Unofficial First Girlfriend

CHAPTER 11

After giving last-minute reminders to Naiah and to Mama, I kissed the top of Naiah's head and bid them goodbye.

"Be a good girl, okay?"

"When was I not a good girl?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"When you ask questions like that," I chuckled.

"I'm always a good girl."

I beamed at her and thanked Mama. I knew she missed Naiah, and I was grateful she wanted Naiah to stay with them for a couple of days.

I left quickly and met Sabrina at the transport terminal. We agreed to go to Nick's house together. She was already waiting for me when I arrived.

"Nice hoodie," she greeted me.

I was wearing the black hoodie that Nick had given me.

"Thanks, you have a hoodie from Nick too."

"No, I don't."

"Okay, you have a hoodie from Nick," I repeated, using air quotations in the word 'have'.

"Ah, got it." She nodded.

We rode the tricycle to Nick's house. Sabrina was busy with her phone, and when I glanced at the screen, I saw that she was chatting with Bryce.

"So, you guys have been catching up?"

"No."

"He asked you if you wanted a ride, and you said...?"

"I said 'no' because the two of us had agreed to go together," she responded, locking her phone.

"Oh my gosh, Sab, that is so dumb. If I had known Bryce wanted to go with you, then I would've gone alone."

"Excuse me?"

I scoffed. "Come on, he's looking for reasons to be close to you. He never offered me a ride."

"Have you talked to him lately?"

"That's the thing. We don't talk. We haven't talked to each other in a long time except during Lucio's wedding."

Bryce and I had a complicated relationship since we were kids. We always argued every day even though we were "friends", but I wasn't quite sure if we could be considered friends. He was Nick's best bud, and I was Sabrina's best friend. He was good friends with the latter and used to be in love with her before. The four of us had some kind of special bond among everyone in our class and it made me believe that Bryce and I were friends.

Friends who always debated. Friends who hated each other's guts.

"You've always been the closest girl to him since elementary," I reminded her.

"I don't know about that."

"You are."

Sabrina glanced away, probably pondering about what I told her.

"I thought you two were close. Plus, the teachers like pairing you up," she responded.

I groaned. That was true. Our grade school teachers liked pairing me and Bryce. They had teased us too many times until high school.

"I'm not as close to him like you are. And yeah, they always teased us because they thought we secretly liked each other. But really, we hated each other. He was cocky and maybe he felt like I have a strong personality."

"That makes sense. He likes correcting people."

"Ugh, tell me about it. It's like he always wanted to prove me wrong whenever I was explaining something. But did he ever debate with you?"

"I can't remember..."

"You two never got into an argument. Except when you pick my side when I argue with him," I reminded her which made her giggle.

Whenever Bryce and I got into a heated argument, sometimes Sabrina would point out things that I missed, which would make Bryce even more kind of aggressive. That guy would've made an excellent lawyer. But other times, Sabrina would side and defend me, and that was the only time Bryce would lie low a little. I guess he didn't want to argue with her.

"I don't even know why the teachers teased us when in reality, it's the two of you who had a crush on each other."

"You're right. No one ever teased us before we dated each other."

"Yeah, and they only stopped pairing us up when you became his girlfriend."

Sabrina's phone pinged, indicating a new message from Bryce. She unlocked it to read his chat.

"He's already at Nick's."

"He's updating you about his whereabouts?" I joked.

"I told him we're on our way."

"Oh, so you're updating him," I chuckled.

Her face reddened. "Stop it."

Sometimes, I still couldn't believe that they broke up before entering university.

***

After twenty minutes, we arrived at the Rodriguez residence. Nick and Bryce were outside the gate, waiting for me and Sabrina. I handed my share to Sabrina and she paid for our fare as I hopped out of the tricycle.

"Why do I feel like Sab and I are always late?" I asked.

"Nice to see you okay," Nick greeted me without moving from his spot.

We still hadn't talked about what happened with Clark.

"Bryce."

He smiled and nodded at me before responding, "Macey."

I noticed him perk up as Sabrina approached us.

"Hey guys," she greeted them with a smile.

We followed the boys inside the bungalow. The house still had its old picture frames and furniture but now it had less of a homey vibe compared to before. Maybe it was partly because no one was living here anymore since Nick's family moved to Paris.

As soon as we entered, I noticed a box of pizza on the center table in the living room. Sabrina and I didn't bring anything.

"I thought we would be ordering food online?" I asked as Sabrina and I took a seat on the couch.

"Bryce already brought a box of pizza," Nick replied.

"What flavor?" Sabrina asked.

"Half of it is cheese and the other half is pepperoni," Bryce replied.

Nick sat down beside me and Bryce sat on the smaller couch near Sabrina. Everyone fell silent.

Sabrina cleared her throat. "Uh, are we just going to stare at this box?"

"We still don't have any drinks," Bryce mumbled.

"I only have water in the fridge and oh, leftover rum," Nick responded. "I don't have any stocks here at home."

"How do you eat?" I asked.

"Take out, delivery, and there's a small eatery a block away from here."

Sabrina and I exchanged glances. I wiggled my eyebrows, asking her to do something—anything, so Nick and I could be alone for a while.

She let out a sigh. "Hey, Bryce, do you want to come with me and buy our drinks?"

"Sure."

Sabrina stood up from the couch. She held up her hand and squeezed it into a fist. I chuckled at her and waved her off. Nick and I watched the two walk out of the door. They weren't even out of the gate yet but I could hear her giggling already.

"Can you believe those two? Why didn't they get back together?" I asked.

"I know," he agreedand reached for my hand. "But what happened Mace?"