Strength

Chapter 13 - Thank you Cake

"Who is hosting the party?" 

"A kid in my grade, Aiden."

Jake and Violet had called me. They have shown more care towards me in the past week than I've had felt in my entire life. These two are exactly how I imagined ideal parents to be like. Caring, protective, overbearing, a little nagging too, who loves their children more than themselves.

"Aiden Brown?" Violet asked and I nodded in reply. Violet and Jake shared a knowing look, the look which I had also seen on Stephen's face this afternoon when I mentioned Aiden's name.

"Okay, well you enjoy your party tomorrow," Jake said with a smile. I tried to suppress the frown that formed on my face upon listening his remark. He didn't fuss over me going to a boy's house, moreover for a party. Stephen too, agreed to let me go even after denying at first. I couldn't understand if this is just me overthinking again or is there really something up with Aiden. 

"You know him?" I questioned. 

"Uh, yeah. Him and Max were partners for some project last year," Violet replied after a moment of silence. I nodded and bit my lip, it was possible that Jake deemed Aiden as a decent boy therefore he didn't grouch about the party but something was not adding up. "Okay then, bye for now."

The call ended but not my giving my thoughts a green signal to run wild. Ryan and I had bumped into Aiden at the mall but Ryan didn't seem to recognize him, in fact he snapped at him. Even, if we say that they didn't know each other or didn't get along well still, today at the cafeteria Max saw me sitting with Aiden and they didn't looked like friends to me, to say the least. 

I cringed, when I realized how suspicious I was sounding. I think, I have to stop reading Nancy Drew. Yeah, not happening.

"Hey Sophia," Max entered my room with a grin. "Wanna play a prank?"

I raised my brow at him, "Are you kidding me right now? I'm not interested in signing my own death warrant." I shook my head.

"Please," he pouted.

"Nope, that's not gonna work this time bro," I stated firmly.

He rolled his eyes and plopped himself down beside me on my bed and huffed, "Fine, so what do you wanna do?"

"Well, I plan on sitting right here and relax."

"Oh, come on you are always in your room. Let's do something fun," he stood up and ran out of the room all the way pulling me along with himself.

I screeched, "Max! What in the world are you doi-" before I could complete my statement we crashed into twins.

"Watch where you're going," Tony growled.

"First tell me where are we going!" I exclaimed looking at Max.

"We are going to make a 'thank you' cake for Stephen, to show him how grateful we are," Max said.

"We're coming too," Tyler announced motioning to Tony and himself.

"What? No! He's only doing it so Stephen will let him go to that Sophomore party even though he is grounded," Tony hissed in disagreement. I squinted my eyes at Max upon hearing Tony's reasoning. He gave me a sheepish grin in return letting me know that Tony was right indeed.

"Well, we've got a party to attend too," Tyler shrugged.

The four of us went downstairs to the kitchen. "Who knows the recipe?" Tyler asked. When none of us replied in positive he groaned, "So, how are we supposed to make the cake?"

"We can search it online," I suggested. Making a cake for Stephen was not a bad idea. It was really nice of him to take care of all of us. He deserved some appreciation.