Arcade | s.m (✔️)

Four

"Where were you last night?"

Cole had been pretty ticked off when he couldn't find me at the party (his words, not mine. Personally, I doubt he even knew I was gone. Way too busy with Eva in my opinion).

"I was home, calm down." I reply, not wanting to mention the fact that I may or may not had been with Shawn the whole time that he was at the party.

My mom walks into the room at that moment and smiles, saying good morning to both of us.

"Who made breakfast?" She asks, knowing that if Cole had made the pancakes, there was no way she would actually be eating them.

"I did." I assure her, and she plants a kiss on my head before grabbing the plate I made for her, and beginning to eat. My mother usually made breakfast, but there were times where she would sleep in late or we would decide that we should give her a break and make the meal on our own.

"Hey, is that boy coming over again?" My mother asks, and I can feel the heat of my brother's intense glare.

"What boy?" He asks suspiciously, and I shrug, not wanting to speak about it.

"The mail guy." I respond, giving a look to my mother that was pleading her to go along with me.

Her not being a fan of lying, simply nods her head in agreement before eating another mouthful of pancakes. We had agreed on both working on our individual rooms today before I went to go meet Shawn's friends, so that we'd be completely unpacked, with nothing else in our moving boxes. Cole had already finished "unpacking", since practically all of his stuff was already in his dorm back at college.

"The mail guy came inside?" Cole asks, not believing a word coming out of my mouth.

"Um, no. That would be plain weird. He stopped by with some cookies to welcome us to the neighborhood." I lie, and his eyes widen.

"Where are the cookies?" He asks excitedly, and I laugh before answering quickly,

"Mom and I already ate them all." I answer, and he gives me a deadly look.

"How could you?"

"Payback for eating the snacks on our way here," I say, then, making sure my mother isn't looking, I mouth the words "fatass", receiving a spew of unsanitary words from him that I'm sure my mom would faint if she heard them.

"So, Cole, do you have any plans today?" My mom asks, and he shrugs.

"Might hit the beach at 4, not sure." He says, uninterested, and I raise an eyebrow in suspicion.

"Why so exact with your time?" I ask, and he shrugs.

"Maybe I'm a man who likes a nice schedule, Rose." He says, brushing off his shirt, and I roll my eyes at him before dropping the subject.

After breakfast, I begin to finish unpacking in my room, and after a solid two hours, I stare at my finished room proudly. I think this might be the only room in the house that didn't make me want to puke.

Speaking of puke, I remembered that tomorrow we would be repainting the awful throw up colored walls a clean white color, like in Shawn's house. My mom had bought the paint and other supplies when she went grocery shopping, and decided that we (as in me and her, with slight help from Cole if we're lucky) would be repainting the house, starting with the family room.

"Wow, you really spruced this place up." I turn around to see my brother standing in the doorway, looking at my room.

"Yeah, I was really going for the 'middle school emo phase' vibe if you couldn't tell." I say. My room was insanely dark, for the blanket to the curtains to the bland walls.

"Really? I was thinking more of a 'endangered animal habitat' sort of thing, but now that you mention it, I do see some of your Avril Lavigne phase shining through here." My brother jokes, pretending to admire the room.

"Mind if I see your room?" I ask, wanting to know what his "finished product" looked like at the moment.

"I don't know. Not that it's bad or anything, I just don't want to make you feel jealous."

I brush past him and begin to walk towards his room, then opening the door and laughing.

His room was extremely plain, except for all the boxes at the corner, piled up to make what I think was a castle.

"This is where all my boxes have gone?" I ask, extremely amused.

"Hey, calm down. I know my room is much better than yours in every way possible, but you need to understand that we're all winners here, even if I'm way more organized than you." He tells me, and I roll my eyes at him, then beginning to walk to his closet.

"You're organized?" I ask, and pull open the closet door, expecting to see clothes piled on the floor.

Instead, I come face to face with Luna, and scream.

"What the fuck?!" I whisper yell at him after assuring my mom from downstairs that I was fine.

"Told you, I need it to keep my company." He says with a shrug, and I instantly smack him out of disapproval.

My brother was a maniac.

"I'm leaving." I say, noticing the time. I should probably be on my way to meet up with Shawn and his friends.

"Where to?" He asks, and I answer while walking out of his room.

"The police station. Someone needs to be informed of your mentality before it's too late."

After asking someone for directions once again, I find myself in front of the ice cream parlor, suddenly nervous. If these people didn't like me, I was alone until college. Well, I had Shawn, but he would probably stay away from me too if I didn't get his friend's approval.

Taking a deep breath, I pull open the door and walk in to see Shawn waving me over, a spot next to him. I smile and begin to walk over, about to say hi and sit down, before a girl cuts straight in front of me and seats her self next to Shawn, getting a little too close to him and giving me a dirty look.

Sitting down next to the other boy I met, Connor, I realize that becoming friends with these people might be a little harder than I thought.