I'm pulling on a t-shirt over my two piece swimsuit when I hear a knock at my door. I grab my phone to look at the time and see a few texts from Noah.
I'll see you at the game
It's at 7
Counting on you Adeline
I roll my eyes and throw my phone onto my bed. I run down the stairs and throw the door open to see Riley standing there wearing a black hoodie and swim trunks.
"You're early. It's only like 6:30."
"I got bored." He walked past me into my house and took off his shoes.
"You're such a dork. Well I'm almost ready anyway. Let's go upstairs." I lead him up the stairs and into my room. He plops down on the bed and lays back, sighing while doing it.
"Quit being so annoying. And loud."
He laughs and says, "Whatever, you love me."
"Mhm." I put my hair up into a messy bun and decide that that's as good as it's going to get. I bend down and pull shorts out of one of my drawers and slip them on. "Black or white converse?"
"Shouldn't you wear sandals or something," he asks while eyeing my beat up sneakers. I just stare at him until he finally says, "Black."
"You know I only ever wear these. They go with EVERYTHING." I sit down next to him on the edge of my bed and begin lacing up my shoes. Between us, my phone buzzes and he picks it up before I can reach it.
"Hello?"
"Riley? Where's Adeline?" I can hear that it's Noah on the other end.
"She's.. " I widen my eyes and shake my head vigorously. "..in the bathroom."
"Okay... are you guys at the game? It's about to start." I appreciate that he doesn't question why Riley has my phone. We've all known each other since middle school, and Noah understands that he and I have been best friends ever since. However, just because he's understanding in that respect doesn't change my attitude towards his whole football ordeal.
"Uh, we-" In the background, we hear someone shouting for Noah to get off of the phone.
"Hey man, I actually gotta go now. Just tell her I called and that I'll see her later."
"Alright." Noah hung up and then Riley handed the phone back to me. "Thought you didn't care what he thought, why are you avoiding him?"
"I'm just trying to have fun tonight. And quit answering my phone for me," I grabbed one of my pillows and hit him with it, sending him on his back.
"Okay, okay. Jeez."
"Alright, let's go. We gotta meet everyone there. Oh, and I hope to God you brought the sparklers."
"Yes, I brought them. Relax." He stood up and threw the pillow back at me. "You and your sparklers," he said under his breath. He grabbed his keys off of my bed and headed down the stairs with me following him.
The drive to the beach isn't very long and we're there in time to see the sunset over the horizon. One of my favorite parts about living in California is being so close to the beach and the beautiful sunsets.
As I head towards the beach, I see two of my girl friends and I begin running to them. They see me and scream, and run towards me until we eventually collide and nearly fall over hugging.
"I feel like we haven't seen you in forever, Adeline," Jenna yells into my ear.
"Seriously, where have you been," Katie yells into my other ear.
I let go of them and step back. "I know! I've just been going to Noah's practices, spending a lot of time doing that. And working, of course."
"Ah, yes. Noah.. your lover," Jenna winks at me. "How are you guys doing?"
"Oh, you know... we're the same as ever," I said with a biting tone.
"Oh no. What's wrong?" Katie says to me, concern edging in her voice.
I explain to them how I've been feeling about not being one of Noah's top priorities and what happened in the hallway earlier. By the time I finish the story, we have our towels laid out on the sand and we're sitting down on them.
"Always so dramatic, Adeline. It's just football," Jenna rolls her eyes and laughs. I laugh with her and try to push her before she dodges my hand.
"Hey, she's right though. Football games are boring and her man needs to pay attention to her," Katie says before taking a drink from her water bottle.
"Ha! See, I'm not totally crazy."
"I don't know about that, you're pretty crazy." I look up to see Riley standing over us.
"Hey, Riley. Long time no see," Katie beams up at him with her gorgeous smile. Jenna and I exchange glances before bursting into laughter. "What, it's true, I haven't seen him in awhile," Katie shrugs.
Riley looks uncomfortable and even in the low light, I can tell that he's blushing. "Hi, Katie." Jenna clears her throat and Riley turns his attention to her. "And Jenna. Hi, Jenna."
"Oh Riley. Always so charming," I say as I stand up. "Alright guys, I'm gonna go say hi to everyone else and find the drinks."
"Bring us back something good," Katie says.
"Of course. I'll be right back." I start walking away from them and towards the other people on the beach. I can feel Riley hovering near me so I turn towards him and say, "Riley, you don't have to hang out with me the whole time. You can go hang out with your friends, you know."
"I know, I know. But I like hanging out with you, you are my favorite girl after all." He smiles at me and I roll my eyes.
"Mhm, right. Seriously though, I'll be fine. Go on, go hang out with your friends." He stares at me with uncertainty for a moment before I say, "Seriously. I'm good! Go."
Riley shrugs and says, "Alright. If you need anything, just come find me." He turns around and starts heading towards his group of friends who are all engaged in a conversation about some concert they're going to see this summer.
After socializing with everyone who showed up, I finally locate a cooler with alcohol in it. I reach in and pull out six mike's hard lemonades, my favorite. I don't really enjoy the taste of alcohol, so these are always my drink of choice.
I get back to Jenna and Katie and hand them each two of the lemonades. They thank me and we each open one of our bottles. "Drink up, ladies. We're gonna make this Friday night ours," Katie says, holding her bottle out towards us. We cheers and take a drink.
"Definitely," I say as I pull out my phone and take a picture with them. I caption it with heart emojis and post it to my snapchat story. "This is our night."
