off would be good."

"Do you ever think with your head instead of your stomach? You are going to be sick by the time our shift is over."

"Of course not, my brain needs to be open so I can focus on my fashion. What good would that be if I was thinking about food?" She states in a 'duh' tone and stretches her arms over the top of the counter. "Hi, Frankie!" She yells to the back employee.

Frankie, an older man with a beard as long as his neck, two different colored eyes and a frame as big as my fist wobbles over wiping pizza dough on his apron. "Hello, my two favorite customers." His thick accent melts into our ears with endearment. "How is work treating you?"

Ellie lets out a small groan, settling into a long conversation about her designs and completely ignores the question about how work was going for the two of us. Frankie always held a soft spot for Ellie, she stayed back one time to help him count the till so he could get home in time to his family. Another weekend she worked a double after pulling some strings and had me, OJ, Adonis and Suki all with us to let him stay home after he broke his wrist. He has employees, but none are as good as Ellie.

My back turns on the two of them to pull out my phone to look at my texts, a few from Kiki telling me about some races he wanted me to be in, my mom asking me how it was going and Deja sending me photos from her summer dance. I replied back to only her, telling her how pretty she was with a sad emoji. I couldn't be there.

"The best pizza is the deep dish with a little bit of sausage melted on top," a deep voice speaks in front of me. My eyes lock with a surprisingly lanky male standing behind the two of us in line.

The red headed boy next to him smiles boyishly, the blonde headed boy who spoke first also gave us a smile. "You all must not be locals if you don't know how to get your pizza made, Frankie here whipped it up for us one day and it's been a seller throughout the campus."

"Well, we don't attend college here." Ellie returns boy boys' smiles. They look about our age and they tower over us easily. "We just visit during the summer."

"Well, in that case..." The red head wriggles his eyebrows, extending a hand to her. "I'm Lucas, this is Michael."

I shook both of their hands once Ellie does. Lucas has light freckles across both his cheeks, Michael has a scar down the side of his neck, but besides that, the two of them look rather similar.

"So what do you study?"

"I have a scholarship in basketball," Lucas answers her. That doesn't surprise me. He's as lanky and tall as the players I have seen on TV. "Michael's majoring in Astrophysics."

"That's so smart of you," she replies, catching Michael's attention and causing him to smile. "Back home, I have an internship during the fall for Fashion design. I hope to one day travel to New York and work with Karl Lagerfeld."

They both give her a positive smile before turning towards me, cocking their head to the side waiting for me to respond to what I plan to do with my life. "I'm her muse. Just kinda going with the flow." I send her a sideways look. I'm probably the only person she knows who actually enjoys writing and literature in my spare time; but I rather keep that part hidden to myself.

"That's awesome, I hope to see your work on the streets of Broadway with your gorgeous friend as the model." The two boys are next in line, but they don't seem remotely bothered. "You should come with us to an underground fight tomorrow night, lots of people from our college are going and we managed to score some free tickets."

"An underground fight?" Ellie asks curiously before I can politely turn the offer down. The last thing I need is to get caught up in something I didn't want to do – as much as I am curious about the fight.

"Yeah, some guy's trying to take on some new fighter for the title. No one knows his name, he goes by J. I doubt he'll even make it through the first round."

"J? Who's that?" Michael smirks, obviously amused by Ellie's question.

"He's the best underground fighter in the world, hasn't been beaten once. The tickets usually are a shit load, but Lucas has some connections on his team–and in his pants."

I groan at the comment but can't help but laugh at it. "How many extra tickets can you snag? I got some people I can't leave hanging if I plan to attend."

"Depends on the amount."

"Six in total. My cousin OJ, my 'brother' Adonis, Ellie and I obviously, Tej and his girl Suki. If you get the tickets, we will come."

Their eyes widen at the names, but shake off the look as Lucas pulls out his phone to make some calls. Ellie smiles at Michael again and the realization suddenly dawns on me why she eagerly wouldn't turn down the offer to go.

"Tickets are good, if you would've said you knew Tej and Oj I could've gotten you the tickets earlier. Want us to pick you up?"

"Nah, you can take Ellie's number though and shoot us the address. You'll know we comin'."

I watch as Ellie types her details into Michael's phone, the boy she charmed in ten minutes.

"See ya later." We held our plate of pizza and turned to walk back to work.

                                       ⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

"You ready this time?" Suki stands in the center of the road with two flags up while Ellie and I were off to the side on one of the couches that we stole, it was only the club and a few guests that got to see us practice on our off time tonight. Tonight it's Adonis and OJ racing this time, a friendly match to get off their high horses.

"Yeah, yeah baby girl. OJ just tryna distract me from whoopin' his ass like last time." Adonis cusses out, making OJ flip him off.

"Here you go, stay running your mou–"

"OJ!?"

A female sassily storms her way through the warehouse and out the back, her voice echoing outside. "WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?! Hey, Drue. Where your cousin?" She calmly speaks to me, knowing better than to raise her voice.

I nod my head in the direction of the car speeding off prematurely, my hand flying to his mouth where I laugh. "Think you scared him again, Nic."

A cough behind me catches my attention, making me drop my head so I was staring at the source of the sound upside down. JK stood behind me, his hands shoved in his pockets. I forgot OJ told him to come by again tonight.

"I meant to be with OJ, but... I see he is busy."

I let out a small groan, dropping my head back before standing up to show him to the array of cars we have lined up in the garage. "Do you know anything about cars?"

"Yes? That's why your cousin invited me."

"No, I mean these cars specifically. Anyone can know about a car, but you need to be versatile in all types of cars. How can I trust that you'll tune me up right during a race and you can't tell the weight of my horsepower ratio, depending on the weight of my car and what fuel I'll need."

He slowly stops and looks over me. "You don't trust me."

"I don't know you. My cousin can't just bring anyone here and expect me to be okay with you working on the cars I'll drive. I've known these people for years, you are just a face he knows."

He looks at the ground and swirls his tongue around his cheek in thought. "I get it, you have some weird trust issues with the opposite gender, I get it. I just want some more experience. I saw those dents and chips on the cars outside, and something tells me you don't go to regular mechanics because your boss doesn't want them finding out about all these cars and what you do with them, which explains why OJ reached out to me personally and privately."

I lick my lips and roll my eyes at his statement, he knows he's right.

"I know how to fix cars and I know how to fix your cars as well. Whatever you do with the cars, I don't care. It isn't my place. I just want to be part of this and your group is the best there is."

My eyes drill into his before roaming around the ground as I think to myself. "Fine. But just so you are aware, I don't want you focusing on just MY cars. You gotta tend to everyone else so I know you not fucking with us."

"You can check out the cars and do whatever, also." I pull out a pen and take his hand into mine, scribbling my number and an address for the fight tomorrow. "We all going to this tomorrow, Suki going to Tampa for a spa retreat so that leaves an empty seat at the fight."

JK chuckles, shaking his head before pulling his hand back. "I know about this fight."

"You do?"

"Yeah. My brother is fighting in it tomorrow. His name J."