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Fifteen

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If you asked April to recount the twelfth of June to your hearing, you'd be pretty surprised at how much she remembered.

The Saturday had started off as ordinarily as possible. Of course there had been the tonne of homework (which no one planned to do till Sunday night), sitting on the study desk of her room, begging to be taken care of but other than that, all had been normal.

Personally, April had been as glad to open them as the Grinch would've been to see children on Christmas day.

Nathan had 'borrowed' her hairdryer the previous evening so like any sibling, she'd stumped off in PJs to his room to get it back, only to run into him in the middle of a conference video call. She recognised the faces immediately and it didn't take long for her to successfully strike conversation with them, somewhat replacing her brother, who had gone silent in anger.

Nathan had ended up successfully aborting the fun talk they were having, but by then, she had landed herself an invite to the senior's only party the boys (including Nathan) had been planning.

"You're not planning on going, are you?" He asked, taking two steps forward for every one she moved back.

"Of course not," she replied with a plain shrug. "Cause I'm a boring ass and I clearly just told Travis Brook that I wasn't gonna make his cousin's party."

"April, you're staying home today."

She scoffed. "Yes, master. On a completely unrelated note, can I get a ride with you."

"Get out of my room," he ordered, opening the door wide for her to walk out. "And don't even think of going."

He had just shut the door when April knocked on it again, an innocent smile on her face.

"What?"

"My hairdryer."

Even till now, there were still times she wished she had listened to Nathan that morning and avoided that party. She could have been with Paige and Amanda on their intended friendship anniversary celebration but instead, her love for parties and defiance had taken her out. She'd donned a red tank top and white skinny jeans, which had ultimately been her downfall, as they'd ripped right in the center. The only solution had been to get placeholders from a certain German American, who had also happened to be the host of the hangout, and the birthday boy. After that, one thing had led to another and she'd left the party with not just booze in her system, but a person on her mind. The same person she ended up dating a few weeks later, falling in love with and the very same one who had broken her heart and disappeared within the space of an hour.

She recounted all–well most–of it to Shawn, going on and on about how everything 'wasn't a big deal', even though it most definitely had been. To her, at least.

He was being a good sport though, as he listened attentively until she reached a certain part of her ramble about how his dad reminded her of hers in so many ways.

"What ways?"

She counted on her fingers. "They're both empire owners so obviously have little to no sense of humor or chill whatsoever. They're incredibly hypocritical, they don't believe in things that don't benefit them yet both manage to keep families that love each other–well some more than others. I love my brother but deep down, like deep deep deep deep–"

He chuckled. "I get it!"

She chuckled. "Glad you do."

"So this guy," Shawn wrung his fingers. "You liked being with him?"

"No!" She raised her voice. Realising how it sounded, she shook her head. "No, I mean I don't exactly regret it, but if I could go back in time..." she trailed off, realising the simple fact that if she could've indeed gone back in time, she still would've attended that party.

There were times she loathed the memories, but now wasn't one of them. Recounting them to Shawn was the happy version of events.

"You would what, change things?"

She simply smiled and took his hand slowly. "Do you think I would?"

"I don't know, I just think you're maybe still into him– but that's just a guess," He added quickly, seeing as she'd loosened her grip on his hand.

"You're wrong, okay? I'm not into Javier anymore. That was a long time ago."

He nodded as she took her hand from his, wrapping them around herself as the cold began to set in. The sun had bidden farewell, meaning it had been almost three hours of sitting and story telling.

Had she really talked that long?

"But you didn't get closure, even if you did end it with your own hands."

"I– I was angry, Shawn, I just... I knew he was gonna leave me eventually, I just didn't think it'd happen that fast, you know?"

"It wasn't entirely his fault. You made a plan, you went through with your part and he couldn't go through with his so you ended it."

"You wouldn't understand if I wrote a book about it. We struggled with trying to get him to open up to his dad for months. Javier didn't care enough to give it a shot, even at the last minute," she shrugged.

She noticed his expression and immediately brought a change of topic. The mood wasn't sad and she didn't want to pass the message that she needed space to cry or anything.

"What about you, what's your story?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, I mean typical beach boy with a large friend group, chocolate brown hair, resembles a famous singer even with a smile like that," she added, feeling the need to flirt his concern out of him.

"There's nothing much to me," he shrugged. "I got lucky with the naming thing."

She frowned. The air was sour and there was little that could save it.

"So what? You're just gonna let this weather pass us by with nothing but boring silence? That's not very nice."

He opened his mouth to say something, but then apparently decided against it. He smiled awkwardly, then picked a small shell off the ground in front of him.

"Getting to actually talk to you is nice enough," he answered.

She turned their hands, so that Shawn's palm was on top of hers. "Well then maybe I'll have to pay my debt soon," she said, trying to force that feeling.

The feeling of sneakiness mixed with giddiness that sent shivers down your spine at the same time it let cages of doves loose in your chest. That had usually been the result when things like that happened with–

"Nah, don't worry about it," he replied, taking his own hand away from hers this time.

Okay, so that was embarrassing. He wasn't into her anymore...not exactly an 'ouch'.

"So why do you have the shack?" She asked with the pure intention of steering the conversation another direction.

"My business?"

"Can hardly call it that... You gave me all those drinks for free," she chuckled.

He shrugged flashed a bright smile. "Okay, so first of all, it exists because I want a sense of accomplishment. To feel like I've done something on the island."

She smirked. "Accomplishment? Did I miss something? All I see is a smoothie shack and its wacko manager."

He laughed hard, making the smile on her own face widen. She liked seeing him happy.

"I know, but it's a way to earn extra cash...when I'm not giving away free cups to hot girls."

"Hot girls are the downfall of every business," she noted, picking the fun mood back up. "What's the other reason?"

"It's fun having joints around the island... There's a chain of them at other points away from here. My cousins and I run them all."

"That's amazing! It means when this one dies, you have the others to fall back on for parties."

"It's not gonna die!" He whined.

"Sure, fake mendes, whatever you say."

Conversation with Shawn, in April's opinion wasn't bad at all...the guy had style, no doubt. According to him, college was something he'd always wanted, both for the fun, and because he had a dream to fall into the legal area of life.

Yep, he was gonna be a lawyer.

She intentionally omitted details when talking about her own ambition, merely telling him she wanted to 'follow the arts'. Part of the reason was because she felt it was unimportant. A bigger reason was because she wasn't sure she'd be able to talk about that without mentioning Javier's and her past.

The sun had long disappeared now, but it wasn't fully dark yet, signalling time for her to head back home.

It took a while to leave the spot she sat, not just because it was close to Shawn, but the ocean currents moving to and fro were as calming as ice water on red-hot metal.

•~❉᯽❉~•

"Okay, we have a good number, that's good at leas– April!" Hannah smiled and waved her over to the front of the house.

They were all seated in chairs arranged in a semicircle–everyone except the other parents, of course.

Amanda was seated on one of the chairs by the edge. She hadn't paid April much attention since she had arrived, not that it was a surprise to April.

"Hey Ms. O'Brien," Shawn smiled, giving a two finger wave.

Hannah waved back with the same smile plastered on her lips. "Okay, so you're just in time."

April's eyes didn't leave Hannah's face, and not particularly because she was paying rapt attention to what she was saying. The other (and main) reason was standing almost opposite her, and she had a fairly good guess what he was looking at.

Nathan showed up from beside the house in his usual tank on shorts, holding up a small, shiny, silver object.

"The best I could do," he said with a half shrug when Hannah opened her mouth to say something.

"But–"

"No, no, you said bell. This is a bell, end of story!"

"Natha–"

"Ey, hush! I got the bell," he noted with a chuckle.

Hannah kept the frown until he extended his finger to boop her cheek, making everyone around laugh, especially Paige.

"Oh, alright!" The pregnant woman rolled her eyes with a smile, waving him away. "Don't misuse it!" She called afterward.

"What's happening?" April finally asked, looking round, as Javier got off the chair beside Amanda.

"Karaoke and chess," he answered, giving Shawn a small nod of greeting, before moving past them and into the house with no more words.

"Okay, anyone else wanna tell me?" She asked.

"We were all gonna play games, according to what dad had on the itinerary," Paige started. "But turns out, he and the other dads wanted chess and checkers, the women wanted a walk outside, except for this one–" she motioned her head toward her mother. "–who's pulling the rest of us for karaoke."

April wrinkled her brows.
Javier picked chess over singing?

"Why's Javier inside?"

"He wanted to play chess," Paige replied.

"And you don't really expect him to stay out here with you and Shawn, do you?" Malia mumbled, sending everyone's heads to face her.