𝕿he last thing twelve-year-old Quinn expected was to be sat in Cassie Flores' kitchen on a random Saturday afternoon.

He shouldn't have been surprised when she actually invited him to her house for the project assigned to them by their biology teacher, but . . . . he was.

He's known her for two months now and honestly she's really, really intimidating to him — mostly because she's a straight A overachiever, beloved throughout the school by both the students and the teachers.

But also because every time he sees her he gets weirdly nervous.

And he doesn't like feeling this way, especially when every day he yearns for her big brown eyes to catch his curious blue-eyed stare at least once before the school day ends or he's left feeling dejected.

It makes him upset but he'd be lying if he said that he doesn't like it when he's the center of her attention.

In fact, he's been the center of her attention many times now because she was also the girl their homeroom teacher assigned as his "buddy" in the beginning of the school year since he only moved to Michigan just this summer.

She's chatty, funny, witty and downright amazing, and Quinn longs to be around her as much as possible.

But he absolutely did not expect to witness a screaming match between Cassie and her seven year old brother, Lucas today.

"Mom, she hit me!", comes the tiny curled hair boy scuttling into the room with his sister glaring down at him.

"He stole my apple juice again!".

Mrs. Flores or Adriana — as she politely asked Quinn to address her when she opened the door to let him in — sighs loudly, placing her hands flat over the rim of the bowl full of cake batter she'd been preparing for the last ten minutes.

"Cassie, how many times have I told you no hitting you brother?".

"He stole my apple juice! Stop taking his side! We should've left him at the hospital!", Cassie huffs.

Quinn, who's had a lot of experience dealing with sharing incessantly with his two younger brothers, suddenly feels a deep camaraderie for Cassie.

It's difficult being the oldest kid, no matter how amazing your parents or your siblings are.

"See! I told you she's a demon!", Lucas cries running over to grab his mother's apron and exhale shakily as he hides behind her while gazing warily at his enraged sister.

"Lucas, no name calling! She is your sister, be respectful! And Cassie", Adriana glances at her daughter, "you need to stop saying stuff like that. It's mean. And we have company", she throws a hand gesturing towards a wide eyed Quinn quietly glancing back and forth to keep track of everything that's going on.

When Cassie invited him to her house and said it might be "a little too dramatic for your taste", he obviously didn't expect the arguments to begin so soon.

Especially while he's sat by the kitchen counter, their books still open in front of him temporarily abandoned in favour of the argument.

Cassie crosses her arms, "I thought fighting in front of company was this family's status quo".

Adriana inhales deeply, refusing to let her daughter rile her up.

"I'll call dad to get you more juice. Lucas, go finish your art homework".

She ushers the seven year old out of the room leaving Quinn alone with a still irritated Cassie.

She finally looks at him then as if realising that what just happened wasn't very 'welcoming', she sighs.

It's crazy how much she looks like her mother when she does that.

"Sorry, uhm", she nervously fiddles with the end of her braid, "it's not usually like that. Well, not all the time. I, uhm, we should start planning the project", she shuffles to the stool next to him and settles down.

"My house always has a lot of, uh, juice so if you ever want to . . . you know, do something like this there then it'd be fine with me. My mom would love to have you over".

She looks up at his quiet tone in a silent way of making him admit what he's implying.

But he just looks on, waiting for her reply.

She looks away first and swallows, nodding.

"I might just take you up on that offer".

And funny thing is, she did eventually come around.

Next time a group project came along she begged the teacher to be paired with Quinn and a sweet friendship began to blossom between the two.

They understood each other and despite being 'popular', Cassie had never really had very many close friends.

Turns out, Quinn changed that for her just like she changed a lot of things for him.

***
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