Cindy knocks twice and then proceeds to ring the doorbell until someone finally opens the door. Riley scratches his head and yawns looking at the two girls before finally asking, "What ya'll doing over here so early?"
"It's 11 o'clock," Cindy deadpans and Riley shrugs as if asking what Cindy's point is. "Plus I gotta have an excuse to chill with my main homie?"
"Yous wasn't tryna hang yesterday when I wanted to play ball."
"I was hangin' with Cease."
"And I'm 'posed to be yo main nigga tho? Riley says with a raised eyebrow making him look so much like Huey.
"Can we please come in?" Jazmine interrupts and Riley sucks his teeth and moves back letting the girls in. The boy doesn't even give the girls a second glance before heading back upstairs and most likely back to sleep and exactly where Jazmine feels she should be right now. Before she contemplate going back home CIndy drags her to the kitchen.
"Hey Grandad!" Cindy greets with a bright smile.
"Hey sweetie pies."Mr. Freeman smiles at both girls and continues to pour his glass of orange juice.
"How are you this morning Mr. Freeman?" Jazmine asks.
"Good, are you girls stating for a late breakfast?"
"Yes!" Both girls say in unison.
"Great, then go relax I'll call when the food is ready." Both teens nod and travel into the living room. Cindy jumps onto Mr. Freeman's chair and Jazmine just stand in the arch way feeling a little unsure of sitting next to the sofa's only occupant.
After a few moments Jazmine is startled out of head at the sound of Huey's voice, "Jazmine stop acting weird and sit down." Jazmine obeys and ignores Cindy's snickers of laughter and tries to act normal which of course makes her look un-normal.
"What?" She asks as she notices both of her best friends looking at her 'funny'.The curly haired teen rests her arm on the armrest and perches her head on her hand and tries to focus on the movie playing on TV. The other two occupants looks don't last long before Jazmine hears a familiar warm voice.
"Hey everyone," Melanie greets and everyone's eyes turn toward her. "Riley let me in." Melanie sits next to Jazmine and smiles at her. "Hi, I met you yesterday. Jazmine, right."
"Yes."
"And you are?" Melanie asks turning to Jazmine's blonde best friend.
"Cindy."
"And I'm Melanie. So do you also go to the same school as Huey and Riley?"
"Yeah, since like freshman year."
"Looks like I'll be joining you. Anyway, what are you girls up to today."
"Nothing much-" Jazmine starts but is quickly cut off by Cindy.
"We were going to the spa actually," Cindy inputs and ignores Jazmine's questioning glance.
"That sounds cool."
"Yeah, do you wanna come?"
"I don't want to intrude."
"Pssh, it's my treat."
"Thanks," Melanie says with a smile before turning her attention elsewhere. Jazmine raises her eyebrows at Cindy to which the blonde just shrugs.
"What's wrong Huey?" Jazmine hears and she pretends like her ears didn't just stand to attention.
"I thought you were-"
"I will, but I want to get to see Woodcrest more. Plus its not like I'm going to sneak back to Chicago for a few hours.
"You make me sound like I'm some sort of lovesick puppy," Huey mumbles flipping the page of his newspaper.
"Aren't you?"
"Funny," Huey says with no trace of humor.
"So I've been told, so that's not really nothing new."
"By who? Yourself? Because in that case, you are hilarious."
Melanie sucks her teeth, "I see you got jokes already."
"No jokes, just facts."
Melanie glares at Huey and he glares back, but Melanie eventually cracks a smile first and Huey tries to hide his grin behind his newspaper, but Jazmine saw it. Melanie continues to to talk about something, but Jazmine's not really listening and maybe...just maybe its because it feels like her heart is being squeezed to death.
The curly haired teen feels Cindy kick her foot for the third time, but she remains unresponsive and soon Mr. Freeman calls everyone to eat and they all grab a plate of bacon, eggs, pancakes, and a fruit salad for Huey.
Riley finally comes back downstairs this time with a black du-rag on his head and dressed in basketball shorts, and a grey sleeveless shirt, his Nike slippers dragging across the wooden floor before he sits down between Jazmine and Cindy.
They all eat and Jazmine tries to ignore the nagging feeling she gets as she watches the way Huey and Melanie interact with each other. Huey even lets her steal one of his strawberries and pineapples without saying a word and Jazmine doesn't remember Huey ever letting her do that. Breakfast finally ends and all three girls leave to go to the spa.
As the curly haired teen girl sits in Cindy's Lexus LX she realizes that she hadn't spoke a word to Huey all morning. She wonders if she should even be bothered, he clearly wasn't. He has Melanie.
After a long day of "fun" with Cindy and Melanie Jazmine falls on to her bed not bothering to put away her shopping bags. After getting mani/pedi's, massages, and facials the girls explored the mall a bit and they each bought a few things before stopping in the food court to eat.
Jazmine engaged in conversation with Melanie for a bit, but eventually stopped because she could feel her emotions getting the best of her everytime Melanie mentioned Huey and how much she's missed him and how much fun they used to have in Chicago and if Cindy picked up on it she didn't mention it.
And now as Jazmine lies on her bed she forces herself to stand and put her things away and change into her PJs before going downstairs and into the kitchen. She reads the note on the fridge door about how her parents are working late tonight and throws it in the trash and proceeds to take out fettuccine pasta to make along with a pack of unfrozen chicken breasts and broccoli and begins to make dinner. Once she deems her pasta ready she turns the stove off and grabs the colander.
She hears her phone ringing as she drains the pasta and quickly pours the rest of the pasta into the colander without burning herself before going to grab her phone off of the living room sofa and she answers it on the last ring without seeing who's calling.
"Hello?"
"What was wrong with you this morning?" Huey asks bluntly.
"No-"
"And don't say nothing was wrong." Jazmine begins to pace trying to figure out how she's going to explain herself. She can't find the exact words or rather she doesn't want to.
"Can you not press this, I don't want to talk about this," Jazmine settles with. "I had a weird morning of Cindy waking me up and I just want to…"Jazmine stops and purses her lips. She contemplates whether Huey really wants to hear her ramble on and settles on the fact that he most likely doesn't. "Forget about it."
"Fine," Huey settles on and Jazmine relaxes a bit and goes back into the kitchen. "So, what do you think of Melanie?" Huey asks and Jazmine is surprised he asked her. Huey has never asked her what she thought about any of his friends.
She remembers meeting Ceaser one day out of the total blue seven years ago and Huey never asked her what she thought about his new friendship. So what made Melanie so different? 'Why does he care?' she thinks to herself, but doesn't voice this.
"She's nice," The mulatto girl quickly answers. Maybe too quickly and tries to find something to fill the awkward space. "Why do you care what I think?" She asks despite not really wanting to, but she can't help it.
"It's important that you both like each other."
"But why?" Jazmine reiterates not trying to let her annoyance slip out.
"Because you both have an important place in my life."
"Okay," She says as she takes out a skillet, places a tablespoon of butter on top and turns the stove on. Its silent on the other end and Jazmine doesn't try to fix it. She honestly doesn't know what to say to that so…
"Have you eaten already?" She hears her best friend ask as she drops her already sliced up and seasoned pieces of chicken in the melted butter and begins to cook them.
"No, I'm cooking now."
"Did you do your calculus homework?"
"Yes, I did it already,"Jazmine says rolling her eyes.
"Is it correct?"
"..."
"Jazmine."
"I'm pretty sure at least one question is right. That counts for something, right?" Its silent on the other end for a moment before Huey is back.
"No, and I'm coming over."
"No, Huey you don't have to do that," Jazmine starts and tries racking her brain for any sort of reasonable excuse, "It's getting late."
"And?"
"Huey."
"I'll be over in a minute," He says before hanging up and Jazmine sits her phone on the island behind her and continues to cook her chicken and lets Huey in a few minutes later at the sound of the doorbell.
"Can I eat before we like, do this?"
"Sure," Huey concurs and sits down at the island watching Jazmine move around the kitchen.
"Don't need you almost burning the house down again."
"Heey! That was one time and how was I supposed to know that you couldn't keep water boiling for long."
"You left it to boil for two hours."
"Well, that's in the past. I'm a much better cook now."
"Thankfully," the teen boy comments and Jazmine turns around and continues to cook, smiling a bit to herself. "Grandad is on another date tonight."
"Mr. Freeman sure has gone on a lot of dates lately. Does he bring any of them home."
Huey snorts and gives Jazmine a look, "No."
The mulatto teen can't contain her laughter as she remembers the last time Mr. Freeman brought a woman back home. Apparently from what she was able to pry out of Huey was that that Uncle Ruckus had burst into Mr. Freeman's bedroom window while he was being intimate with his date complaining about loud gorilla noises and disturbing the peaceful white people as they sleep.
This lead to an all out dispute against the two men that resorted to the police being called, Riley filming the whole fiasco as the the whole neighborhood watched Uncle Ruckus and Mr. Freeman being dragged away from each other on the Freeman front lawn. Jazmine especially remembers this because Huey slept over for the first time that night.
As Jazmine continues to cook they make idle chat about something Riley did today and how Mr. Freeman tried to beat him within an inch of his life, but slipped on the remote and what Ceaser and Huey debated about today. When the chicken and broccoli is done Jazmine takes somes of the grated parmesan cheese out of the fridge and begins to make the cheese sauce.
Once she's done with everything she combines the broccoli and pasta on the cheese sauce and tops it off with more parmesan cheese and places it in the oven to bake for ten minutes. While Jazmine waits with Huey they sit in the living room and watch One Tree Hill on Netflix.
Strangely enough Huey doesn't complain as much when she watches this and everything just feels so...right. Soon the food is done and Jazmine makes Huey a bowl of pasta and herself one also and adds a good amount of chicken to hers.
(*)
As they eat Jazmine places her legs on Huey's lap like she's done multiple times before. Her mood has lifted immensely and once she's finished eating and correcting her homework that Huey checked and she wants to do nothing, but sleep.
"Huueey, I'm tired," Jazmine says after yawning for the second time in a row.
"No," Huey says rubbing the space between his eyes, already knowing what Jazmine wants.
"Please. Pretty please?" She gives Huey her best puppy dog eyes and he glares at her before standing. With a lopsided smile Jazmine jumps onto his back and wraps her legs around his torso as he carries her upstairs and into her room.
He drops her on the bed carefully and she gets under her blankets wishing she wore leggings instead of her shorts tonight and Huey just stands there looking at her. "Come here," She says making a 'come here' motion with her hand. A second later Huey lays down next to her on top of her covers. "Are you going to stay?" Jazmine asks.
"Why should I?" Huey asks and Jazmine is no longer meeting his eyes.
"Because I want you to."
"That doesn't mean I should stay."
"Will you?" She asks once again and she doesn't know why they're whispering when it's just the two of them.
"Why?"
"Because I just do."
"But what if there's someone better out there. Wouldn't you want them next to you?"
"No. Because you're what's best for me. That's why we're best friends," Jazmine yawns again.
"Right?" She asks sleepily as she snuggles up to the boy. "We'll be best friends forever," She trails off.
"Yeah," Huey answers as Jazmine falls asleep, her breathing evening out. "Forever."
Hi, my lovelies! It's been a while, but enjoy!
P.S. HAAAPPPYYY NEW YEAR!