ELLY
"Hey, Elly." Griffin nudges my shoulder, and I look over at him before taking an AirPod out.
"Yes?"
"It's time for dinner. Let's go." I get up and start heading down the aisle, following everyone else.
"We pick up Josh now, too, right?" I call back to him.
"Yeah. He should already be here, but we'll have to see on that," Griffin says. I shrug and step off the bus.
"What?" Sam asks into his phone. Everyone is standing around while he talks to whoever it is, waiting. I walk over to Noen and Chase, who are talking by the side of the bus.
"What are we waiting on?" I ask them.
Chase turns to me. "He's on the phone with Josh. Says his car broke down, so he is going to drive down to Houston in the morning once it's fixed instead of meeting us here."
"Oh." I nod, then shove my hands into the hoodie's front pocket.
"Josh said he'd drive to Houston in the morning, so he'll have plenty of time left before the event tomorrow," Sam announces, sticking his phone back in his pocket.
"Let's go get food now. I'm starving!" Anthony says, starting towards the mall that we parked at. We all follow.
"Do you want to eat with us?" Noen asks as we walk.
"Depends what you plan on eating," I reply.
"We don't know what they have, so we haven't decided yet," Chase replies with a shrug. I nod as we continue walking towards the doors.
"Hmm," Noen says when we get inside the doors and start looking around the food court. "There's a lot of places."
"Can we get pizza?" I ask. "It smells really good."
"I'll get pizza," Chase says.
"Fine," Noen groans, grumbling as we head over to the pizza place.
Once we order and get our food, we sit down at a small, circular table off to the side. We don't talk much as we eat, so we finish our food pretty quickly.
"What are we going to do now that we are done?" I ask after we all throw our trash away. Looking around, I spot everyone else spread out at a couple of tables across the food court and realize we are the only ones done.
"Shopping?" Chase asks.
"Shopping," Noen replies.
"Let's go, then," I say with a sigh. We start walking off to the large main hallway with the stores lining either side of it.
"I want to get another crop top," Noen whines.
"Where do you want to go?" Chase asks.
"Uhm," he mumbles, looking around. "There." He points to a store on the right side of the hall before grabbing both of our hands and starting to drag us off to the store.
"Slow down," Chase complains.
"But you're such a slow walker!"
"Well if you pull me, I'm not going to be walking at all!" Chase grumbles. I laugh as Noen lets go of his hand and wraps an arm around my shoulder.
"Elly is my new favorite," he says.
"I'm his new favorite," I tease Chase. He pushes me off to the side and pulls Noen into a hug.
"No, you're not. I'm always going to be his favorite." Chase gives me a fake glare.
"Well, if you two want to argue over who is my favorite, that's fine, but I'm going to go look for a crop top," Noen says. Chase sighs and lets go if him, and we finally enter the store.
After a while of looking around, Noen finds the shirt he wants and pays for it. We head back to the front of the mall and look around for everyone else.
"Hey," Jaden says, coming up to us with Anthony and Griffin beside him.
"You guys finished?" Chase asks.
"Yeah. Let's go wait on the bus," Anthony says, starting to walk back towards the main doors that we entered through. Griffin heads off with him, followed by Chase and Noen. I start off after them, but Jaden grabs my arm. I turn around to face him.
"What is it?" I ask.
"Hey, I'm sorry about earlier," Jaden says quietly. "Can we just forget about it?"
"Maybe."
"Well, you look nice in my hoodie." Jaden smiles at me and lets go of my arm.
"I'll give it back later," I tell him, then turn around and follow the others out the doors.