"Who are you looking at?" Sophie looked over her shoulders, but her was gone.
The guy from church.
Troy. The really, really hot one.
I cannot believe he's here. At Wahoo's. Like, what are the chances? But I mean, they do say that once you meet someone or see someone, you start seeing them everywhere and if that's the case, I don't really mind. He probably doesn't recognize me, anyway. I just can't believe he's here. At the same time.
Oh, right, Sophie was talking to me. "What? Um, no one."
She gave me a weird look and then shrugged, "Okay, well, what should I do about my paper? Should I let it go or fight Mrs. Marksbury on it?"
"I don't know, Soph, I mean, you didn't fail it. You got a B. You really think you deserved an A?"
"YES!" she exclaims, almost too loudly, "I worked so hard on it and you saw me. I even ditched you a couple of times to write this. I know it's AP English and so the grading is harder, but I really thought I would get an A. I worked so hard on it."
"Well, then, yeah, just talk to her," I tell her, "no harm in that."
She nods, "yeah, I just don't want to come off as that annoying student, you know? But I think I will."
Soph looked down at her phone and I looked up from mine. The guy was coming out. Troy. And he walked right past me, not even looking at me.
Yep. He doesn't remember me.
And that's okay. Ha. I remember him because well, he's hot. And I have a good memory.
"Why does the food here take SO long?"
"Maybe because there are a lot of people here," I tell Sophie, matter-of-factually, "you're the one that wanted to drive all the way over here."
"15 minutes," she rolls her eyes, "it's not that far."
Okay, no, it's no. But like 25 if there's traffic. And I like Laguna. It's small and beachy and quaint and I sometimes wish I lived here, but Newport is open and big and I just love it. It's home. I could never leave it. But I do like coming down to Laguna. I've been coming down here a lot recently. They have good food.
Sophie puts her phone down and looks around at the place, all over the patio.
And then her head perks up.
"Oh my gosh," she looks over at me with a smile, "it's Chase."
"Chase?"
"Chase!" she repeats, "my mom's best friend's son."
Oooh right. That Chase. The Chase she used to have a massive crush on. I mean, he is cute. I've seen him a couple of times at parties, but I don't think I've seen him in over a year. I'm sure he's only gotten hotter, right? And I'm sure she's gonna go over there any say hi.
Yep. She's getting up.
"Soph, don't interrupt them, they're eating."
"It'll only be a minute," she tells me, "besides, I haven't seen him in a while."
She walks over to them and I look at what's going on. Chase immediately smiles upon seeing her and gets up and gives her a hug. And Sophie being the social butterfly that she is, starts talking to them for longer that she said she would.
I knew this would happen, of course. It always happens. And I'm always the one having to pull her away and bring her back to whatever she was doing.
And today was no different since our food was now here.
It was going to get cold if she didn't come over right now and sit her butt down so of course I had to go get her.
"Soph," I come up behind her, "food's here."
"One minute," she glances over at me and puts her hand up to shush me.
Cool.
I stand there awkwardly because Chase is now saying hi to me while Sophie is talking to some other guy. I say hi to him because well, I know him. Not well, but if I saw him on the street I'd recognize him and he'd recognize me, too. We've been around each other enough times to do so.
And straight across from where I was standing was the guy from church. Troy. Whatever his last name is.
He's so freaking hot, I can't take it.
I give him a small smile and he gives me one. He gives me a smile and I'm freaking out. Not really, I just, he's always been so serious when I would see him and now it seems like he's just a guy having fun with his friends.
"So yeah, we need to hang out," Sophie directed this at Chase, turning her body a bit towards him, "it's been a while."
"Yeah, definitely," Chase grabs his drink and sips on it, "what are you doing Friday? My friend Max is having a party on Friday, you guys should come."
Guys? As in me, too?
Sophie smiles at him and looks over at me for a quick second, "Yeah, sounds good! Text me the address and we'll be there."
Troy looked at me like he was surprised she said I'd go. And I get it. I do. I'm a preacher's daughter. But just for that stare alone, I want to go. And I want to show him that I'm a regular teenage girl who can go to parties and have fun.
We walked away and went back to our table and started going to town on our food. I was so hungry.
"So you down to go?" Sophie asks me, "it'd be fun."
"Sure," I shrug, "are you still harboring feelings for him?"
She almost chocked on her fish taco. "What?" she sort of laughed, "don't say that here. And no, I'm not. I don't think. I literally have not seen him in months so how could I still like him?"
I shrug, "I'm just asking. You seem pretty eager to go, so I don't know."
"He's fun."
"Yeah, I guess so."
And that was that. We finished eating, faster than the guys. And when we were ready to leave, we walked past them and Troy and I connected eyes one last time. It was different this time. It's like we knew who each other were. And you know what? I want to go to that party tomorrow and see him.
I think. Yeah, yeah, I do. I want to see what he's all about.
"Sophie, if you're going to make me drive, you have to at least know where to tell me to go!"
She grunted and looked back down at her phone and then up at my navigation system, "Well, I don't know, I thought we had it covered with these!"
I shook my head as I turned right on the street it was telling us to, but I don't think it was right. "I'm so ready to just turn this around."
"No," Sophie says, "I think we're going the right way."
We better be. I was sick of turning around.
"Yeah," she continues, "this is it, it's telling me on my phone and the street is a few streets over."
"Okay," I trust her.
I turn off my navigation system because for some reason it's off and it's not working today. Her phone is giving us the right directions. This house is up in the hills and it's just really hard to get to and it better be worth it. There better be cute guys. And good music. And girls who were nice and not dressed like sluts.
Sasha perked her head in between us from the backseat, "why don't you just ask me? I know this place like the back of my hand."
Oh crap. I thought she was sleeping. Before we came here, we ran a few errands. Well, Sophie did. She wanted to go to target to get a book or something and so Sasha stayed in the back seat and slept because she was exhausted. Ha.
Sasha Peters. Our dear friend.
It's the three of us, usually all the time. Sophie and I have known each other for so much longer, but she just fits with us.
We met her in 9th grade when she moved from Laguna Beach and have been inseparable since. But she grew up here. She knows people, she went to middle school with these people and some of her best friends live here. I'm not sure why she went to Newport Beach High, maybe she didn't want to commute the 20 minutes everyday? I don't know. But she still comes over here all the time since her dad lives here so of course we're bringing her to this party. She even knows Chase. And Troy? Well, I'm not sure, I haven't asked and I don't know if I even want to. It'll only bring up questions from her.
"Are we going the right way?" Sophie looked over at her.
"Yes," she stretches her arms out and lets out a yawn, "we're pretty much there."
Thank God. I was sick of driving around in circles. And I knew we could have easily asked Sash, but I didn't want to wake her up. I felt bad.
But we end up getting there, parking a bit away since there are cars everywhere. It's dark out. It's 8 pm and that's normal arrival time for a party. Everyone knows you don't want to show up before dark. That's lame. Ha. Even though we've done that before but whatever. It was totally by accident, so who cares.
"Come on," Sasha leads the way.
And once we're in back, she starts greeting people left and right. Of course. Of course she knows everyone. She's a social little butterfly.
We sort of just follow her, not really know what else to do. She introduces us to some people, others not, and then we make our way deep into the party. In the center of everything and everyone looks to just be having such a good time. Like, they're all getting along.
So different than Newport parties, that's for sure. there's always some sort of drama going on.
"Sash!" Chase shouts out and approaches us.
"Chase!" Sasha extends her arms and gives him a hug, "I've missed you."
He laughs and nods and then turns to Sophie, "hey, so happy you guys could come."
We all exchange hugs and then before I know it, Sasha has wandered off and it's just us three and Chase and Sophie are laughing about something, but she's not leaving my side, which is good. They're engaging, having fun, and so it's whatever. I'm fine with just standing here, looking around at everyone.
And then someone came behind us and went straight to Chase. "Dude, come here, Marcus is picking up some girl and you have to see it, it's the funniest..."
It was Troy. The hot guy.
He stopped when he realized who Chase was talking to. "Oh."
Chase turned to us and then back at Troy.
"Yeah, I've seen him," he tells him, "I'm sure I'll catch the next show, he's always doing it."
And then there's a silence between the four of us. We're all just standing there a little awkwardly and I have no idea why. A minute ago, Chase and Sophie were laughing hysterically about something and once Troy interrupted, it all just kind of shifted gears. It was sort of weird.
But then Chase spoke up. "This is my friend, Troy."
Sophie smiled at him and extended her hand, probably finding him extremely good looking, "Hi, I'm Sophie."
He grabbed her hand and shook it and gave her a small smile, "Troy."
And then Sophie turned to me and I think she wanted me to introduce myself, but I was not going to shake his hand like I was an adult or like we're business associates. We're in high school.
"Gabriella," I tell him so Sophie could quit looking at me like that.
He just nodded and gave me a small smile and then turned to Chase, "sorry for interrupting, I'm gonna head inside."
And then he was gone.
