When the unexpected became the inevitable

Chapter 22

-April

"Guys I think I need friends." I say and they all stop eating.             

"You don't consider us your friends?" Chris says dramatically putting his hand over his heart. I roll my eyes and say,

 "You guys are my friends but I feel like I need to put a female in the equation you know?"  

You can have girl talk with us." Easton says nudging my shoulder.         

"Yeah." Chris says, "We can talk about periods, mean girls and Zac Efron." I raise my eyebrow at him.       

"Is that what you think girls talk about? Menstruation, mean girls and Zac Efron?"   

"You always do that." He huffs. "You replace my words with stupid ones like menstruation." Alex starts choking on his latte and laughs.    

 "Menstruation is a period idiot." Alex says to Chris.      

 "Okay enough with the period talk." Easton says which makes us all laugh.

"April?" I hear a voice saying my name. So do the guys. We all turn around to look for whoever said my name.                     

"Long time no see." I look behind Chris and see a blonde girl walking towards us who I don't recognise at all. She gets closer and I still don't recognise her. She stops at our table and looks at me with a frown of her face.  

"You don't know who I am? She asks, I shake my head and she frowns even more. I study her face, she looks familiar but I know I don't know her.        

 "I guess not being brunette anymore makes my old best friend not recognise me. I knew I shouldn't have dyed it." She says and that's when I realise who she is.    

"Cass?" I ask and she nods with a huge smile on her face. Instantly, I get up and hug her so quickly that she almost falls over.                 

 "You're here? In London? When? Why? How? What?" I say and pull her even tighter.    

 "Jamesey you're crushing me here." She says and I release her.            

"Who's Jamesey?" Chris asks.       

"No one called me April in school, they called me Jamesey because of my last name." I say.      

 "That's quite stupid." Alex says while sipping his latte.                                                                                         "Whatever 'Xander'" I say while making quotation marks with my fingers. When we first met I made fun out of how he called himself Xander, I wonder if he remembers.           

"Touche." He says and chuckles. Yep he remembers.

Easton clears his throat and says, "April. You going to introduce us or what?"  

"Yeah right sorry. This is Easton. He's nice and um he's our age." I say while pointing to Easton. I'm terrible at describing people to other people.                  

"This is Chris." I say while moving my eyes to him. "The biggest flirt ever so don't take it personally if he makes an inappropriate comment. But if he ever crosses the line, feel free to hit him on the back of his head." Chris narrows his eyes at me but me and Easton laugh.     

"And this..." I gesture to Alex, "Is Alexander. He's Easton's older brother and Chris' ex best friend." I say and stick my tongue out to Chris who flips me off.     

"Why ex best friend?" Cass asks. Before I can answer Alex clears his throat and says,     

"Because April here stole the title of best friend from Christian."     

"Don't call me Christian. You sound like my mother." Chris says with disgust which makes East and Alex laugh.                    

 "And guys, this is Cassidy. My most valued friend from literally forever ago." They all give her a small wave and I tell Easton to grab a chair for her to sit with us.

"So you're the friend who went to South Africa?" Alex asks Cassidy.     

"Yeah I guess. I didn't realise April talks about me." She says while smiling at me. I assure her that i could never forget about my first best friend.   

"Are you still friends with Melanie?" Cassidy asks. I see Alex tense in the corner of my eye.          

"No, we fell out. I'll tell you later."           

"How are you and Landon?" She asks. My body freezes. Not even my body but my mind as well. I see that Alex, Chris and Easton have all stopped what they're doing and are looking at me.   

"Not together anymore." I say but I'm pretty sure it came out as a whisper.     

"But I thought you guys were en-"             

"I think I'm tired!" I shout, interrupting Cassidy before she could finish off her sentence.                    "Cass here is my number." I write down on a piece of paper, "Call me anytime and we can arrange a real catch up alone. I think me and Alex are going to head home."   

"You live together?" She asks, shocked. I nod and she nods back at me, almost like she knows not to ask questions. I look at Alex and see him studying me, trying to figure out how I'm feeling. He makes eye contact with me and nods and gets up. I hug Cass while the guys do their handshake thing then I hug Easton and Chris and say goodbye to them.

Alex looks at me and opens his mouth to talk, before he says anything I say,                                            "Take me home."