Everyone was at the table moments later, and we where waiting for our drinks. Walt Whittaker was telling us a story that was having everyone laugh. I looked around the table to see who else was here. It was a fairly large table, all of Billings, and all of Ketlar where here. Nevertheless, you could still hear Whit's loud strong voice 20 feet away.
Then I saw something, a look. Between two people.
Ivy and Gage.
I looked over at Josh to see if he saw it too, but he was smiling, listening to Whit's story. He started to chuckle when I nudged him gently with my elbow. He looked down at me and smiled,
"Are you ok?" He asked.
"Ivy and Gage?" I whispered Josh could just hear it over the loud laughter that occurred over the table. Josh looked over at them, and I knew he could see it too.
"Yeah, their back together." He whispered back.
"Oh." I whispered back. Then he took my hand from under the table and wrapped his around it. I put our entwined hands on my knee. I zoned back into the conversation over the table and tried to catch on. I finally did when the conversation was just about over.
"Noelle it's beautiful!" Vienna gasped.
"TDF!" Portia added.
"I know!" Noelle said, flashing the ring to everyone. I rolled my eyes, starting to get a little bit annoyed with all of this bragging. Finally, pitchers of water and other drinks where placed on the table. There was a bottle of champagne also. I decided to go for the champagne. I was only going to have this one for the rest of the night. Or at least try to not drink a lot.
Mr. Hollis stood up from the family table and everyone quieted down. He smiled and began to talk.
"Hello everyone, are you having a good night?" He asked. Everyone responded in quiet yes's and smiles. He continued, "I would like to make a toast, well to everyone. To my family, to my friends, to Noelle Lange and Dash McCafferty for their soon to be wedding, my daughters next year when they go to Easton, Marc Dringly for battling cancer and being here tonight with us, my son Josh and his girlfriend Reed's relationship,"
Josh nudged me lightly with his raised arm holding his champagne flute. I smiled and kissed his cheek.
"And lastly, to Christmas, and the new year headed towards us! So, to everything!" Mr. Hollis said.
"To everything!" Everyone chanted, laughing. The sound of glass clinging together filled the room, and then quickly calmed down while everyone took a drink.
"Ah we got toasted to." Josh whispered in my ear.
I laughed, "We did."
Dinner went by uncomplicated. We all laughed, talked and ate. There was only a few hours left of the party, and then everyone would be leaving. Josh and I where glued hip to hip the rest of the night. He never left my side and I never left his. I didn't want to. There was only an hour left of the party and people where slowly starting to leave. Josh and I decided to just split up and hang out with our friends for a while and end the night together. So I went off and found Noelle and the rest of the Billings girls. Noelle was looking for me apparently, because when I got there she pulled me aside.
"Where the hell have you been?" She asked.
"I was with Josh." I told her.
"Well, I need your help."
"With what?" I asked.
"One word, Amberly."
I sighed. "Noelle, I hate that girl and you know if. I don't want to spend anymore time than I have to around her." I stated.
"I know I'm going to solve that problem." Noelle smirked.
"You're going to make me like her?" I asked shocked. I don't think I ever want to be friends with Amberly. She was a mini Noelle, but only bitchier.
"No, what do you think I am? A blind dumb ass? I'm going to get rid of her. She is a freshman. Billings is a Junior and Senior dorm." Noelle told me. "And she's getting on my last nerve."
I was shocked. How was she going to get rid of Amberly? Then it hit me. I did not need to care; I didn't want more drama right? Just let Noelle handle it Reed. I told myself. "I'm not going to help if that's what you think is going to happen." I told her.
"Fine, I won't be needing you then." Noelle told me. "I'll just let you know what's going on and when the vote is."
"So you're just going to vote her out?" I asked.
"Why not? I'm not going to try to dig up a bunch of dirt on the girl. I don't want to know that much about her personal life." Noelle scoffed.
"So, you're just going to have everyone vote her out?" I asked trying to process it all.
"Hello? Earth to Reed! That's what I'm telling you." She told me in a 'duh' tone.
I just looked at her, still trying to get to the source. Why did Noelle want Amberly to go? For real. I looked over at the blonde flirting with two Ketlar boys. She shot me a glare when she caught me staring. She acted as if it was her party, and I was the charity guest. I wanted to go scream to her, "This is my boyfriend's party! Not yours!" But that would be the most immature thing to do in a situation like this. Noelle saw me looking at her and smirked.
"So are you going to vote her out?" She asked.
I looked at Noelle and then back to Amberly, she was desperately trying to get one of the guys to like her. She kept on shooting my death glares. What the hell was her problem? Then I saw her start to walk away from the guys. Swaying her hips as far side to side as she could.
"Will do," I told Noelle, "With pleasure."
"Oh, what set you off? Is it the fact that she's flirting with your boyfriend?" Noelle asked.
"What?" I asked loudly.
Noelle pointer her French manicured nail to the circle of guys Josh was in Amberly was trying to talk to him, Trey, Gage, and other guys from Ketlar. But it looked like they kept on changing to subject because she wouldn't talk for a long time.
I was looking over there and Josh looked over at me. He smiled and waved. I smiled and waved back to him. No jealous girlfriend in sight. But inside I was about to walk over to the circle and push Amberly out of the way, and walk back over here. But that was another immature move. I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of everyone. So I started talking to the Billings girls and Mrs. Hollis came up to me.
"Reed?" She asked smiling.
"Hi Mrs. Hollis!" I smiled back, trying to be as polite as I could.
"Oh, please Reed. Call me Susan!" She told me laughing.
I smiled and just simply said, "Ok."
"Well the reason I came over was because I need to find Josh. Do you know where he is?" She asked me.
"Oh, he's over there in the group of guys. I don't think he's that deep in the crowd!" I smiled. "Do you want me to go get him?"
"Could you? I'm sorry, we're about to light the big tree and it's tradition to have our family up there. And I would love to have you be up standing with us." She told me putting her hand on my arm.
"Oh, I couldn't it's just your family—" She interrupted me though.
"Reed, you are family." She smiled. "And Gia will be up there too. So don't feel like you're ruining tradition or anything." She told me.
"Oh, ok." I smiled.
"Well tell Josh that we all need to meet in the hall, right over there. He'll take you guys there. That's where we just get ready." She told me.
"Ok, I'll go find him." I told Susan.
"Thank you so much Reed!" She hugged me.
"No problem." I smiled. Then I waved good-bye and she was walking away. I turned to Noelle to tell her where I was going.
"Noelle, I'm going to get Josh and we're going to light the tree. I'll see you later ok?" I asked.
"Is it just me or is Amberly trying to completely make out with Dash?" She asked, everyone was looking over at Amberly and her two friends wait. How did they get in?
"How did her friends get in?" I asked. I swear they weren't on the invite list. Josh told me he could only invite a certain amount of people from Easton. I know he didn't invite them.
"Must have snuck in. Bitches." I heard a familiar voice say, and then she threw back her head to gulp down her champagne.
"Kiran?" I asked.
"Took you long enough!" She smiled and placed her flute on the table next to her before she hugged me. She gave me a real hug and I returned her one back.
"I'm so happy to see you." I smiled. I pulled away from the hug and smiled.
"I know, I decided to stay with Noelle for a while in New York while I model. I took a shoot here and all. We have to all go get some spa treatment after Christmas. ASAP." She told me.
"We do, but I have to go get Josh now. I'll talk to you later ok?" I asked her.
"Of course!" She smiled then she turned around to talk to the others.
I started to walk off but someone stopped me by grabbing my arm. "Tell me what's going on over there ok?" Noelle asked me.
"I will." I told her. Then she dropped her hand from my arm and I walked away to find Josh.
I was so shocked that Kiran was here. Did Josh know about it? Or did she sneak in as she said Amberly's friends did? I was moments away from asking Josh. I finally saw his curly head and walked up from behind him. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned his head first to see who it was, and then he turned his body. His arms where soon at my hips and his smile was on his face.
"Hey! What's up? I thought you wanted to meet up in like 20 more minutes." Josh told me.
"You're mom needs you to go light the tree. And I offered to come find you." I smiled.
"Oh, ok. I want you to come light the tree too. It's a tradition and every year, it's either Lynn or my cousin Hunter, when he hosts this, who has a girl with them. You're my girl, so you're coming with me." He gave me a sexy smile.
"Josh," I smiled.
"Yeah?"
"You're mom already told me to come." I giggled.
"Oh, that works too." He chuckled. He wrapped his arm around my waist as he led me to the hallway.
"Oh! Josh and Reed are here!" Mr. Hollis announced. We walked down the hall behind him. The hall ended at an area that acted like a fork in the path. There where five other hallways that connected to it.
"Ok, so the tree is already in the Great room. And everything's spaced out so we're pretty sure everyone's going to fit." Mr. Hollis told us all.
"Everyone's going to walk out through that hall. Besides your mother and me. We're going to be already out there." Mr. Hollis added. "Then we will light the tree. We're going to go get everyone in the Great Room. You guys just hang in there." Then they left.
"Great! Let's do this!" Lynn shouted. His voice booming off the walls.
"Tess?" I heard Tori ask.
"Yeah?"
"Did you see Ryan talk to Olivia!?" She scoffed once she said the girl's name.
I was pulled out of that conversation when Josh pulled me down to sit next to him on a couch. I sat and crossed my legs; I put leaned back and felt relaxed a little bit. Josh started to play with my right hand.
"So what's the latest scheme with the Billings girls?" Josh asked still playing with my hand.
"Noelle wants Amberly kicked out. She's a freshman." I told him.
"I know, she came over and randomly started to talk to us." Josh said. "She seems nice."
My stomach turned into knots. Josh thought Amberly was nice? "Well, she's not really. She is mean to me." I told him looking at my swinging foot.
"What did she do?" Josh asked dropping my hand. I looked over at him once he did so, his eyes where full of concern.
"She was really mean to me a before this all happened. After the Legacy. And she's just a follower." I told him shrugging my right shoulder.
"Oh, she asked Marc Alberro if he wanted to dance. He turned her down flat. She was mean to you? And she was a Freshman?" Josh clarified.
"Yeah, it's because Noelle was." I said looking down. "Let's not talk about it." I told him.
"That's fine with me. If you ever do, you know I'm always here right?" He asked.
"Yeah, I know." I looked into his eyes and bit my bottom lip. "Hey! Did you invite Kiran?" I asked.
"Kiran's here?" He asked.
"Yeah, I was talking to her just before I came and got you." I told him. Did she sneak in?
"Oh, I didn't think she would come. Noelle asked me to invite her and I had a few slots open. But I wasn't sure if you wanted to see her after the whole… Thomas thing." He said the last words roughly. Like they where still a bit hard to say.
"It wasn't really her fault. It was… Ariana's fault." I told him. Now that was hard to say.
Josh picked up my hand and kissed it repeatively. "Natasha was supposed to be here too, but I don't know if she ever came."
"Natasha?" Natasha Crenshaw was my roommate last year, my first year at Billings. She became a best friend, even though she blackmailed me. I figured out that she was a lesbian. And her girlfriend, Leanne Shore, was the Billings girl that Noelle and Ariana got kicked out of school for me to get into Billings.
"Yeah," Josh told me.
"I'll have to look for her tonight." I told him, and leaned back in the chair. Then something else hit me.
"Did you invite Amberly's friends?" I asked him, dying to know the answer.
"No, she came up to me and apologized that they snuck in. I was fine with it then. But I can kick them out if you don't want them here." Josh told me and kissed my hand again.
I badly wanted to see Amberly and her friends be kicked out on their asses from a party. Badly. But I couldn't do that. It wasn't my party. It was the Hollis' choice on which they stayed or not. "No, it's ok. It's your party. And besides, there's only a half hour left right? I can totally make it." I told him in a confident voice.
"Ok." He smiled.
"Come one you guys! It's time!" Susan Hollis told us from a hallway that lead to what I suspected was the Great Room. Josh took my hand and the glob of us walked down the hall. Gia and Lynn where stealing kisses every now and then. And, Josh and I where holding hands.
"Are you sure he's going to tonight?" Tori asked Tess.
"I swear that's what Meredith said." I heard Tess say.
I focused my attention back on Josh. I looked at his face, his blonde curls, and his blue eyes. He turned to find me looking at him.
"What?" He smiled.
"Nothing." I grinned and turned my head to face forward. The doors opened and a huge tree was standing in the corner of the room. I could see it from here. It almost touched the ceiling. There where ornaments, ribbons, and pearls that wrapped around the Christmas tree. And there was a dark star on the top. We all walked along to side of the room to get over by the star, We all lined up around the tree and turned back to Mr. Hollis speaking in the microphone.
"Well, who's ready to light the tree?" Mr. Hollis asked.
There where cheers and excitement from the large tree. "Ok, Stan?" Mr. Hollis faced a man with an electric cord in hand. Stan smiled before he plugged the cord in and the tree came to life. The lights lit from the bottom to the top. Then the huge star on the top lit. And shone through the dark room. I smiled at the sight I looked at Josh. He smiled even bigger when he saw my smile.
"It's beautiful," I told him. People where cheering and talking about the amazing tree.
"Not as beautiful as you." Josh told me. I smiled and gave him a peck on the lips. Then we turned back to the tree, I was in his arms and everything just seemed to be alright.
Hey! Happy New Year! I wanted to give this chapter to you guys to start off the new year with! It's long, and I thought it was good. lol. I will update later today, I need to get to bed and get sleep!! Review please!
peace out,
Lauren