You don't even want me

57.

[Camille]

Two days after our last exam, James and his friends had invited me and my own friends to go and do something in the city nearby; they wanted to try an escape room, and I was pretty excited as I'd never done anything like it before.

The group had become pretty big: James, Max, Tyler, Noah, Emma, Sienna and Larissa, and Tyler had asked Grace to come along and in the end, after a bit of insistence from James, Max had also asked Jasmine to come along. Me and James had kind of made it our secret mission to get them together, as they didn't seem to notice that they wanted each other on their own.

Yesterday, James had sent me a text saying he'd gotten Max to ask Jasmine, and not even a minute later, I got a text from Jasmine herself.

Jasmine: You will not believe what just happened!!

I chuckled at the memory, but was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard our doorbell ring, making me realise James was there.

I rushed down the stairs after one last quick peek in the mirror, and opened the front door, just to say I was going around the back to grab my bike. James nodded and I closed the door again. A minute later, I was biking next to James, the December breeze slightly blowing the little curls in front of my ears back.

"I like your hair in a ponytail" James suddenly complimented me, and I looked to the side, at him, while I felt some nice feelings rush through me.

"Yeah, next time you give me a hickey, do it somewhere less visible" I blurted out before I even realised it. I immediately widened my eyes and he bursted out in laughter, making me realise my words didn't come across as snappy as I'd thought; I relaxed a little and chuckled too.

"Next time, huh?" he asked playfully, a teasing, cheeky smirk on his face.

I bit my lip, looking down at my steering wheel with burning red cheeks. I heard the calming sound of his low chuckle and sent him a short side-glance, admiring his beautiful laugh shyly.

We reached the bus stop and greeted Noah, Emma, Max and Grace, who were already there, hugging every one of them quickly. We were all excited to see each other, and I was curious if Jasmine and Grace would get along with Emma, Sienna and Larissa, thinking they actually would.

Sienna and Larissa arrived together, being dropped off by one of their parents, and the boys all waved at the man behind the wheel before he drove away.

Tyler arrived a few minutes later by bike and Jasmine was the last person to show up, only 2 minutes before our bus came. We were pretty much all freaking out in case she'd be too late, but well, that was just Jasmine.

The whole friend group got on the bus and started to discuss how we'd divide ourselves in the escape room; since we were with too many to do the same room with everyone, we had to divide ourselves in 2 groups of 5 people.

After a long discussion, we'd come to a compromise: me and James with Grace, Noah and Emma, and then the others were Sienna, Larissa and Tyler with Max and Jasmine.

I knew Grace had actually come along to spend some more time with Tyler and that was hard as they were in seperate groups, but she'd always adjusted very quickly and without complains. She'd definitely be the one to sacrifice herself in case of emergencies.

We were going to do a prison break, and the others something Jumanji-themed.

Once the bus got to our stop, we all got off and started wandering through the city, searching for the place where we had to be. After 5 minutes of James and I strolling behind the group with our fingers intertwined, we found it and entered the building.