I was at work when my phone rang. I answered the call without looking at the name.
"Hey! It's me Nate"
"Uh yea... hi"
"You busy?" He asked.
"I'll be free in some time... in like around 10 minutes" My uncle entered the office after I said these words.
"Go take a break Lacey" my uncle said.
"Uh you sure?"
"Yea yea go now" He brushed me off.
"Change of plans. I'm free now" With that I left the office. I heard Nate speaking through the phone.
"Meet me at the cafe?"
I headed towards the cafe. I saw him sitting in the corner and I went to him and he had already ordered a drink.
"Hi!" He was all bubbly. Well he was always like that. He could light up the whole room with just his smile.
"Thanks for the drink" I said.
"No problem"
We talked about everything. About his experience in Korea. About school. About how we spent our childhood together. It was fun meeting him after all these years. I couldn't wait to make him and Ava to meet. She would be really surprised. After talking to him for so long I remembered about how close we three were. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about him.
He did leave really early though and I guess that's why I couldn't remember him.
"Hey remember how we used to pull pranks on the Cayson siblings? God they were hilarious" He reminded me of all those pranks we pulled on them.
"We were a great team I swear"
"Oh remember when we shaved one of Jay's eyebrows? He was ready to kill us" We both burst out laughing. Jay was throwing tantrums for a week and didn't walk to us at all.
"Are you still in contact with them?" He asked me after a while.
"Yeah. I meet them everyday actually"
"You do?! Wow I wanna meet those two!! Especially Jay. He was such a cry baby" He chuckled.
"Well he couldn't help it. We did all those things to them so he can't be blamed"
"C'mon Lacey it was a prank war and they had agreed to it" He stared at me.
"Okay" I threw my hands up in surrender. "Both of them together have 1 brain cell so you still can't blame them"
"No we were just evil geniuses"
"That's definitely true"
We were heading out of the cafe and I saw Aiden. He was heading towards the cafe and he looked up at me.
"Lace hi" he greeted.
"Hi" he kept glancing at Nate and it was a bit awkward. "Uh Aiden this is Nate and Nate this is Aiden"
Aiden nodded and entreated the cafe. Something was off about him. He looked angry...
"Rude much?" Nate scoffed from beside me and I nudged him in the ribs.
Me and Nate parted ways and my day went as usual. I went back home and plopped down on the couch. I was really tired and sleepy. I was about to fall asleep but then the door bell rang. I groaned and got up to answer the door.
"Aiden?"
"Can I stay here tonight?" He asked. He looked like a mess. His hair was disheveled and he was pale.
"Uh yea sure.... um is everything alright?" He entered the house and explained about how he's stressed about the work.
"You know there was this one girl I dated a while ago. There was another girl that would basically do anything to make this girl's life a living hell. One day she came to me and showed some pictures of my then girlfriend which she threatened to leak"
"She wanted me to break up with my girlfriend" he sighed. "I didn't want to but when I saw how much she had been through I didn't want her to suffer more so I agreed. I was being stupid back then. I thought I was doing the right thing"
"I loved her so much, I still do but then it was all messed up. We broke up, I broke up with her thinking that would help but things went downhill. I really wish everything will be alright but then she doesn't remember a thing" he laughed bitterly.
"You know what let's just sleep yeah?" He said.
"Yeah sure the bedroom is the last one to the right in that hallway"
"Damn your house is big. How do you even stay here alone?" He laughed and went to the bedroom.
I couldn't stop thinking about what he had told. It was all familiar. I went to my closet to change. There was a small book lying in the corner of the closet. It was my diary. I kept it on the bedside table and changed into my pjs. I opened my book and started reading from the first page. I couldn't believe that I had kept the diary for so long.
The first few pages were very kiddish so I planned on reading it the next day. I wanted to burn my eyes after reading the first page so I couldn't imagine how worse the others were.
------------------------
I woke up and I could hear all the utensils falling on the ground, again. I rushed to the kitchen only to see Aiden trying to cook. "I was thinking of surprising you but well" he rubbed the back of his neck.
"Well you did surprise me with that sound"
"Still the same huh?"
"What?"
"Nothing... you know what let's just grab some breakfast"
"I'll cook" I said.
I got freshened up and started cooking some pancakes. I've been living on pancakes for breakfast every single day.
"So since when did you learn to cook huh?" He raised his eyebrows. Did I ever mention about how hot he looked? If not then damn he was hot. He was wearing the same jeans from last night and his defined abs was on show. I moved my gaze from his sculpted abs and looked at him.
"I- I learnt it recently" I laughed awkwardly.
"Sure" He jumped from the kitchen counter and walked towards me.
He trapped me between his hands and slowly leaned in. We were just a few inches apart when he pulled away. My heart was banging again my chest.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that" he turned on his heels and went to the dining table. I served the breakfast and we ate it silently. It was awkward after what had happened.
He left after breakfast and I sat down to watch TV.
