Chapter Seven

Chino's is a small, popular café that, at night, is usually filled with couples. But, in the daytime, it is the perfect time to meet with a friend in order to come up with a plan.

In this case, Tika and I are going to try to construct a plan to save The Eight Wonders. At least, that's what the town and everyone in school calls us. But we usually just refer to ourselves as The Crew.

If you ask Tika about our group, she'll say that it's a group of four guys, four girls, and four potential couples.

Now that I've got Tika on the mind, I wonder where she is. She was supposed to be here ten minutes ago.

"Sorry I'm late, Kai," as if hearing my thoughts Tika pops up right in front of me.

Before saying anything, I look her over. She's wearing a blue jean skirt that stops a few inches above her knees, a pink and white striped shirt that hangs off of her shoulders, pink dangly earrings, and her hair is in a high ponytail.

All in all, I have to say that she looks pretty cute.

I shrug in response to her statement. "Doesn't matter. You're here now. Let's get down to business."

She smiles and sits down across from me. "Well that's good. I was afraid that you would be mad at me or something…I know how you are about being on time and all that other stuff."

I just shrug again. "I knew you'd be late. You always are."

I could barely hide the smile that began to make it's way across my face as I watched her cheeks turn a light shade of pink as she puffed them out indignantly.

"I'm not always late," she says sulkily.

I roll my eyes. "Whatever. Let's just get to what we came here for."

Her lips seemed to get even more poutier…if that were even possible. "Fine."

We sat in silence for a few moments, just staring at each other. Each of us waiting for the other to speak first.

I broke the silence with a sigh. "So, do you have any ideas on how we can fix this?"

I watched as she pursed her lips together thoughtfully and I realized that she was waiting for an invitation. "Well, I do I have a few ideas…" she let her voice trail off and grinned slyly at me.

I didn't like the look of that smile.

"What type of ideas?" I asked slowly.

She leaned forward and grinned. "Well, it's only two. Plan number one: Lock Tyson and Hilary in a closet and refuse to let them out. Although, I do have my doubts about that one. They might kill each other."

I nodded. She did have a point there. Tyson and Hilary are both pretty stubborn and would probably kill each other before they let go of their pride.

"Okay. What's your second plan?"

She smiled brightly. "I was hoping you'd ask that."

I swallowed when she gave me a suggestive grin. I really hope she isn't about to say what I think she's about to say.

"Plan number two: You and I act like we're a couple."

She said it. How did I know that that was going to be what she had in mind?

Before I could reply, a waiter came over and gave us the food that we had ordered ten minutes earlier.

After thanking him and assuring him that, at the moment, we were fine he left and we resumed our plotting.

I lifted both eyebrows at her and asked a question that I already knew the answer to. "How, exactly, would that help our group stay together?"

"Easy!" she said happily as she popped a fry into her mouth. "If you and I were going out, we'd sit together at lunch and all of those other get together things. And since the guys always sit with you and the girls always sit with me, then we'll all have to sit together and it will be pretty hard to avoid one another. It's a win-win situation."

I can't help the snort that escapes my lips. "How is this a win-win situation?"

"Well, it gets our group back together---or at least starts to---and you and I get to date. Everybody's happy."

I roll my eyes at her. "You sure are blunt."

She frowns and lifts an eyebrow. "Do you have any better ideas?"

"That thing about locking Hilary and Tyson in the closest is starting to sound pretty good…"

She narrows her eyes threateningly and I sigh. "Fine. But we're going to have to lay down boundaries."

Tika's green eyes light up happily as she claps her hands. "Yay! Okay. But you can't ban hugging---all couples do that---or kissing."

I narrow my eyes at her. "The hugging thing I can handle. But kissing is a little overboard, don't you think?"

She rolls her eyes. "Fine. No kissing on the lips. But you are going to at least kiss me on the cheek if we're going to make this believable."

I watched as she took a bite out of her burger with a decisive nod. When she gets like this, there is absolutely no arguing with her…unless of course you want her to gauge your eyes out.

I take a bite out of my own burger and sigh. The things I do for my friends…