Nowhere Else I'd Rather Be • Tree Bros

Games

Zoe had come back down. "He said he'll be down in a second."

Zoe started putting out cards, giving each 7 and putting a stack of 7 down on the ground.

Loud footsteps came down the stairs. And just like that Connor was sitting in front of his deck of cards.

He looked pretty calm, but his mind was racing. Why'd he want me down here? Is this a joke? A way to make fun of me?

"I'm first." Everyone looked at Zoe as she put a green 3 down.

Going clockwise, the game begun.

Alana dropped a green 2, Connor a green 7, Evan a green 6, and Jared put a green reverse.

Evan looked at his cards confused by the sudden turn back to him. Evan then put down a green skip-a-turn card.

Connor groaned in annoyance. "The hell, Hansen?"

"Oh, uh, sorry."

"No, no, sh. This is how the game is played, but fuck, Hansen."

•••

"BULLSHIT! THAT IS BULL TO THE SHIT." Jared was livid.

Evan was crying as he sat there with his 3 cards. Zoe and Alana were sitting there with dead eyes.

"Bow down, peasants." Connor was sitting criss-cross. "I win! It's no big deal."

"Evan's crying!" Jared wrapped his arms around Evan

"It's not bad crying! It's disappointment crying!" Evan was trying to move away from Jared.

"Why are you crying about Connor?" Zoe asked earning a death stare from Connor. He flipped her off, two hands instead of his usual one.

Zoe fake gasped and pretended to faint onto Alana's lap. Alana was laughing at the situation.

"Jared?" Evan was still trying to get out of Jared's arms. Honestly, he didn't think Jared could have this grip.

Jared still didn't respond and was just slightly laughing at Zoe and Connor just flipping each other off and arguing.

"Jared, hey, Jared." Jared finally looked down at Evan. His optimistic expression turning to a panicked one.

"Oh, uh, um, my- my, uh, my bad..." Jared let go of Evan and scooted very far from him. He had honestly forgotten that he broke up with Evan.

Connor quieted down from his argument as he glanced back at the Jared and Evan situation.

Jared probably messed up with him. Not surprising, but Evan seems like a nice guy, what could he have done to mess up with someone like this?

Connor was very curious, but he had to redeem himself with Zoe to make her know that she lost to him at Uno.

"Gay!"

"Bi!"

It went quiet, they didn't know where to go from that. Alana started laughing at the fight. She was followed by Zoe, and then by the rest.

"Wowwww." Jared broke the laughs. "So, are we gonna do anything else?"

"Sure. Uh..."

Connor hopped up and ran up to his room. They all watched him as he ran back up with  pieces of paper.

He gave each person 5 pieces and pulled out a pencil from his pocket.

"What is this?" Zoe asked

"We're playing Who's Most Likely To. I've actually really wanted to play this, it just sounded fun." Connor responded.

He barely had friends, well, he had one... Zoe's always home, though, and when she isn't his parents were home, so he hadn't seen him a bit. Anyways, he just had the one, and that didn't really work out for this game.

"Yeah, this game... Give me the pencil." Jared reached out to grab the pencil from Connor.

He got the pencil and started writing down everyone's names on each paper.

Jared, Evan, Alana, Zoe, Connor.

They passed around the pencil until everyone was done.

"What are we... What are we asking?" Evan was slightly confused.

"Who's most likely to die alone?" Jared was already pulling up his Connor card when he was asking this.

Zoe pulled up Connor, too.

"Sorry... I've just never seen you with other people..." Alana pulled up her Connor, too.

Even Connor pulled up his Connor card. They all laughed as they looked around at all the Connor's, Jared's being the loudest.

Then, the laughing from Jared ceased when he saw Evan had not put up Connor and he put up an Evan.

He continued to laugh, but a strained laugh. 
...that shouldn't be his choice...

"Most likely to... Let's do something not sad, uh... Be famous?" Zoe didn't really have ideas.

Everyone except Alana and Evan had their Alana card up, instead, they had Zoe's card up.

They all looked at Alana. "What? She's talented."

Evan nodded quickly when they looked over to him.

They continued to play the game. Even though Evan heard them, he wasn't very focused on the game itself, more of who brought the game down.

He was studying Connor. He was trying to figure out why Connor seemed so different to when Evan had seen him at school. Maybe he wasn't so... Bad. Like, everyone puts him out to be such a bad person... But... Evan wasn't seeing that.

He's not a bad guy. Like, at all. He just has a type of look, that's the only thing that gives me vibes of him being horrible. But, he's not. He's actually pretty funny and... Cool? Is that the right word? Well, he's cool. Wow, I-

"Evan. Evan. Evan. Evan. EV!"

"What?"

Jared was really trying to get Evan's attention and that was when it worked. "You good? You zoned out there, bud."

Evan nodded, "Sorry, " and apologized.

"Okay, well, Zoe, me, and Alana wanted to go get snacks. You wanna come?"

"It's Zoe, Alana, and I... Why- why did you say it like that?" Alana looked so confused at the way the sentence was worded.

"It doesn't matter! Ev? Are you...?"

"No, I'll stay." Honestly, he just didn't want to bother them, "Wait. Is Connor not going with you?"

"No, I'm not." Connor smirked from his spot on the floor, a little ways from Evan's spot on the floor.

Connor thought about this moment and decided, Hey, this might be fun...

No, he wasn't talking about him being alone with Evan, he just thought...

"Yeah, we'll be alone together." Connor winked after his statement.

Zoe stared in disbelief and was accompanied by Jared's look of utter disgust. Alana didn't notice since she was already out the door with Zoe's keys.

And at that, the walked out and left Evan and Connor alone.

Word Count - 1066