Friends, Lovers, or Nothing

Chapter Fourteen - New Light

The heavy traffic on Saturday night gives me plenty of time to rehearse the plan I had come up with to get Jaxon to his surprise party with minimal hiccups. He was currently driving us towards the frat house after I had told him that I had forgotten my wallet there last week and needed it before we went out together.

I had asked him to come with me to a concert at Paradise Rock Club, the place Hudson had previously taken me out to see his friends band. Jaxon hadn't even told me that it was his birthday but agreed immediately to come out with me when I brought it up on Thursday. I hadn't let him know that I knew it was his birthday today, which made it even harder for me to keep the lie going. But so far, I think he was buying it.

We pull up to the frat and I have to give it to Aidan, it didn't even look like a party was going on from the outskirts of the house. It looked like it did on most weeknights here, no loud music playing or people loitering around outside. I was impressed.

"Would you mind coming in with me? I don't really know all the guys here, I'm kinda scared to go in alone," I tell him after we park on the street.

His eyes immediately widen in understanding and he goes to take off his seat belt, "Yeah, of course," he tells me and then we're off towards the front walkway. Whew thank god, I've been practicing that line the whole drive over.

My palms feel damp as we approached the front door but I try to look as relaxed as possible on the outside. If I was to ruin the surprise while just feet away from the party by acting like something was up, I would hate myself. I wanted tonight to be a fun surprise for Jaxon. He clearly doesn't care too much about birthdays considering he didn't even tell me that today was his nineteenth when I asked him to make plans with me. I had to wonder why that was.

Since my talk with Layla on Wednesday, I had been thinking hard about what she said. Would it be the worse thing in the world if Jaxon actually did have feelings for me? No. But did it scare the shit out of me to think it could be true? Totally.

"Do we knock?" I ask Jaxon once we're positioned in front of the door.

"Nah, we can just," his words are cut off as he opens the front door to the house.

"SURPRISE!"

Jaxon's eyes widen as he looks around the room full of smiling faces, some setting off mini confetti poppers to add to the effect. He quickly turns to me with an accusatory finger pointed out, a smile on his face, "You," he says.

I just smile and lean into his ear, "Happy Birthday, Jax."

He immediately pulls away to look at my face and if humanly possible his eyes widen even larger than before. But before he can get a word in, he's dragged away by a hoard of guys, Aidan amongst them. They all start wishing him a happy birthday so I decided to go look for Makenzie and Layla who said they would be coming tonight while he mingles with his friends for a while.

As I make my way through the long hallway that leads to the kitchen, I come close to falling as someone barrels into me. I whip my head around to see it was Hudson that I bumped into. Oh God, I haven't seen him since the last time I was here and his presence made me suddenly nervous.

"Blake!" He exclaims, going in for a hug, "How are you?"

I lean in for the hug and give him a small smile, "I'm good, it's been a minute since I've seen you!" I tell him, leaving out the part about me seeing him lip-locked with another guy last week.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, just been busy," He hesitates, "There's this guy I've been seeing but I have a feeling he's not interested in being serious right now," He tells me truthfully and I'm pleasantly surprised at his revelation. At least it wasn't all in my head and he really was interested in this guy.