Sophia arrived exactly ten minutes later carrying a giant bag in her arms. "What's all this?" I asked. "You didn't think I was going to let you go hang out with Scottie looking like that did you?"

I looked down and examined my current. Given that I just woke up not to long ago, I was still in a baggy t-shirt and a random pair of shirts that I'm pretty sure have a spaghetti stain on them. "I just woke up a little bit ago, give me a break."

She plopped her bag down on my bed and began to dig through it. "So what's in that bag anyways? A body?"

Sophia did not look amused by my little joke. "This is not funny. Your supposed to be hanging out with Scottie today and as your best friend it's my duty to make you look presentable. Now come here and try some of these outfits on."

Once again I was amazed by my best friend.

She had managed to fit 5 different outfits in that bag along with almost her entire make-up collection.

"Which one do you think Scottie will like best? I want to impress him," I replied as I looked over all the outfits.

There was a yellow sundress, a pair of shorts with a crop top, ripped jeans and a tank top, another sundress but blue, and a light pink blouse with a cute white skater skirt.

I suddenly remembered what Parker had said about the type of clothes Scottie likes. He likes the more revealing ones, hence the reason I wore that ridiculous outfit last night. The pink shirt and white skirt was the most revealing but comfy looking so I picked it up and went into my closet to change.

When I came back out, I heard Sophia gasp. "What? What's wrong? Do I look ridiculous? I knew I shouldn't have worn this. Don't worry I'll go change right-"

"Blaze," she interrupted me. "Yes?" I asked skeptically. "Go look in the mirror." She pushed me over to the mirror that was on the back of my bedroom door.

My heart stopped for a good 5 seconds when I saw my reflection. "I.."

"Look good! Damn!"

The skirt made my legs look really long and tan, while giving off the illusion that I had a small waist. The blouse made me look pretty, but not overly cute. "I'm a genius!" Sophia exclaimed. "Now let's get your hair and make up done before it's time to go."

Since I didn't want to look like I was trying too hard, Sophia only straightened my hair and added some mascara and lip gloss to me. When she finished, I looked in the mirror again.

And again I was surprised by how good I looked. Damn, I need to stop underestimating myself. I was actually really pretty and had a good body no matter what anyone else said. Maybe I should start dressing like this more often.

I grabbed a pair of tan sandals from my closet and headed to the living room to wait for Scottie to come.

While we were waiting, I got a text from Parker.

Dumbfuck: What are you doing right now?

Me: I'm about to go out with a friend. Why?

DF: I just wanted to know if you wanted to work on our project some more. We still don't have any ideas since our last study session didn't end well.

Me: Yeah, and who's fault was that?

DF: Look, I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt you, I just wanted to prank you. It's not that deep. Now, when can we work on our project again?

Me: Monday after school at 4, don't be late or I will throw a book at your face.

I turned my phone face down so I didn't see what Parker texted me next.

After a couple minutes of waiting, Scottie pulled in my driveway and honked the horn. I looked over at Sophia with a worried look on my face. "What do I do? He's here already. What if I embarrass myself?"

She put her hands on my shoulders to calm me down. "You'll be fine. Just be who you always are and I'm sure he'll fall for you. You are a great girl that any guy would be lucky to be with. Now go, you don't want to keep your man waiting."

With one last reassuring nod, I headed out to greet Scottie. As soon as I got in the care, my little stream of nerves flooded into an ocean or nerves. I was sitting in the same car as my crush! This was so nerve-wracking.

"You look good," Scottie commented. "T-thanks," I spluttered out.

"Did you get your hoodie that I left for you?" I looked up at him, but he wasn't looking at me anymore, he was looking at the road in front of him. "Uhm, yeah I did. Thank you, I would've never known I left it if it wasn't for you."

Okay, my nerves were calming down a little bit. I had managed to talk to him with dying. Maybe now I can say something intelligent to get his attention. I blurted out the first thing I could think of.

"Did you know that a cloud can weigh more than a million pounds?" Shit! Why did I just say that?

"No, I didn't know that. How do you even learn something like that?" He asked in genuine amusement, and not teasing like I thought he would.

So, I launched into a story of how I found that out. He seemed to be genuinely interested in my story, which was a first for me. Normally when I explained things like this to my friends, they zoned out and pretended to listen along.

--

Stella's was a cute little coffee and bookstore on the outskirts of the city. It wasn't a super well-known place, but kids at my school came here all the time. The coffee was better than Starbucks.

The bell rung when we walked in and the girl working the cashier, Emily, smiled at us. "Welcome guys! What're you here for today?" It was the standard procedure to as this question to customers and then help them by either showing them were a book is or taking their order.

"We would like to sit at a booth and order some coffee," Scottie said. Emily nodded her head and leaded us over to an empty booth. "Now, what drink can I get y'all?" You could hear the slight Southern drawl in her voice wen she spoke.

"Can I get an Oreo frappe?" She wrote down my order and then looked to Scottie. "I'll have the same thing."

When she left, we resumed talking. "So I have a question, and you can be 100% honest on this. Your answer is very important," I told him. "What is it?"

"Do you dip or cover your fries in ketchup?"

"Dip, of course. Is that even a question?" he laughed. "Thank god you said that. I don't think I could be friends with someone who covers their fries in ketchup then eats them."

"You know Parker actually does that?"

I looked up at Scottie in disgust. How could a human being doing that? Fries were sacred and covering them in anything other than cheese or chili was just wrong. "He does? I knew there was a reason why I didn't like him."

"I thought it was because he takes the pickles off his burgers," he replied. My eyes widened even more. "No! He does that too? He's a monster that must be stopped."

Emily came back with our drinks just then, interrupting our very amusing conversation. She set down our drinks and then walked away. "Now I have a serious question," Scottie looked at me, all of a sudden becoming very serious. "Shoot."

He paused for millisecond before responding, "How come we've never been friends until now?"

Whatever he was going to say, I wasn't expecting that. I had to actually think about it.

I guess there's not any reason we couldn't be friends, our paths just never really crossed until senior year. We had met each other in passing a handful of times, but it was nothing major. There's also the problem of Parker being his best friend, but honestly I don't think Parker and I hating each other would've stood in the way.

Take right now, for example. I still hate Parker with a passion, but here I am hanging out with his best friend. "I don't know," I finally said. "Our paths never really crossed until recently, maybe that's why."

I really did wish I would've known Scottie sooner. He was such a genuine and sweet person, it was a nice change of scenery to the usual guys in high school i.e. Parker. "I wish I would've known you when I was little, maybe then we could've been friends."

"Yeah, me too."

---

After chatting for a bit longer, we left the shop because I still had some homework to do and I had to help plan the finishing touches for my 17th birthday party.

Shortly before we arrived to my house, I got the courage to invite Scottie to my party. He said he could most likely come, but had to check his schedule to see if he was working that day.

He was supposed to be texting me later tonight with his answer. I really hope he can come. It'll give me a chance to get closer to him.

Currently, I was in the showering singing along to Disney songs. So I'm a little childish, sue me. Anyways, once I finished scrubbing my body with my favorite body wash, I hopped out and got dressed before heading into my room to start my homework.

It didn't take me that long to complete since it was only a handful of questions for math.

I shoved it into my backpack and settled under my covers to watch Netflix the rest of the night.

---

"Parker I swear to god!"

It was now Monday and I was trapped in history class with Parker once again. We were learning about various ancient societies right now, but instead of paying attention, Parker just had to annoy me with his stupid pencil.

He had been poking me in my side for the last ten minutes. I was about ready to snap at him. I was just itching to turn around and slap him. Maybe I could do it when Mr. Ford grabs his next piece of cheese. "What? Is this annoying you?"

"Yes!" I hissed at him.

Our teacher whipped around to see who was talking, but in the course of doing that, a stray piece of cheese flew out of his mouth and landed on the wall.

The class erupted into laughter, including me. He started glaring at everyone. His face looked sad as he threw the cheese in the trash. I tried really hard to stop myself from laughing, I really did, but I just couldn't.

Mr. Ford went on with the rest of the lesson after the class managed to settle down. However, Parker resumed poking me in the side. "Parker if you don't stop that right now I swear to god I will choke you with my boot until you can't breathe anymore."

That got his attention. The poking stopped and he protected his throat with his hand. "You'd like to choke me wouldn't you?" I glared at his stupid sexual reference.

"Hell no. The only time I would enjoy choking you is if you were dying," I spat. God, how are we going to work on our project after school if Parker keeps acting like this.

And that's how the rest of the class went. Me doing my best to ignore Parker while he annoyed me.

Eventually, the bell rang and I bolted out of there. But, before I made my brilliant escape, Parker stopped me.

"Don't forget, we're working on our project at my house at 4."

"How could I forget when you remind me every 15 minutes. Oh, and change of plans. We're going to my house because god knows what you have planned for me this time."

I ripped my arm out of his hand and walked off.

"I said I was sorry!" Parker shouted at me. I didn't feel like responding, so I kept walking to my car.

I really was not looking forward to Parker coming to my house, but like I told him, I can't trust him. For all I known he has prank after prank waiting for me at his house.

I'm not taking any risks, especially since I still have my stitches in for a couple more days.

When I arrived home, I ran around the house and picked up anything embarrassing and shoved it into the hall closet before Parker arrived. I was planning on us working in the living room since I wasn't dumb enough to let him in my room.

I heard the doorbell ring and mentally prepared myself for the next couple of hours. Opening my door, I was greeted with a smiling Parker who was holding his backpack in one hand and a bag of hot cheetos in the other. "Let's get started that way it's over as soon as possible," I said.

Parker followed behind me into the living room. "So did you come with any ideas?" I asked, pulling up a new word doc on my laptop. "Not really, I'm not a huge history person. The only idea I had was ancient China or ancient Egypt."

Those weren't terrible ideas, but they weren't the best either. For the first half an hour, we threw around different ideas trying to settle on one.

Whichever ones I liked, he didn't and whichever ones he liked, I didn't.

"No, we aren't doing the history of US presidents. That's not even a time period, it's just a bunch of people."

"Fine," he scoffed, "let's hear your brilliant idea then."

"What about the Civil Rights Movement? It's pretty recent compared to our other ideas, and I'm sure we could find someone who's still alive and interview them about it. Plus, we could tie it into today."

It was one of my best ideas by far, and if he didn't like this one I was going to be pissed. We can't afford to waste any more time arguing over a topic.

"Fine," he mumbled. "Excuse me, what was that?" I just wanted to tease him a little. "I said fine. We'll go with your idea, now can we please start doing research on it?"

"Yeah, let's get started. We've already wasted enough time."

For the next hour we sat in silence doing our own research on the topic. I was focusing on the people involved. And by people I don't mean Rosa Parks or MLK, I mean the people that were as influential as them, but didn't get as much attention.

Right as I finished reading up about the girl who refused to give up her seat on a bus before Rosa Parks did, I heard keys jingling in the door.

"Shit!" I exclaimed.

I wasn't expecting my parents to get home for another hour. If they found out that Parker was here I would be dead.

"Parker, you need to go. Get all your stuff and leave."

I think he got the hint that I would get in trouble, so he gathered up all his stuff in lightning speed and I led him out the back door. "Go out the gate on the left side of our house. My parent's won't be able to see you from there."

He tried to say something else, but I pushed him out the door just in time.

"Blaze? Where are you?"

"Back here Dad!"

-----

What do you guys think is going to happen next?

Also, comment if you guys have any ship names for any of the characters. I hoped you guys enjoyed this chapter!

Enjoy the double upload today! I wanted to give you guys a little gift since I haven't updated in a while, because I've been busy with school. Happy ready!

(p.s. there may be another update today)

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