The Truth In My Lies

09

MADISON

     THERE'S no way I can avoid Kaiden tonight. I promised him that I would have a game night tonight with him, Andrew, and Alyssa. It's a Friday night and considering I don't have anything else to do, I agreed to come. Plus, I did promise him last week we could all play Monopoly, but Kaiden and Andrew got into an argument and Alyssa was nowhere to be found. Since then, Kaiden and Andrew have resolved whatever issue they had.

When I knock on their apartment door, Alyssa is the one who opens the door. Her blonde hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun and even though she's not wearing makeup, she looks flawless. Why would Kaiden ever cheat on her? More importantly, why did I kiss him?

"Hey! Come in!" She smiles. Guilt pings in my chest. Maybe I would feel less guilty if she was a bitch to me, but she's so nice.

Kaiden and Andrew are sitting on the couch. They already have Monopoly set up on the coffee table and they're both drinking a beer.

Andrew smiles when he sees me and points to the game board laid out on the glass table. "Look, Mads! They have a cat token now."

Cats are my favorite animal. I have two back home that live with my parents. I wish I could've brought them with me, but my dorm would be way too small for them and unfortunately animals aren't allowed. The only pet we're allowed to have is a fish.

"And a dinosaur!" Kaiden holds the small silver token up for me to see. I just smile back and nod. I have no clue what to say to him, but it looks like he's pretending that nothing happened between us, so I'll do the same.

"I'm going to grab some chips. You want anything to drink?" Alyssa asks me.

"Dr. Pepper will be great. Thanks." I say before I take a seat next to Andrew on the couch.

"I feel like I haven't saw you in forever." Andrew says lowly.

"I know," I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. "I've just been busy. You know, work and school has been kicking my ass." I sigh for dramatic effect. Truthfully, I've just been trying to avoid Kaiden. And I guess Andrew too.

"Yeah, I totally get that. I'm just glad you get to come tonight. I didn't want to be a third wheel." He takes a swig of his beer just as Alyssa comes over with my Dr. Pepper and bowl of chips.

"Alright, let's get this show started." Kaiden announces and gets into the floor so he can sit around the coffee table. Alyssa, Andrew, and I all do the same.

"I call being the penguin." Andrew grabs the token. I guess it's also one of the new tokens they have.

"I'm the cat!" Alyssa grabs the cat token before I have the chance to. I know she heard Andrew tell me about it, so she obviously knew that would be the token I would go for. Instead of causing problems, I just grab the dog token.

"You already know. K-Rex is in the house!" Kaiden waves the dinosaur token around.

"Who wants to be the banker?" Andrew asks.

"Me!" I shout at the same time Alyssa does. I've always been the banker whenever Andrew and I played.

"Why don't we let Alyssa do it? After all, she's the guest." Kaiden smirks and looks at me. I don't know what he means by that.

"Next time you can be the banker, promise." Andrew gives me a small smile.

I just nod my head and look down at the board. We haven't even started playing and Alyssa has somehow managed to get under my skin. I guess I've done much worse to her, she just doesn't know about it.