Friday, midday

     After school, Frey had done grocery shopping, taking all the necessary ingredients to bake a cake with Jenna, right before he went over to her house as they had agreed on.

He wasn't feeling entirely comfortable with the idea he was going to enter the house where Samuel lived. He still couldn't stand the guy, but Jenna had insisted on him coming over to her place.

Her parents wouldn't be home until late, and she swore Samuel would hang out with Jordy until they would go out that night.

So, Frey had agreed and stepped into the enemy's house with ingredients—yet again—to bake a barbie cake.

He really needed to talk to Hannah about her obsession with pink, and dolls, and barbies. Couldn't she be a little more like Julia had been when she had her age? Julia had no trouble playing with Frey's Action Man or G.I. Joe's. In fact, it was one of the reasons their mother had told Julia to join a dancing class; she needed to do more girly things.

Julia had protested at first, but she absolutely loved everything about dancing, so she had accepted dancing as a hobby, and had pushed aside the toys they shared.

Hannah wasn't dancing, and she could at least become less obsessed with pink. Frey should really try to talk some sense into her tomorrow at the party.

"What's on your mind today?" Jenna nudged him as they were both preparing the kitchen to become a mess. She was handling the eggs—separating the egg whites—while he was weighing the flour, sugar, and other ingredients in the mean time.

"Hannah's obsession with pink."

"Where's the fondant anyway?" Jenna asked while looking around curiously.

"Oh, no." Frey shook his head. "No fondant, Jenna."

"Then what are we using to decorate? What cake are we even going to make?"

"Pink velvet, with whipped vanilla buttercream as a topping." Frey shrugged. "It's pink on the inside, and we'll decorate the outside with more pink. Hannah's going to love it because she loves vanilla."

"Jeez, should I feel threatened? Is she new competition?" She joked, but Frey saw that she wasn't exactly happy there was competition to begin with. But it had been Jenna and Daniel themselves who agreed he could date both of them to figure out his feelings. He was even neglecting his own friends to see both of them as much as possible.

Jenna had nothing to worry about, as he had not once been alone with Daniel ever since they shared a kiss in the locker room on Monday. There was always someone with them; mostly Hannah, or Jenna herself.

He had seen Jenna on their date, again shortly on Wednesday, and now on Friday. He felt like he leaned more towards hanging out with her, though he did feel frustrated he hadn't had any decent conversation with Daniel in the past few days.

"Oh, sure, an eight-year-old is competition." Frey nodded and chuckled, and she giggled, making him beam.

"Right." Jenna smirked. "She absolutely worships you."

"What can I say? I'm a god."

Jenna laughed at that and shook her head in slight disbelieve. "Seriously though. Do you know how Daniel payed for her gift? The other day he was still ranting how he wished he could've given her the doll, and suddenly, the doll is there."

She already seemed to be suspicious, but he didn't want to tell the truth. That was between Daniel and him.

"Maybe he had a lot of tips at work last week." Frey shrugged, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation that he knew wasn't true anyway.

"Or someone bought it for him." Jenna stopped what she was doing, handing him the bowl full of egg whites with a knowing frown on her face. "You do realise he already feels shitty for having to accept a lot from others, simply because they need charity?"

"I made sure he was perfectly fine with it, okay?" Frey grumbled, giving into her. He couldn't stand the look on her face. It made him feel as if she was scowling at him like his mother always did. "Stop babying him. He agreed."

"Just..." Jenna took in a deep breath. "Promise you won't go and flaunt around your money, because he doesn't need to feel even worse over the whole situation."

"I'm not gonna. I just thought Hannah deserved to be spoiled a bit, for once. She hardly ever complains about things."

"Says he who has known her for a week."

"And I'm good with reading people. Tell me I'm wrong."

Jenna rolled her eyes and sighed in defeat. "She really doesn't, and I agree she deserves so much more. All three of them do. But it is what it is and as his friends, we're already trying to do everything we can to help them out."

"I know, and it's admirable. I just want to help where I can, okay?"

"Because you like him?"

"not doing that, Jenna. I'm not going to talk about that with you right now."

"Why not? I can handle the truth."

"Well, the truth is that I haven't spent any time with him alone, and I did three times with you this week. Stop fishing, you're fine."

"Oh..." Jenna bit her lip and Frey noticed she was fighting back a smile.

He turned to face her, pulling her into his arms. "I like you too, remember?"

"I know..." She sighed again. "I'm just a bit insecure."

"Don't be. You're cute, you're funny. I really like you. I just don't know you that well, and honestly, the same goes for Daniel."

"And you want to get to know us both a bit better, I know, I know." She threw her hands up in defeat and giggled again as Frey pecked a kiss onto her cheek.

"Let's bake a cake, because these ingredients aren't magically going to turn into a delicious pink velvet cake."

     They had finished their cake in time to clean up the mess they had made before Jenna's parents had returned from work late.

Frey had eaten dinner with them, before he had waited for Jenna to get ready to go out. He sat in the living room, nervously fiddling with his shirt, while talking to Jenna's parents.

They showed genuine interest in him, until he mentioned Peter Sanders was his father. That's when things became a bit awkward and questions became more difficult.

Frey knew damn well his family was both loved and hated by the people in town, and he had figured it was mostly jealousy.

Because everybody thought they where a happy little family.

It was partially caused because his parents might have gotten a divorce; his mother still used Sanders as a last name. Nobody seemed to know they had divorced years ago, and nobody seemed to know how far off their image of their family was.

They had struggled with money too, until his father had turned the club into a raging success.

Frey too knew what it was like to grow up in a dysfunctional family; remembering all the fights at home all too well.

They weren't perfect, but his mother had made it out to believe they were, and yet again, Frey was explaining a random stranger how wrong his ideas about the Sanders' family were, and what they had overcome in the years before his father's success.

Jenna's mother, Harriette, seemed to understand—and even like—Frey. While her father Robert seemed harder to convince that he had a difficult life.

Money wasn't everything.

Money didn't buy Frey a decent mother, or married parents. It couldn't buy him a better, bully free past. But Mr. Lark wasn't having any of it.

He waved Frey off as soon as Jenna's footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Frey was happy he could escape the judgemental words of her father.

He took her home to quickly take a shower and put on different clothes, while she waited in the living room for him to get ready.

He hurried as much as he could, but she eventually knocked on his bedroom door while he was searching for a decent shirt to wear.

"Are you almost ready? Lacy is asking when I'll be there."

"Almost." Frey turned to find her looking at his bare upper body and he smirked because she obviously liked what she saw.

A blush crept onto Jenna's face and she quickly turned away, her eyes casted down. "O-okay, I'll wait... in the living room.

Frey chuckled as she left, picking a shirt and some flannels to wear, following her to the living room as he dressed up and took her outside without another word.

She was obviously still embarrassed for barging in his room while he wasn't fully dressed yet, while Frey didn't mind because she wasn't the first girl who saw him like that.

Besides, there wasn't anything to see. No more than she would see if he would be out by the lake during the summer.

He was sure she'd seen him like that before.

She was probably just shy because they had been on a date and Frey still hadn't made a move to get in her pants.

What could he say? She didn't come across as a girl who'd easily get in bed with guys, so he wanted to respect her boundaries.

The silence became a bit annoying when they entered the club and Jenna still hadn't said much, while Frey had been trying to start up a new conversation. He wondered what changed in the timespan of a couple hours. So far, they never had trouble to keep casual conversations flow.

He eventually gave up and headed over to the bar where Daniel, Lacy and their co-worker Leo were working, ordering a drink. Lacy helped him and Jenna out. He really wanted Daniel to help them, so he could at least greet him. But he was busy, and he didn't notice their presence until Lacy had long given them their drinks.

It was really too busy to talk to any of them, so Frey took Jenna to his friends, and soon got company of Jordy too, who greeted both of them with a smile.

"How are things going between you and Jenna?" Arun curiously eyed Jenna, who was chatting with Jordy when Arun had pulled him aside.

"Oh, you know." Frey shrugged. It was a shitty answer, because he didn't even know, so how was Arun supposed to know? "How are you doing with your Sparkl crush?"

"Oh... you know..." Arun shrugged, and then both boys laughed since they appeared to be in the same problem. They had no idea what was going on between them and the girls they were dating. "I kinda wanted to ask you some advice."

"For?"

"She wants to meet, but I... What if she doesn't like me? I'm not as confident as you are."

"Just... you do you, okay?" Frey smiled at his friend, putting a hand on his shoulder in the process. "Don't pretend to be anyone else. That will backfire. Besides, she should like you for you."

"Wow... those are some wise words from you, Frey." Arun laughed and shook his head. "I'm just afraid it will be yet another rerun of all my other attempts of dating a girl. They'll hate my accent, dislike the fact I'm Indian, that I'm not as tall..." He summed up.

"Well, their loss. Besides, she knows you're foreign, right? She's seen your picture."

"Yeah, but not how short I am. She hasn't heard me speak yet."

"Well, what advice are you expecting? Go and learn to speak English without an accent? Get surgery to quickly become taller? Besides, I'm not tall. That never bothered a girl so far."

"Yeah, but at least you're not shorter than they are."

"True. So, what do you want me to say?"

"I don't know..." Arun shrugged. "I'm just worried she'll see me and decide to leave right away and leave me behind on my own."

"Want me to go with you?" Frey snorted at the idea. "That will surely scare her away."

"Well, what if you take Jenna out on a date and go to the same place?"

"What, like a double date?"

"No, no... more like a back-up?"

Frey looked back and forth between Arun and Jenna shortly, until he noticed Daniel staring at him from the bar with a small smile on his face.

He wanted to go out with Daniel first. It would only be fair to Daniel and himself to see what was between them.

"Sure, I'll be there as a back-up. But not with Jenna." Frey took in a deep breath. "I'll explain more about that later, okay?"

Arun shortly looked curious, but than simply nodded. Because Arun would never push him to explain things Frey promised to explain later. He was the kind of guy that would patiently wait for Frey to come up to him.

Because Arun was his best friend and they trusted each other with everything. So why Frey hadn't told him about Daniel yet, was a mystery to Frey himself too. But he needed to open up about it; later.

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