Foolish Summer | ✔

27 • S T E P H E N • 🤔

I was used to kicking Dev's ass in Mortal Kombat, but that last round was too easy. When I glanced over at him, I realized why-he was trying swallow Sabrina face first.

"Get a room," I mumbled, turning back to the game.

"This is his room," Sabrina snapped.

Fair enough. The three of us were in Devon's room. It was just Dev and me until Sabrina came barging in on our game night. Alright, maybe it had been a game week, which was why Sabrina kept staring daggers at me. I was hogging her boyfriend.

After that whole thing with Waverly in the woods and that stuff my mom said to me, my house was the last place I wanted to be.

Dev was at the camp site eating hotdogs with Sabrina and some other people. He (and everyone in a five-mile radius) heard Waverly cuss me out. 

I hadn't heard her say a single cuss word all summer. That's what made it really hurt. She wouldn't have dropped an F-bomb like that if she didn't mean it.

"Dev?" Sabrina was usually a happy-go-lucky type of person, but not today. She only said his name yet it was layered with an ultimatum. Him or me.

Dev looked torn between who's side to take. When he asked Sabrina to give us a minute alone, I knew his girlfriend had won that round. She knew it too judging by the bounce in her step as she left the room.

"Steph, man, it's been a week," he said, moving from the bed to join me on the floor. "I know you're still messed up about Waverly, but you can't avoid her forever. You have to go home and face her."

I started up another game, needing to focus on anything else. "She's not even there. She went back home."

"What? When?"

"Week ago," I said, shrugging.

She was gone. I figured that out when I snuck back home for some clothes while my mom was out. Unfortunately, Brad was there and judging from the number of boxes and gym equipment in the foyer, he wasn't leaving anytime soon.

He was the one who told me that Waverly and her mom were back home. Apparently, my mom was losing it without Alicia there to hold her hand anymore and Brad suggested she take a spa day.

Brad told me all of that unsolicited. I didn't say one word to him, yet he just kept talking. Right up until I left with a duffle bag of clothes.

I guess his new method was to pretend he and I had any type of relationship. Fake it 'til you make it, I guess.

Dev snatched the controller from me and stood up. "Then why are you still here?"

That was a fair question. I stood as well, slipping my hands into my pockets. "Brad moved in. Didn't want to be around him."

"So what, You plan on staying here for the next year?"

I glanced around his room. "Didn't you say you always wanted bunk beds?"

He wasn't amused. I let my shoulders drop, defeated. "You're kicking me out." I didn't bother phrasing it as a question because I already knew the answer.

"Did you see what Sabrina was wearing?"

I didn't. The only thing I noticed about Sabrina was that she wasn't Waverly.

"Fine." I sighed. "Go against the bro code."

"That guilt shit is not going to work on me," he said, handing me my shoes. "Go work out you issues with your family."

I barely got my shoes on before he forced me out the front door. I was tempted to rat him out to his folks because he definitely wasn't supposed to have girls in his room while they were out.