Chasing Alana

17 | Privacy

"I'm so sorry I'm late."

Alana quickly took a seat in the cozy Italian restaurant, apologizing profusely to her best friends. Her meeting had been running late, but she gave no excuses, instead, apologizing.

"It's okay— you're only 10 minutes late," Marianne gave her best friend a reassuring squeeze on the hand.

Alana sighed out in relief as Elle leaned close to give her a small hug.

"We know how busy the Miss Superstar here gets," teased Elle, causing Alana to playfully shove her best friend as she rolled her eyes.

"Whatever," pouted Alana, opening the menu, knowing full on that her friend was just teasing. "Let's order because I'm starving."

She began to look through the menu, unsure of what she wanted to order. There were so many delicious authentic-looking Italian dishes that she was unsure of what she wanted to order. In the end, she went for a simple cheese pasta with a fancy name she could never pronounce despite her Italian roots from her mother's side of the family.

"I missed you girls," sighed Marianne, resting her head on her folded hands.

"We saw each other a couple of days ago," Elle teased playfully as she took a sip of her champagne. "Is Jayce driving you crazy again?"

"You have no idea," groaned Marianne. "You would think he would at least be a little help with planning the wedding."

Alana laughed, feeling like they've had this conversation before. "He practically worships the ground you walk on— just tell him what you want and he'll get it done."

"You're right, why didn't I think of that before," Marianne sarcastically wondered, making Alana laugh.

"Please, you're just making us singles feel lonely," Elle pouted.

"Single my ass," Marianne retorted without missing a beat. "What's going on between you and Brandon, hm?"

Elle opened and closed her mouth, unable to come up with anything to say. Instead, she focused on the attention on Alana. "Yeah, well, what's going between you and Asher?"

This time it was Alana who was left speechless as she was just an innocent bystander who all of the sudden got dragged into this conversation.

"Yeah, what's been going on between you two?" Asked Marianna suspiciously, turning her attention to focus on Alana. "Don't think I didn't notice you two hanging out a lot more now."

"Wh- I thought we were talking about Brandon and Elle?" Alana stared wide-eyed at her best friends, feeling unfair at how easily Elle was able to dodge the conversation.

"Well, now we're talking about you and Mr. hunk-a-dunk Pierce," Elle playfully raised her eyebrows up and down, causing Alana to choke on her water as Marianne burst into laughter.

"Hunk-a-dunk— really, Elle?" Alana raised her eyebrow, shaking her head at how ridiculous Elle was being.

"You can't lie though— that man is seriously fine as fuck. Both of them are," Elle dreamily rested her head on the palm of her hand. "Hot damn— just imagining them in their suits... I'd let them— you know what, never mind."

Marianne fake gagged, completely disgusted at where this conversation was going. "These are my brothers we're talking about. Please refrain from talking about what you'd like to—" she paused unable to say it as her voice turned into a pleading one. "Please, just stop."

"I'm kidding," Elle laughed mischievously. "But seriously, what's going on between you two?"

"Nothing!" Alana quickly thanked the waiter as he put down her plate of pasta in front of her. She waited as he placed Elle and Marianne's food in front of them before continuing. "There really is nothing going on between us."