During Summer

CHAPTER TWO

 Athos

"Woah, what's wrong with you?" Luka asks the second I walk in. He looks wide awake as usual. The jerk is a morning person. I glare at him and continue walking to the break room so I can get some coffee. My third cup.

I walk in and walk straight to the coffee bar. I get a cup and lid. I fill my cup with coffee, add two sugar packets, mix it, and put the lid on the cup. Black and bittersweet. Just the way I like it.

I walk back into the garage and set my coffee down at my station. I need to work on this honda civic. It's got a dead battery which the owner wants completely replaced just to make my morning worse I guess. "Better now?" I hear from the station next to mine.

"The coffee hasn't set in yet, Luka." I hear laughter from the other side. Luka has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. Along with Matt. Although me and Matt met in 1st grade after he moved here from Rhode Island. "Lukey," He groans at the nickname. I smile. "Can you order another AGM battery? We don't have any here." I ask while working to remove the current battery from the car. "Yeah, I'll put that in." I can tell he's hesitant about something. I would like to tell him to spit it out but... It's 6:30 in the morning and my coffee still hasn't kicked in all the way. Plus he'll tell me eventually. Luka can seem hesitant at first but he'll end up spilling what he has to say or ask. "Ok, great thanks."

☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀

Closing up the shop has never felt so good. It's 4 pm and I can't wait to get home. "Wanna come over?" I yell over to Luka before we get into our cars. "Yeah. But Ima stop by my house and take a shower. I'll be there by 5:30." He waves and gets into his car. I get into mine and head home.

When I get in my driveway I send a text to Matt, telling him to come over too. I get out of my car and lock it. Walking up the driveway my dad comes running out of the house. "Hey, Athos. I'm running late. Have a good rest of your day. I love you!" He yells while running past me and getting into his car. Rushing off as soon as he's in it. My dad works as a nurse in the hospital that's two towns over, so it takes him a good 40 minutes to get to work. I always thought that I looked more like my dad than my mom, sharing his wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes. But I'm my mom in every other way. Attitude, sense of humor, way of talking, and even not being a morning person. Actually, the one thing that I inherited from my mom look-wise was the freckles on my nose.

Walking into my room to grab my towel, I see that Matt texted me back saying that he would come over. I text him and tell him to bring a pizza. I leave my phone on my bed and walk into the bathroom across the hall from my room.

☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀✧☀

"OH COME ON!" Matt screamed after losing Uno again. For the third time. I snicker and Luka straight out laughs. "I don't know why we always play this game. I always lose." He whines with a pout. Luka grabs his chin with his thumb and pointer finger, "Exactly Matty, You. Always. Lose. That's why we play." I laugh and Matt glares at both of us. "You know what? I'm gonna go to the kitchen and grab another slice of pizza then Ima come back in here and beat you both." He stalks away muttering under his breath while he goes. Me and Luka look at each other and burst out laughing.

"STOP LAUGHING. I WILL STAB YOU BOTH!" Matt screams from the kitchen. Which just makes us laugh harder. After a full minute, Matt walks back in with a slice of pizza in his hand and sits back down. I smirk at him and he glares at me.

"Okay Matt," Luka says, looking straight at Matt. "We need to tell you something, Atty." Luka looks at me and then back to Matt and raises his eyebrows. Matt nods his head and quickly chews and swallows. "Ok, At. So," A deep breath. "Um. Channeliscomingbacktotown." Matt rushed out of his mouth so quickly I couldn't understand a thing. "I'm sorry what?" Luka sighs, and slowly, words that I never thought I'd hear but wanted to hear come out of his mouth. "Channel is coming back to town."

My mouth drops open. I know it does. I felt it happen. How is she coming back? She broke up with me because she was moving away. Matt reaches over and shuts my jaw. "Don't want flies to get in there buddy." It's no use. My jaw drops again.

"How do you know she's coming back? Why is she coming back? How long is she staying for? When does she get here?" I ask, looking at both of them like a mad man. "I know she's coming back because Alice still follows her on social media and saw that she posted a picture of her in an airport with the final destination in the picture being Bar Harbor, Maine. Alice ended up screenshotting it and sending it to me." Luka says already pulling out his phone to show me. I grab the phone and surely enough it's a photo in an airport showing off the planes. It has the name of the airport on the top left corner of the screen with a white paper airplane GIF paused halfway on the screen which should be leading us to the final destination on the bottom right corner of the screen. Bar Harbor.

"Alice doesn't know when she's getting here but apparently Channel posted it last night." Matt says. I drop the phone and look at both of them. "Do you think she'll be here for long?" Luka shakes his head. "I don't know man. All I know is that she's coming back and you practically just got yourself back together." He sighs. "I don't want to see you in that messy state again." Matt shudders, "Yeah. It was not pretty." I drop my head in my hands. Channel. Channy. She's coming back. Oh my goodness. My ex is coming back.