Shut Up and Kiss Me || Ethan Dolan

7: Green With Envy

Pen between her lips, Blake sits in the library with her nose in her textbook. Every few minutes she'll scribble notes down, her eyebrows knit together tighter than her hold on the edge of the book.

The sun just recently set, not that she noticed how much time had passed. It's Friday night again, and the library is practically empty. It's also quiet, which means it's the perfect place to be studying. But her friends knew she'd be there, and in walks Lara and Ryan.

"Hey, B," Lara smiles, sitting next to her. "It's Friday, you don't have to do this all now."

"Traffic light party at Kappa tonight," Ryan mentions, wiggling his eyebrows. "I'm pretty sure Ethan would love to see you."

"So he can try and seduce me again?" She snorts, circling something with red pen. "Don't you guys ever get bored of throwing parties all the time?"

"Nope. What else are we supposed to do?"

"That's fair," Blake laughs, slamming her textbook shut. "Obviously I'm going. I just had to finish this so I have the weekend free. I'm bartending tomorrow night, have some newspaper stuff to do before that, and helping out at the food pantry on Sunday morning."

Lara rolls her eyes as Blake packs up her things, the three of them slowly making their way out of the library. "You have way too much on your plate, B."

"I get it all done, and I still have time for parties. I'm fine," she reassures. Even when she did too much and got stressed, she almost always managed to get stuff done on time. Blake was exceptionally good at multitasking--when she didn't let herself stress too much. "We'll catch you there, right, Ry?"

"Mhm. I'll let Ethan know you're coming."

"Like it matters!"

"It totally matters," Lara says, watching Ryan walk the other way. "Aren't you kind of friends with benefits?"

Blake laughs and shakes her head, the conversation dropping as they both walk back to their apartment. She definitely wouldn't consider them that--there might've been a couple of instances where they did things but they were just friends, for the most part.

Really, she wasn't even sure if they could be called that. They got along well enough when they hung out, but neither went out of their way to contact the other all that often.

Ava is in the kitchen when they get home, loudly (and badly) singing along to old One Direction songs as she does the dishes. She grins as her friends walk in and throw their keys on the counter, splashing them with the water from the sink.

"Aves, you're wearing yellow? What haven't you told us?" Blake asks, turning the music down.

For the traffic light party, you're supposed to wear yellow as a maybe. Green means single and ready to hookup, red is taken. As far as they both know, Ava's single.

"Okay, so... maybe I've been talking to this guy."

"Which guy?" Lara gasps, both girls rushing to their friends side. "Wait, is it that hot guy you were telling us about from your art history class a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah. Travis. I don't know, we've been texting, and he asked if I'd be there tonight, so I just..."

"Aww, Aves, you got a crush," Blake teases, hugging her from behind. "I'm gonna go get dressed and fix my makeup, you're telling us a about him on the walk over."

"Oh! I'm coming to get ready with you!" Lara follows Blake to her room, the two digging through the closet. Lara raises her eyebrows when Blake pulls out something red. "You have to wear green."