James Jones has always played life by the rules.
His best friend, Will McClain does not.
Enter a senior year tsunami filled with hidden emotions, wide grins and way too much chaos to make it through the next ten months alive.
Will dodges the pillow and it flies overhead and hits the ground with a soft thunk.
He turns over to me, seemingly forgetting that he was planning on going to sleep.
"What?" I ask, as his eyes burn into me.
"You missed," He wiggles his eyebrows with an easy smirk sliding onto his face.
"And you dodged," I shrug back.
"Well," he says, sticking a tongue out at me and rising to his feet, "I'm raiding the cupboards. Come with if you want."
I watch him as he heads out of the room, slapping the doorway on his way out like he always does.
Then he's out of my line of sight, and I'm laying back in my bed, debating whether or not to follow him.
But the notebook glaring at me from my backpack is what has me stay back in Will's room and actually get to writing.
WILL
Ring pops.
That's the first snack that comes to mind the second I step foot in the kitchen.
I scan the area, moving from counter to counter until I open a cupboard and find an entire stash of them hidden there.
Luckily for me, Ciara's not home to harass me about it and tell me to moderate the amount I take. Well, moderation and I have never worked all that well together. It goes as far back as when I was eight. My main mission was sneaking downstairs at midnight to grab any unhealthy shit I could lay my hands on.
I grab the pack and rummage through its contents.
In fact, if James was sleeping over at my house, I'd sneak downstairs, and he'd be trying his best to convince me not to. In fact, he'd feel really guilty to the point where he'd stop talking to me, even if he didn't eat any of the candy.
He was such a fucking softie.
I grab a packet with a single ring pop.
Exhaling a laugh, I mull over the thought in my mind. James being soft and gentle and everything right in this world isn't really something limited to the past. He's always been that way.
He still is.
Which is one of many reasons why I had to stop myself last Friday.
Or really, my phone did.
Either way, it was better to ignore the incident and come out with a half-assed excuse that sort of made sense rather than attempt anything else.
I rip open the packet, grabbing the ring pop and sliding it up my pointer finger.