Diamond S Ranch

25-Luna

At lunch the next day Penny did not sit with them, neither did Josh.  Meredith kept glaring at Josh across the room, he would just shrug when Penny wasn't looking.  When they got ready to leave for class Josh met them outside the building and while Meredith lit up a cigarette he explained why he had been sitting with Penny. He explained that she had been told by her Dad that she was no longer allowed to hang out with them because they were a bad influence on her.  He assumed it was after what had happened over the weekend.  So, she had asked him to sit with her at lunch.  Meredith blew it off, she did not care. Elle just rolled her eyes, Lillie it bothered. 

Later that afternoon while Elle was waiting on Gage and Garrett to finish with their ball practice Meredith joined her.  She hated just hanging around waiting to go home but unless Jordan could swing by and pick her up she was stuck waiting on them to finish with their baseball practice before they went home. So, that meant she had to just hang around and wait. She found it so boring.

Oh, she knew what Jake expected her to do while she waited. He expected her to find somewhere to work on her homework because to quote him, "She had amble time to finish it while she waited on them to finish practice." She rolled her eyes at the memory of recalling him saying it. 

However, when Meredith found out she was having to stay, she volunteered to hang out with her.  She just told Paul she had a school project she was working on.  So, she would just have him pick her up after the boys finished their practice. Easy peasy.  Elle wasn't going to lie, it was nice to have someone to hang around with.  But, it was also what was probably going to get her into trouble. 

Both Garrett and Gage, or at least one of them, would check in with her before they started practice and make sure she was in the library doing her homework. And she did really do her homework for the most part, but once they left, she and Meredith would take off exploring.  

Running around the school, or hanging out in the cool Elementary corner tree house talking or going into the woods to smoke depending on the weather.  It again reminded Elle of when she felt like she had some freedom when she lived in Atlanta.  Doing what she wanted to do, when she wanted to, with no one telling her what to do.  Sometimes they would go all they way to the convenience  store, which was a bit of a walk off the school property and Meredith would buy them snacks and drinks.  The only thing that would have made it better was if Lillie could have hung out with them but they couldn't come up with a reason to convince her mom yet to let her stay after school, so they still had to work on that one. 

Garrett and Gage had practices for now Tuesday's through Thursday's.  They usually lasted for about two hours or so, Elle would try to give herself thirty minutes before it was over to be back at the school ready to go.  She would usually be waiting either in the library or at the Jeep for them and they never knew any different...the perfect plan.  

Jake had finally given her phone back, mainly so they could be able to text her if they needed to, so she was happy about that. It felt like she hadn't really had her phone in forever, which technically she hadn't, okay, really only a few months...off and on.

 So they had been doing this perfect plan, which they called, "Girl's Rule the School"  for the last two weeks with out any real catches. That is until the day when the weather changed quickly from clear to stormy in less than an hour and the boys practice ended up getting called off early. Meredith and Elle were at the convenience store when Elle got the text.

Hey where are you? Practice over early?  Waiting at Jeep.  It was Gage. 

"Shit!" Elle exclaimed as she looked at her text message. She then ran over to where Meredith was eyeballing some bags of cheezit's  and showed her the message.