His Fire ✅

Chapter 32

CAMERON'S POV

I took my food tray off the table and shook my head in dismay as Brandon climbed onto our table top.

"Listen here, everyone." He yelled, effectively gaining the attention of everyone. "My friend here," he pointed at Damon. "and I are having a joint birthday party on Saturday. Y'all are invited. I don't give a rat's ass if you're popular or a very shy nerd. You're free to come. Peace, bitches." Then he hopped off the table as if he hasn't stunned everyone to silence.

"What?" Damon shrugged when we kept looking at Brandon. "It got the job done and now, we don't have to worry about the cost of flyers."

"Except you guys were never really going to worry about the cost of flyers." Jess pointed out.

"Yeah yeah yeah." He blabbed. "Anyway, since you guys are my actual friends, you can come over to my house to celebrate my actual birthday with me after school."

"Nahhh. I don't think I can." Sapphire sighed. "I'm volunteering at the animal shelter today."

"You still work there?" Damon asked.

"Yup." It had never been a huge part of her life so it was no surprise to her that her friends thought she didn't work there anymore. I don't think she ever even mentioned it anymore.

"Can't you call in sick or something?" Brandon urged.

"She doesn't have to." Jess told him. "She can simply say she has somewhere else to be."

She nodded then told Brandon that she'd go to his house after school.

Jess had stopped volunteering at the shelter towards the end of last year. It served a good purpose since she had agreed to the part-time modeling job. She was done moping over Raymond but I could tell she still hurt a bit whenever someone brought the whole incident up.

Today was Brandon's birthday while Damon's own was on Friday. Usually, the guys would just celebrate it together on the day between their birthdays but this year, they decided to celebrate it after  Damon's birthday.

After school, Sapphire and I walked to my car and I was surprised to see Jess walking to Brandon's car.

"What's going on?" I asked with a teasing smile on my face.

"Stop your wandering mind. He's just going to drop me off at his house then drop me home and pick me up tomorrow for school."

She said just but I don't think she realized how...much that was.

Regardless, I hid my smile behind my hand and got into my car.

When we got to Brandon's house, there was a reasonably sized chocolate cake and lots of food waiting for us. It was like heaven on gold platters.

After we were done stuffing ourselves, we all crashed on the extremely comfortable couches in his living room to watch a movie that I couldn't focus on cause Sapphire kept drawing circles with her finger behind my earlobe.

I was very well on my way to drift off when I heard a ding from my phone.

Not again.

I grumbled under my breath and prepared myself for the worst as I brought out my phone from my pocket.

Nothing. There was nothing in the world that could have prepared me for the text and image that I saw on my phone.

You won't live long enough for your dreams of a white PICKET fence to come true.

My eyes flew over the text and landed on the image. I could hear my heart pounding on my ears. It was like this particular image just made it all the more real.... And scary.