Morning Coffee | ✓

twenty-four • xtra shot

☂ twenty-four: xtra shot

"Wow."

I looked up from my fruit smoothie at Emily across the table with my eyebrows raised. "So you finally told him, huh?"

I nodded my head before moving my concentration back towards my smoothie. It was so thick that my cheek muscles were beginning to ache from sucking on the straw. I was violently nudged in the side as Cameron demanded, "Well?"

"Well what?" I replied, rubbing my sore side.

"How do you feel? Opening up about it to him? I mean it took you ages to talk to about it with us, let alone him."

"And the whole near drowning experience, that too," Emily chimed in.

"It felt nice, talking it out with him. I mean, it still hurt, just like when I talked it out with you two and my parents, but it felt good to just let it out again and not hold everything back," I explained as my two friends listened intently. "And as for the whole drowning thing? Yeah, that sucked."

The two of them laughed at my frankness in my last statement. "Well, I'm glad that you're still alive and well," Emily said, reaching across the table to give my hand a tight squeeze. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Ditto," Cam added in. I rolled my eyes at his response before giving them both a big smile. "Thanks guys."

"Remember that we're always here for you, no matter what," Emily told me and I nodded.

"Nate too," Cameron reminded the two of us.

"Speaking of Nate, he invited us to go to one of his soccer teammates' party later tonight. Just your usual summer party - booze, music, night swimming. Carter's invited too. Are we going to go?"

"Hell yeah we're going," Cameron exclaimed. "Right, Kennedy?"

"Kennedy?" he asked again when I didn't chime in agreement.

"I don't know," I replied. "The last party I went to, Carter and I got in a huge fight. What if going to another party together reminds him of that?"

"Kennedy, that was ages ago. You guys are a completely different couple now. You've opened up to each other and you're honest with each other. That's a lot more than we could say about you guys back then, when you two weren't even very honest with your feelings about each other."

"I guess that's true," I said, still a bit skeptical about attending a big party.

"Tell you what," Emily said. "Why don't you head on home and ask Carter if he's willing to go? If not, then fine. But if he's willing to go, just go!"

"Alright," I consented.

We headed for the parking structure from the food court together, before going our separate ways as we went home. When I got home, my mom's car was still missing from the driveway, meaning that she was still at work. I went inside and grabbed a bag of chips to munch on in my room. After I changed into some comfortable clothes, I opened my curtains and saw that Carter was in his room too.

I slid the window open and threw a wadded up piece of paper at his window. It surprisingly caught his attention and he opened his window as well. "Hey there," he said with a smile. "Ever heard of a good old text message?"

I shrugged. "I wanted to go old school," I replied.

He simply laughed and shook his head at me. "So what's up?"

"How would you feel about a party tonight?"

"A party?"

"Yeah, Nate invited all of us to one. Booze, music, night swimming - you know how it goes. Want to go?"