A Year In Fort Lauderdale

Green Eyed Wonder Takes a Blow

Chapter Six

Above one of the cutest and coziest coffee shops I have ever been in is a loft space with couches surrounding a flat screen TV with a super plush rug in the middle of the entire setup. The rest of the Halloween party was fun but not as fun as watching classic scary movies all night while eating junk food until you feel sick. But now that we're back at the shop, looks like my dream Halloween celebration might just come true. We've set up sleeping bags all over the floor and couches and we've changed into our pajamas. The guys are up in the loft area setting up a movie while us girls are downstairs making drinks and raiding the pastries they've got in the case.

"Are you sure Brayden is alright with us making the drinks?" I ask while Delilah hits one of the machines for the fifth time, muttering something about it being too slow.

Cas shakes her head with a smile on her face and sprays a crazy amount of whipped cream on top of the cups of hot chocolate.

Adrianna peaks her head out the door to the back room. "Delilah, come help me," she says and Delilah sighs, trudging back to help her. After a few minutes, we've got trays of pastries and mugs of hot chocolate in our hands and head back up to the loft.

"It's really cool that you've got this whole setup here," I say to Brayden as I settle onto a sleeping bag on the floor.

He takes a mug from one of the girls and smiles to me. "Thanks. My parents originally used it for storage and a small office but then they needed a place for all of us to stay when we got here after school. We used to cause problems in the shop when we were younger."

"Problems?" I ask after taking a sip of hot chocolate.

"We were crazy," Jacob explains, taking a seat next to me. "Like insane. Asher and I would always have a ball to throw around so we were constantly breaking things, Adrianna would always be dancing around, and Delilah would harass customers."

Delilah sits down and bites into a muffin. "I still harass the customers," she mutters, keeping her eyes on the muffin. I can't help but laugh at the image of my friends as kids reeking havoc everywhere they went.

Jacob turns to Cas as she sits down to join us. "Hey Cas, what was Teegs like as a kid?"

"Hey, why don't we start the movie?" I intervene. "We're watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, right? We should start watching it."

"Was Teegs as shy as a kid as she is now?" Jacob questions, poking my side, making me squirm away from him due to me being insanely ticklish.

I glare at him. "I am not shy!"

"I found you by yourself at that beach party looking like a deer caught in headlights. It's not a bad thing, I just want to know if you've always been shy."

Cas settles next to Brayden, holding her mug in her hands like she just came in from a blizzard outside. "She wasn't always shy," she says. "She used to be actually very competitive. She played almost every sport and even played on most of the boy's teams because she was so good."

Everyone looks over at me, surprise written all over their faces.

"What sports did you play with guys?" Jacob questions. "Basketball? Football?"

"Well, yeah, and--" I begin, but am suddenly interrupted.

"How come you stopped playing those sports?" Delilah intervenes.

"Uh, well things didn't always work--"

"What changed that made you become shy?" Asher interrupts, looking down at me from his position on the couch.