Haven

Chapter Forty Six

Jaida

Dad and I ended up having the best day ever. I even beat him at bowling, and when Madison called to try and organize a meet up I wasn't even mad about it.

Dad raises a brow, scratching his chin absentmindedly. "Are you really sure?" He asks for what feels like the 10th time. "I'm, and I can't stress this enough, so happy for it to be a you and I kinda night," he smiles and I can't help but return it.

"I just think that maybe she and I need to find what works and holding grudges will only make it more awkward for me to speak to her," I tell him, watching as he listens intently, as we drive towards home. "She can be a nice person to be around but she also has this really irritating side to her that makes me wanna punch her in the face." I chuckle and dad follows suit.

"Well firstly, don't punch her in the face!" He give a pointed look but smirks to let me know he's playing. "She is annoying, and she wants so badly to have a place in your life and the only thing she's seeing work for you is me, but that isn't going to work for her. She needs to learn that. You need to learn how control your emotions, you're only 16 so I understand that's a minefield right now but your natural reaction is to fly off the handle when I really think you could have just slammed a door in her face and shut her out for a few hours. The way you give me an attitude and ignore me when your in a huff, you can use that method on her. I'm not necessarily encouraging it but I'd much prefer her complaining that you've been rude to her than crying that you've blown a fuse and fled the house." He half lectures but I can hear it that he'd holding his dad voice back, reserving the actual dad card for later.

I nod, slowly. He has a point. I wouldn't have the nerve to go off on him like that. Even if Madison could overpower me, I'd be willing to throw down with her. Dad absolutely could overpower me, never actually would and I wouldn't consider trying to drag him the way I envisioned dragging her.

"I'll try the standard teen angst approach, if she tries the 'mind your fucking business, my dead addict mother did a better job' approach." I smirk and he can't hold back the bark of laughter.

"Definitely inappropriate," he muses. "Perhaps we'll word it differently," he jokes and I roll my eyes, chuckling.

We fall back into a comfortable silence, until the sound of buzzing interrupts us. Alex's eyes fly to his phone in the cup holder, though it's not his. He turns off all sound but for certain people, me being one of them, cause his phone is constantly blowing up. He has a work phone too but it doesn't seem to alleviate his popularity problem.

He quirks a brow at me. "It must be you, it's in my jacket pocket," he gestured to the backseat. When I pull it up front, "Ella" is flashing across the screen.

"What's up?" I answer.

"What's your beef, bro?" She demands, sounding particularly whacky. "Do I need to drag your sorry ass into school myself?" I can't help the chuckle.

"I missed something?" I know, but I pose it as a question.

She groans. "Girl, I'm literally so dead from that place, I can't even begin to tell you," she blabbers on and I get the feeling she's definitely gonna tell me. "We had this stupid science presentation, and for some reason this weird kid wrote and recorded a song for some light fucking background white noise," her pitch raises, and I get the feeling I know where this is going.

"I tried Jaida but fuck," she groans once again. "I was minding my own damn business, and boom. Matty leans over to me and starts talkin' bout how much of a beating he's gonna lay down on this kid if he kept singing along to his own loser song. And I seen it. I just pictured Matty laying the beat down. Barreling over the tables and beating on this weirdo. I lost it-" she cuts herself off as she laughs/sobs at the memory.