"Fuck!" Rashir ran his hands through his hair as he watched Lourdes drive away in her civic, speeding down the road. Mateo watched the entire scene unfold, puzzled as he waited in the foyer of their house behind Rashir who was running his hands through his curls with stress. Rashir watched Lourdes take the turn to exit their neighborhood and let out a heavy sigh, turning around to walk back into the warm house. He slammed the door behind him, making Mateo jump, and stomped to the living room, sitting down on the couch. Mateo wasn't far behind him, baffled as to what he just witnessed.

"Uh, you wanna explain what the hell just happened?" He took a seat on one of the couches next to Rashir, setting down his piece of pizza he was previously eating on the coffee table. Nico jogged downstairs, getting ready to steal some pizza but paused when he entered the living room and saw Rashir looking stressed as hell.

"What I miss?" He opened a box of pizza and took a slice, plopping down on the couch opposite Rashir. "I heard the front door slam," He looked at Mateo, trying to get a clue as to what Rashir was in a mood about but Mateo discreetly shrugged his shoulders, saying he didn't know what was going on either. They both turned to stare at Rashir, awaiting an explanation.

Rashir was aware that what he had done was stupid, but he couldn't help himself. He knew people saw him as some sort of man-whore who slept around and broke girls' hearts, but with Lourdes it was different. She didn't see him like that and was never judgemental. He acted differently when he was with her, he wasn't as rude to people, which Nico liked to tease him about and he was more relaxed. When he was with her it felt like he was just Rashir, instead of 'Rashir the basketball star'. He knew how he felt about Lourdes, he thought she was sexy as hell, beyond her looks, her personality was amazing and a breath of fresh air compared to the girls he hooked up with.

He knew he couldn't have Lourdes the way he wanted deep down, so he was happy with them being friends, that's why he was so mad at himself for fucking it up. He was showering in the guest bathroom since his ensuite shower was acting up and he wasn't getting any warm water. Opening the door and seeing Lourdes staring at him with wide eyes and parted lips, he couldn't help himself. For once she was looking at him like she wanted him the way that he wanted her. He made a move, and it was the biggest fucking mistake he could of made. He truly wanted a friendship with her, doing anything to mess that up was an idiotic move on his part. 

"I fucked up," He muttered. Nico and Mateo stared at him, waiting for him to continue, "I made a move on her," He mumbled and covered his face with his hands.

"Am I missing something? What's the problem?" Nico furrowed his brows together, confused.

"Yeah dumbass, I can't make a move on her. We friends," Rashir snapped.

"Alright, Jesus," Nico raised his hands in surrender, "Everyone knows y'all like each other, so why can't y'all just date?"

"Did you not just hear me? We are friends," Rashir said the last part slowly.

"Okay and you can be boyfriend and girlfriend if you just hike up your skirt and ask her out,"

"Lourdes doesn't want to date me okay?" Rashir let out, leaning back on the couch.

"How you know that?" Mateo asked.

Rashir let out a sigh, "She knows why I was interested in her in the first place and we agreed to be friends, she doesn't want me like that and I'm fine with that," He explained, hoping they would start to understand. "I fucked up our friendship by making a move on her,"

"Then just apologize," Mateo suggested like it was no big deal.

"Have you met that girl? She ran out here fast as hell. Remember when she left me at the party? She avoided me for days." Rashir reminded him while Nico burst out laughing from next to him.

"I remember that! We saw her on campus and she ran away from your ass like she owed you some money," Nico said through tears, trying to catch his breath while Rashir straight-faced him. He calmed himself down, wiping the tears on his face and letting out one last chuckle. "What? Shit was funny," He said to Rashir.

"It's not funny bruh, I'm not gon' see her ass until she ready to talk to me," Rashir grumbled.

"Well, that's yo fault for being horny,"

"Shut up bruh,"

"Hey, don't be mad at me cause Lourdes mad at yo' ass," Nico said, standing up. "You know what, I think imma take this pizza to go," He snatched one of the pizza boxes, darting up the stairs before anyone could protest.

"Told yo' ass to get three boxes, fat ass nigga," Rashir looked at Nico's retreating figure. Mateo laughed, standing up to go to his room.

"Aye, just give Lourdes time, y'all will talk eventually," He gave him one last smile before grabbing his phone and walking upstairs.

Rashir groaned as he woken up out of his sleep, annoyed that someone had interrupted his rest. He squinted in the dark at his alarm clock, trying to figure out the time. He rolled over in his bed, realizing it was 1 in the afternoon and he was just waking up, which wasn't good. He was missing his Spanish class but he didn't care, his grade was decent in the class and they weren't learning any new material. He smacked his alarm, feeling around for his phone on his nightstand, finally grabbing a hold of it and dragging it to his bed. He checked for any new text messages and saw some activity in the group chat the friend group had with the girls and the boys but none of it was from Lourdes. They were planning on meeting at the boy's house later in the week to talk about Lourdes's birthday trip and plan out more details. He was excited for the trip, it was in 2 and half weeks and he knew everyone needed a break. A trip to the Bahamas sounded like a perfect stress reliever.

He checked Twitter and Snapchat, nothing interesting him so he sat up, stretching, and threw his covers off of his body. Yawning, he made his way to his ensuite bathroom to splash his face with cold water so he could attempt wake himself up a little. He had dark circles forming under his eyes from the lack of sleep he was getting. With practice and school, there didn't leave much time for sleeping.

Exiting the bathroom, he grabbed his phone from his bed and opened his bedroom door, walking down the hallway and making his way to the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, he trudged to the kitchen, opening the refrigerator to grab a water bottle, and chugged its contents. Turning around, he almost jumped out of his skin to find Nala sitting at the kitchen island, looking bored as ever.

"You look horrible," She tilted her head, looking him up and down. He probably did look horrible. His hair was flattened from sleeping on it, dark circles hung under his eyes and he could feel the crust stuck to the inner corner of his eye since he just woke up.

"Why are you here?" He ignored her statement, taking another swig of his water bottle and setting it down on the counter.

"I'm waiting for Nico, we're going somewhere," She answered, drumming her acrylics on the marble island. Rashir nodded, not feeling like giving a verbal answer, and turned back around to search the refrigerator for something to eat. They hadn't gone grocery shopping in almost a week and it was fairly empty.

He was used to Nala being around the house, Nico met her last year at a game and they had been inseparable since. She had been to the house many times before, and until Lourdes brought the two friend groups together, they hadn't spoken more than a couple of words to each other besides the occasional greeting and "Where's Nico?"

Rashir rummaged through the refrigerator for a couple of moments, deciding he would make an omelet since it was easy and only required a few ingredients. He pulled the eggs out from the shelf and some vegetables to put in the omelet, placing them on the counter and opening the cabinets to find a cutting board and some knifes.

As he was cutting up an onion, an idea popped into his head and he froze, making Nala briefly look up from her phone and catch his eye. He didn't speak at first, trying to figure out what exactly to say to her and how to ask her for a small favor.

"What?" She looked at him suspiciously, furrowing her brows.

"Can you do me a favor?" He asked her cautiously. He knew that she tended to be the snappy one of the group.

"Again, what?" She repeated, placing her phone face down on the island.

"Can you talk to Lourdes for me?" He gave her a friendly smile, trying to charm his way into making her say yes. Her facial expression changed to an annoyed one and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"No." Was all she said before she stuffed her things into her purse and stood up from her seat, getting ready to leave the kitchen. 

"Wait what? Why not?" He was surprised she had said no, he hadn't even told her what he wanted her to say to Lourdes.

"Look, If you want to talk to Lourdes, do it your damn yourself. I'm not the messenger and I'm definitely not getting in between this thing you two have going on," Nala pushed the chair to its original position and walked out of the kitchen, yelling upstairs for Nico to "Hurry his ass up".

Rashir let out an exasperated sigh and continued cutting up his vegetables. He really needed to come up with a plan to talk to Lourdes, and soon.

Rashir was shooting around in the boy's backyard, practicing his form and sweating his ass off. It was freezing outside, even though it was technically still Fall he could see his breath. He had been practicing since he after he ate lunch and the sun was now starting to set. They had a game in a couple of days and he had been in his own head too much, he needed to get his head in the game.

The boy's backyard was huge and fenced in. They had a mini basketball court that they liked to play games at for fun, a heated pool next to it and when you turned the corner there was a jacuzzi that Nico and Nala tended to get busy in.

One day when Rashir came home from class, he went outside when he heard noises in the backyard and was disgusted to find them in a pretty compromising position with Nala topless and Nico sporting a gigantic tent in his pants. When Mateo found out, he demanded Nico disinfect the entire hot tub. The boys had been talking about getting a grill during the summer, but none of them felt like going to Home Depot to buy one and figuring out how to set it up.

Rashir loved their backyard, their neighbors were quiet so he sometimes liked to sit outside and enjoy the peaceful atmosphere. He shot the ball into the basket, cursing when it bounced off of the rim and back onto the ground. He wiped the sweat that was on his forehead and went to pick up the ball, dribbling it a couple of times and shooting it again, and watching it sink into the net. He continued practicing until he heard the screen door slide open. He looked up and Mateo was poking his head out of the house, his face etched with a frown.

"When did you get home?" Rashir asked him, taking a break and setting the ball down on the ground. After Rashir ate his breakfast, Mateo briefly returned home from campus to grab some things he forgot in his room. He ran into Rashir in the living room and told him he would be back in a couple of hours and not to wait up for him.

"I just got home, how long you been out here? You told me you was gon' shoot around when I was leaving and that was at 3," Mateo stepped out of the house and closed the screen door behind him.

"What time is it?"

"Bro it's 7,"

"Oh," Rashir was surprised, it hadn't felt like he was practicing for 4 hours.

"You coming inside? It's like 30 degrees out," Mateo shivered and zipped up his jacket.

"Yeah I'll come in, in a sec," He replied.

Mateo nodded and went back inside, yelling over his shoulder that he was ordering food for dinner. Rashir placed the ball on the rack that they had next to the court and grabbed his phone from the outdoor table, making his way back inside the house. He closed the door behind him, sighing in contempt at the temperature change. He ventured to the kitchen where Mateo was waiting on a stool, scrolling on his phone. Rashir strolled to the sink, rinsing his hands so he could snack on something, and grabbed a bag of Doritos that was sitting on the counter. He stood on the other side of the island, leaning on the island and eating his chips while Mateo typed on his phone, looking at the options they had on Doordash.

"What are you ordering?" He asked.

"I don't know, Nico said he was coming home soon so he told me to wait for him before I ordered anything,"

Speak of the devil, as if on cue the front door slammed and Nico yelled that he was home. The boys yelled back that they were in the kitchen and a moment later he came waltzing in, his clothes ruffled and his hair messed up. Rashir smirked at him, clearly, his disheveled state was a result of Nala.

"Have fun with Nala?" Snickering when Nico's cheeks flushed a bit. Nico took a seat next to Mateo, running his hands through his hair, attempting to fix it.

Nico and Nala were definitely the most sexually active couple in the group. Rashir and Mateo had to suffer through many nights of hearing Nala's moans when she stayed over and Nico had come home on many occasions with hickeys littering his neck and lipstick smeared on his lips. Rashir couldn't look at her the same whenever she came downstairs for breakfast after a night filled with her noises of pleasure coming from Nico's room.

"Yes," Nico replied, nudging Mateo, "What we eating?" He asked.

"Of course yo' fat ass just got home and is already worrying 'bout some food," Rashir teased, finishing his bag of chips and walking to the trash can to throw it away.

"Y'all want Chinese food or Thai?" Mateo looked between the two. Rashir and Nico almost always had different opinions about what to eat whenever they ordered food. Mateo usually was the tie-breaking vote which resulted in one of them being annoyed with him.

"Chinese, I want some General Bow's chicken," Nico rubbed his hands together and licked his lips, clearly excited he was getting a good meal.

"It's Chow's chicken dumbass, it's spelled T-S-O," Mateo shook his head at his stupidity.

"Whatever,"

"Chinese is good," Rashir approved, "We should stop eating out so damn much 'fore coach kills our asses."

"Coach not gon' do shit," Nico waved him off, "Aye, get me that milk tea shit too," He looked over Mateo's shoulder at his phone.

"Get off me bruh," Mateo shook his shoulders, successfully getting Nico to back up, "What you want Rashir?"

"Get me the honey sesame shrimp,"

"Can we get dumplings too?" Nico pleaded, putting his hands together in a begging motion and pouting. Mateo rolled his eyes and nodded, ordering the food and telling them it would arrive in 40 minutes.

"Imma get in a shower, text me when the food's here," Rashir told them, heading upstairs to wash off the sweat from practicing. He placed his phone on his bed, grabbing his towel, and making his way to the guest bathroom. He reminded himself to get Mateo to call the plumber to fix his own shower. He was getting annoyed having to walk in the hallway to get to his room after showering. He entered the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and locking it. Nico liked to mess with him and turn the lights off in the middle of his shower and he wasn't taking any chances.

He stripped, putting his dirty clothes in the hamper and turning on the hot water, staring at the spot Lourdes was standing just a day earlier. He almost felt like she was still there, looking up at him with lust in her eyes and steam surrounding them. Her shirt was loose, so he was able to look down and see her breasts from his angle and he bit his lip at the memory. Rashir was getting aroused thinking about her and he needed to stop. He snapped out of it, stepping into the shower and washing the rest of the day away.

the boy's kitchen and backyard:

hey y'all! this is how i imagine their kitchen and their backyard to be but the kitchen can be a bit messier since they are boys lol. i kind of want to start putting pictures when i describe scenes so y'all can visualize the scene better, what do y'all think? also, we hit 4k reads??? again, thank y'all SO much for reading and voting, i love y'all <3. hope y'all enjoyed this update! don't forget to vote and comment!