EVERYTHING - GD

07

JULIA POV

As Ethan starts driving I remember I still haven't followed Grayson back. I quickly open Instagram and press the blue 'follow back' button. I lock my phone again and look out the window while 'compass' by the Neighbourhood is on. One of my favourite songs. In the corner of my eyes, I see Grayson look at his phone. I look at him through the side mirror of the car and see him smile. I notice I'm smiling too.

"What are you smiling about sister?" James asks, looking at me with a curious look in his eyes.

"Nothing," Grayson and I reply at the same time. I feel my cheeks turning red.

"Wait, what?" James says confused looking at us both.

"I just followed him back, and then I thought about how lucky I must be to be in a car with all you guys while going to McDonald's," I say, leaving the part out that I smiled because Grayson smiled.

"Well, there are a lot of girls jealous of you right now," Ethan says, smiling.

"I can imagine, seeing how Claire always is when you guys were the topic of our conversations," I say, with a devious smile at Claire. She smiles mockingly at me.

"Yeah Claire," Ethan asks. "Who is your favourite twin?"

"I think you are," She replies, "Sorry Grayson."

Grayson pretends to be crying and we laugh at him.

"Then what about you, Julia?" Ethan then asks.

"I think I have to go for Grayson now, don't I?" I chuckle, followed by a "YES" and "NO" at the same time from the twins.

"Don't make me jealous", James then says and we laugh.

The rest of the trip we remain silent, looking out the windows until we reach the McDonalds.

We tell Ethan our orders and when we received it he parks somewhere in the parking lot.

"So, tell me about yourselves ladies?" Ethan says, mouth full with fries and a smirk on his face.

"Well," Claire starts, "we're from New Jersey, we're both 20 and know each other since preschool. Our parents are like BFFs and we just can't break up as friends because we're forced to see each other anyway so we kinda make the best of it."

The boys laugh and then Ethan says "you probably know we're from New Jersey too right?"

Claire nods, followed by "I discovered you about a year ago" and then she explains that it would be very wrong to hang out with them a year ago since they would still be minors then.

"So you're like in college then?" Grayson asks, and Claire and I look at each other.

"Actually, no," I say. "we are taking a break this year since one of our best friends have died last year."

The car immediately gets silent, only the music is softly playing in the background.

"wow," James finally said. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

The boys mumble a soft 'yeah me too'.

"That's okay," I quickly said. "That's why we came to Los Angeles for four weeks. He always wanted to go to LA ever since he was little so this trip is kind of a tribute to him."

"That's beautiful," Grayson says with a soft smile on his face.

"Well, let's have fun again okay?" Claire says, wiping the tears of her red cheeks, while Ethan softly strokes her leg.

We finished our food while the boys are telling us crazy stories they shared together. As soon as we're finished Ethan drives us back. The rest of the car ride Claire and I tell them ours and the vibe in the car was great.

As we pull up to their house we thank them for the food. We walk inside to get our longboards.

"Hey," Ethan says, "Why don't you stay and hang out a bit longer with us?"

I look at Claire, who has an enormous smile on her face.

"Sure, why not?" I laugh.

We follow them to the kitchen and they hand us some water bottles as we sit down.

"What are you going to do tomorrow?" Ethan asks us. We look at each other and shrug. 

"No plans really," Claire answers.

"Oh okay," Ethan says.

"Why?" Claire says, wiggling her eyebrows. "Do you have plans to involve us in yours?"

Ethan looks at Grayson, who looks me dead in the eye. I raise my eyebrow at him, confused.

"We're going skydiving. If you dare you can come," he says to me.

"But I'm afraid of heights!" Claire says.

"When you go skydiving you can't feel that," I reply. "You're already in the air, floating. When you look out of a plane window you don't feel like that too."

"But you're scared of heights too!" she says.

"Yeah, that's why I know."

The boys look surprised. "Seriously?" Ethan asks. "You don't feel that?"

"No, you don't have a connection to the ground so somehow you can't feel it. I don't know the scientific reason for it, I just know that you can't." I shrug.

"Cool," Grayson says. "So you two come along?"

"I will," I say, "as long as I have time to think about it when we're there please!"

Claire looks at me with wide-open eyes. "Then I have to come too!"

"Yeah I know but how cool is it?" I say. "That could be an amazing tribute to Luke, he always wanted to do something insane like this."

She slowly nods and lets out a sigh.

"Remember when he went to Europe and went bungee jumping? How that adrenaline rush wasn't enough? Now we can do it for him! I am gonna shit my pants at some point but who cares?"

I see a smile forming on Claire's face and she gives me a hug. I hug her back and see the boys jumping up.

"GROUP HUG!" They shout. "COME ON JAMES!"

James gets up to join after he carefully wipes his tears.

"You make me so emotional," he says with a soft smile. "I wish I could come with you tomorrow."

"It's okay James," Claire says. "We can do some gay tribute with you if you want!"

James smile grew and claps his hands. "I'd love that!!" he says.

An hour later I couldn't hold my yawn in any longer as I stretch.

"Let's go home Claire," I say, rubbing my eyes. "I need my sleep for tomorrow."

She nods and we get up.

"We'll pick you up at 12?" Grayson asks. We agree and walk to the door to say goodbye. I hug Ethan first and when I hug Grayson goodbye he whispers in my ear "I'm excited" and I feel my cheeks get red.

"Me too," I say with a smile and we walk out. The smile never left my face until I fell asleep.