Chapter Two: ❝ know anything about red velvet cupcakes? ❞

Coffee.

By literal definition, it was a hot drink made from the roasted and ground seeds of a tropical shrub. Cappuccino. Mocha. Latte. Espresso. The list was almost a mile long. It had been enjoyed in drink form for over a thousand years, and there was no other café in the area that perfected the art of coffee making than the ever popular Cup o'Joes.

The shop was particularly busy that day with dozens of parched and ravenous teens piling in by fives and tens, the line leading out through the door. The baristas usual B- level performance cranked up to an A+ average, workers balancing trays on their heads to bring all their tables orders, hot chocolate and coffee stains colored their white collars, beeps, clicks, and dings of the registers made it sound like an orchestra. You could almost see the glistening of sweat on the cashiers temples as they pressed in orders just as quickly as they were told.

Everything around the shop was chaotic and lively except the two silent boys sitting face to face with each other in the booth.

Hakeem tapped the murky surface of his now cold and old drink, breaking the thickening skin and watched the new gap grow. The frigid brown liquid dripped from his finger, the ripples spreading toward the rim in ever larger circles. The last sip he took from it was almost half an hour ago, but he couldn't bring himself to finish the rest of the cappucino. Neither could his best friend across from him, Rashaad, with his head laid on his forearms and cold mug pushed next to his elbow. The only thing that was eye level with him now was that wallet.

Yes, that wallet.

They were supposed to have put it in lost and found as soon as their hands even touched it, but since the doors to the building were already locked, they decided the only logical thing to do was hold onto it before someone worse got it. Rashaad even suggested it would be a good idea to at least stop by Cup o'Joes to "regroup, apologize, and discuss our feelings about what the hell just happened in the last two hours."

And it was clear that coffee did not do the trick.

"You know what, that's it. I'll do it!" Rashaad blurted out, lifting his head from the table and sliding the wallet closer to him with the tips of his fingers.

Hakeem blinked twice as fast and shook his head. "Uh, do what exactly? That's Manny Lockwood's wallet, remember?"

"Look, it's bad enough that my epic plan went to shit and we missed one of our few chances. This day couldn't possibly get any worse," Rashaad said with a huff and carefully opened up the wallet. "Plus you're not even a little curious?"

"Curious, no. Kind of scared, yes," Hakeem replied with a growing frown. "Don't you remember the stories from eighth grade about this kid? The fights. Possible stabbings. Grand theft auto?! You saw him get dragged away by the deputy, Manny is not be messed with. And I plan on wearing a cap and gown in the foreseeable future, not a tuxedo for my funeral!"

Rashaad rolled his eyes and let the contents of the wallet spill over onto the table. "Well, if he does think we stole his wallet and decides to kill us, it's not like we're going to get girlfriends in the foreseeable future. So we might as well live on the wild side."

Once the last of everything had spilled out of the wallet and laid before the boys, Rashaad began to line them up horizontally, his and Hakeem's eyes widened at each object.

"A wad of twenties... driver's license... a single key... one stick of gum... and...." Rashaad paused and held up a little polaroid picture of what appeared to be Manny and a shorter brunette girl with his arm hugging her waist. Both of them held glass bottles of Pepsi in their grips, smiles as bright as the fire in the background, and written in dark, bold sharpie at the bottom:

"Pfft, lucky. At least he won't die alone," Rashaad muttered.

"What? Let me see," Hakeem said and grabbed the picture from Rashaad. He turned it over in his hands to examine it more closely, silently agreeing with Rashaad in his mind.

"Welp that's enough snooping for one day. Now put it away," Hakeem said when he threw the picture down on the table and wiped his hands with a napkin.

"Fine. But first we do rock, paper, scissors."

"For what? You know you're going to lose. Besides, I was the one who picked it up first, so I should be able to hold onto it for the night."

Rashaad knitted his eyebrows together in a frown. "No fair. You didn't even want to touch it again before I opened it."

"Yeah, but you lose everything. And it's better that I hold onto it, especially after today."

"So?! A guy loses another guy's Rolex once and all of a sudden I'm the clumsy one. Pfftt..."

"Rashaad, I am not getting my ass kicked by the scariest person in school just because you 'accidentally' left his wallet in the dryer. It's bad enough that it looks like we stole it."

Rashaad couldn't think of a good comeback at that moment, so he placed his elbows on the table, stuck one hand out, balled his hand into a fist, placed it on top of that hand, and raised an eyebrow at him.

Hakeem took a deep breath and pushed his mug off to the side, some of the liquid spilling on his wrist. He copied the same position as Rashaad, even the raised brow and stern gleam in his eyes, before their balled fists rose from their palms simultaneously.

"On the count of three," Hakeem began.

"Wait, so is it on three like one, two, three, then go, or is it one, two, and then we just silently say the three in our heads as we go?" Rashaad asked.

"Does it matter? Just on the word go, okay?"

"Okay... but wait, like on the word, word go or you just going to say 'ready, set,' and then we say go in our heads again?"

"Uh, I don't know, whatever the—"

"Oh well, well, well. Look what we have over here gentlemen," a mocking male voice interrupted. "Hope we're not disrupting an intimate moment or anything..."

The boys froze in their positions as that oh-so-familiar voice sent chills down their spines and paralyzed their legs. If that day wasn't already terrible, it sure was about to get fifty times worse at that moment.

Because it was that, that very moment, in which they truly screwed things up.

Rashaad snapped out of his trance and set his arms down just as Hakeem did, who gave a nasty glare towards the three guys hovering over their booth.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the Three Stooges, Chase, Kevin, and Terrance. Don't you guys have practice or something or did coach finally come to his senses and kick y'all off the team?" Hakeem said.

Chase, the first one to have spoken, scowled back at him with deep brown eyes. "Ha, ha, ha, very funny. For your information, practice was cancelled early. Now why don't you do us a favor and get out of our seats, hmm?"

Hakeem shrugged and made himself more comfortable on the leather, maroon colored cushions. "Makes sense. Guess you don't need to practice to lose every game in the season..."

Kevin, one of the other boys on the right, stood up a bit straighter and frowned. "Want to stand up and say that to our face you fucking prick? We said move, now."

"Ah, yeah, about that fellas," Rashaad spoke up, "we would move, but we're trying to take care of some very important business for someone very important. Maybe they have some room back out at the dumpster. I heard the rats are still accommodating for three more people."

Chase scoffed and set his grande drink down on their table. He picked up Manny's driver's license among the other objects and turned it over in his hands. "Really? Does this business also include stealing shit out of Manny's wallet?"

Rashaad gave Hakeem the quick, "should I?" glance, to which Hakeem gave back the, "don't be an idiot, idiot,"  look.

And clearly the look didn't transfer over well because Rashaad then proceeded to nod and snatched the license out of Chase's hand, and said, "No, it doesn't! In fact Manny gave us his wallet to protect at all costs."

"Really?" Terrance, the last of the boys on the left, said in disbelief.

"Really?!" Hakeem whisper-shouted at him.

Rashaad smirked. "Really. I don't know if you heard, but he got into a bit of trouble today, so he asked us to personally keep an eye on his stuff for him."

"Seriously?" Chase and his companion, Kevin, said simultaneously.

"Seriously?!" Hakeem whisper-shouted at him again.

"Seriously. Now run along before your coffee gets cold." Rashaad flashed all three of them a toothy grin as he proceeded to put everything back in the wallet the way it originally was.

A baffled Chase glimpsed at both of his puzzled friends before he shook his wavy black hair. "That's funny, because we're also really close friends with Manny and I'm surprised he didn't just give his stuff to us."

"Well, you know how it goes. Friend, of a friend, of a friend, of a friend, grabbed a couple of drinks here and there, and batta-bing-batta-boom. We're also really cool with Manny."

Hakeem smacked his forehead and took in deep breaths as the three jocks all gave each other perplexed looks again.

For the record, Rashaad and Hakeem were never popular. Nor were they ever complete losers. They always sat in that normal, sort of invisible range when it came to high school cliques. Which was always the safest place to be and the place they had always been in since ninth grade. There was one instance where they could have moved up the "ranks", but since becoming rivals with athletic star and "world-renowned douchebag", Chase Roderick,(as Rashaad put it), that opportunity has since expired.

All they did was stick up for a girl in their freshman Geometry class who was being picked on by Chase and his current goons. Even though the girl never stopped getting bullied, and the guys got towel whipped and wedgied in the boys locker room because of it, they knew it was better them than her.

"Well in that case, if you're so cool with Manny, you must be invited to the clubhouse and his fight on Friday right?" Terrance said.

"Pfft, are we invited?" Rashaad said and shook his head. "Front row seats. Backstage passes. The whole nine-yards. Tell them 'Keem."

Hakeem had all eyes diverted to him, but his scowl was only focused on Rashaad. He shut his eyes for a second, rubbed his temples, and then sighed. "Yeah, sure. We totally—"

"See, told you. Now, shoo."

Chase raised an eyebrow at the both of them and grinned, lifting his drink from the table. "You know what, you're right. Any friend of Manny's is an acquaintance of ours. We apologize for the intrusion. Maybe there he can tell us exactly how you guys met."

"Or if not, he'll just kick your ass for lying and stealing," Kevin chimed in. "But it shouldn't be a problem, right?"

"Oh we'll be there all right. We'll even bring cupcakes. Homemade. The best kind. With red velvet," Rashaad said.

"Can't wait. Friday it is," Terrance said.

Following Chase's lead, the guys all turned around with smirks on their faces and started to head out of the crowded café.

"Yeah, Friday! And you better walk away. Meanies!" Rashaad yelled, his whole body shaking with adrenaline.

As soon as they saw the door closed behind them, Rashaad face forward in his seat and a nervous smile grew on his face as his best friend's eye began twitching.

"So... know anything about red velvet cupcakes?"

Without saying a word as he gritted his teeth, Hakeem grabbed his glossy white coffee mug and threw the contents of his light brown drink all over Rashaad's face. From head to toe, he was soaked in cold cappuccino, the drink slipping down off his wispy eyelashes and into his shirt.

"You know what," Rashaad started, pushing the wallet closer to Hakeem, "maybe you should hold onto the wallet for now."

If you like to read in the black & white mode (which kudos to you) and you can't see a graphic, be sure to change your reading settings real quick or you're not gonna be able to see some of them, lmao.

Also, if y'all have any music suggestions, can be any genre, please feel free to comment or PM me about it. Some time in the future I want to make a playlist that goes along with the story, and those who give me some really nice music for a chapter, I'll dedicate it to you!

Don't forget to vote before you swipe up!

~ Robin ~