Bad Boy Vacation

14. Nobody Likes Burnt Toast

Allegra's POV

My phone vibrated from it's charging port on the bedside table as I finished applying my makeup.

It was a text from Adelaide, who insisted that I, and I am quoting her when I say this, hurry your ass up and get here. Also, bring your step-bro.

Connor was my older step-brother, and he didn't like to party, let alone with a bunch of underaged teens.

Why? I texted back.

Waiting for her response, I decided to quickly slip a cardigan on. Sure, it may have been summer, but even in the comfort of my bedroom, goosebumps appeared on my arm as I audibly shivered.

Just bring him. She texted.

I guess I'm bringing my twenty-year-old step-brother to an underaged bonfire party, if a party consisted of less than twenty people.

Charlie's POV

Folding chairs had been placed around the bonfire, which, to my surprise, was not as high as I expected. When I heard the word 'bonfire', I had expected it to be at least taller than my waist.

I took a seat on the closest empty chair to me, which put me next to Ryan, who sat next to Isaiah, who was in the middle of a conversation I did not understand.

"Oh, hey." Ryan turned to face me.

"Hi." I said back, resting the back of my head into a comfortable position.

"I assumed you weren't going to join us." He says, taking a sip from his canned beer.

Is it just me, or is beer actually worse than drinking apple cider vinegar?

"Well, here I am!" I said, over cheerfully.

Charlie, don't be weird! You'll scare the new people away!

I have always considered myself weirder than your average person, that I will not deny. I've heard it for most of my life, long before people had bullied me for being gay. It was one of the qualities I hated most about myself.

Even as I sat around a bonfire with my closest friends, I felt like an outsider. All of my intrusive thoughts seemed to have separated me from everyone else I knew. I was different than them. Maybe that's why Ace didn't want the world to know about us? Because he's literally the most desirable guy I know, and I'm just plain old Charlie. In other words, he was Nutella on toast, and I was burnt to the crust. Nobody likes burnt toast, unless your a sociopath.

I was in love with him.

Even if he didn't want anyone outside of our friend group to know that we were dating, I still loved him.

"Oh my goddess!?" Ella's shrill voice pulled me from my thoughts. She was seated next to Tom, who was seated next to Nevaeh and Nora, who were seated next to Adelaide and Clayton. I followed her line of sight towards Adelaide and Clayton, who were holding hands!?

"Are you guys together?!" Ella asked the pair of them, though the volume of her question made it seem she was asking the entire world.

Clayton looked to Adelaide for an answer. She was attempting to contain her smile as she tucked her red-streaked hair behind her ears. "Yeah?"

"Oh my god!" Ella gasped.

"Shiiiiit. I did not see that coming." Ryan commented from beside me.

"Awwwww! Y'all are so adorable!" Ella says, walking over to envelope both of them in her hug.

"What's going on?" Ace wondered.

"Adelaide and Clayton are together!" Nevaeh stated.

For a moment, I could not read Ace's face. Then, his lips turned into a slight smile. "About time you two got together."

"Hold on!" I turned to Clayton, my eyebrows knitted together as I glared at him inquisitively. "Is that why the buttons of your shirt were messed up the other day?" I asked.

"Oh my god! You two have been secretly smooshing?" Ella wondered.

She was way too excited about this, I was honestly scared.

"Uh, We will not be taking questions at this time." Adelaide stated, her hand still clasped in Clayton's.

They're so cute together.

I can't believe Clayton never told me. Then again, I didn't really tell him about Ace when I first developed a crush on him.

"We are so having a double wedding!" Ella says, causing me to roll my eyes.

"Who is having a double wedding?" Allegra wonders, appearing beside Ace, followed by another guy.

"Ella and... Tom? and Adelaide and Clayton." Isaiah answered the wannabe home-wreaker's question from his place beside Ryan.

Sam appeared behind Allegra and the guy I hadn't yet met, moving around them to take the seat beside me. The seat that I wanted Ace to take.

Adelaide rose from her seat, slipping out of her hand hold with Clayton as she moved towards Allegra and the guy she arrived with. "Nora! Come and meet Connor." She says.

Oh? She's trying to set my sister up?

"Would you like a beer?" Sam asked me, pulling an ice-cold beer from the esky.

"No thanks, I'm simply observing tonight." I said with an enthusiastic smile.

Allegra snaked an arm around Ace's, leading him to a pair of empty seats on the opposite side of where I currently sat with a perplexed feeling inside of me.

I said I wasn't going to drink, but watching Allegra's arm linked with my boyfriend's was more than enough to make me turn to Sam and tell him that I had changed my mind.

"Now that everyone is here! Let's play a game!" Says Adelaide as she takes the empty seat next to Clayton, who was now her boyfriend. The seat that she had sat in before she rose to greet Allegra and the new guy was now taken by said new guy, whose name was Connor?

"Let's play Never have I ever." Allegra suggests, bringing up a certain flashback of the last time I had played Never have I ever.

Never have I ever? Seriously? Out of all the drinking games! Tic tac toe would be more amusing.

"Okay, I'll start!" My sister says, seated between Nevaeh and Connor. "Never have I ever, been high at school." She says.

Everyone drank besides Tom, Ryan, Allegra and myself.

"Never have I ever had sex?" Was Nevaeh's question.

I didn't know if I should drink to that. I had lost my virginity to Ace a few months into our official relationship, but since his new friends didn't know about us.... Honestly, I am so surprised nobody has accidentally outed Ace and I as a couple to his summer friends.

I hardly remembered all of the details to my first time, which kind of sucks. The details that I did remember was that we were both drunk, we made out at a party, and that we both ended up back at my place, where we woke up the following morning, naked beneath my bed covers as Nora announced that it was time for breakfast. As I struggled to get dressed, Ace hid inside of my closet until I had texted him from the dining table, giving him the all-clear to evacuate the building without being caught by my family.

I decided against drinking. Not because I was denying it, but because nobody knew. If I all of a sudden drank to not being a virgin, questions would be asked, and those questions would probably mention my boyfriend by name, and he's not out to his precious LA friends.

"I'll be back." I say, getting up to go to relieve my annoying bladder.

"Where you going?" Ella asked me.

"Inside." I say vaguely.

"Would you like some company?" Sam asked, causing me to halt in my tracks. In the corner of my eye, Ace's jaw clenched.

"No thanks, I know the way." Was my response.

"I need to go to the bathroom, so I'll come with." Says Ella, downing the rest of her beer before walking towards the house with me.