Asher, Aaron, Devin, and I scan over the menus in our hands after being sat at the Olive Garden Asher drove us to.

Asher insisted on going out to eat somewhere with the three of us after school. Once the group settled on going to Olive Garden, I quickly let Brooke know that I was going to eat with them after school so there was no need to pick me up right after.

"I just want some pasta," Devin says as she sets her menu down with a huff. "This is why we should've gone to In-n-Out. Three burgers to choose from and they're all viable options."

"I wanted to take you all out to a nice dinner, at a nice restaurant. Is that wrong, Devin?" Asher asks, looking over to her.

She narrows her eyes at him. "The only reason we're here is because you were hoping we would get that one waitress again. Don't even try to deny it."

Asher shrugs, a sly smile on his face. "Jealous?"

She curls her lip in disgust. Rolling her eyes at him, she crosses her arms and slumps in the booth we're sitting in.

"What are you getting?" I ask Aaron, who's sitting on my left.

He closes his menu, turning his head to look at me. "Pizza." He shrugs. "You?"

"Chicken alfredo."

He nods, running a hand through his dirty blonde hair with a sigh. I notice the tense muscles in his jaw as he looks around the restaurant, seemingly searching for something.

"You okay?" I ask shyly as I twist my torso to face him.

"Yeah, I'm good." He nods.

I smile, twisting again so I'm facing forward. I'm immediately met with Asher studying me, his head tilted to the right in a curious manner.

"What's going on between you two?"

I cock my head to match the position of his, making him smile. "What do you mean?"

He laughs, shaking his head as he picks up his phone, completely discarding the conversation he began in the first place. I keep my gaze focused on him for a few more moments, waiting to see if he would set his phone down and continue talking.

The waitress arrives after a few minutes to our orders. Each of us ask for our beverages and meals politely. It all goes smoothly until Asher decides to keep our waitress at the table longer than she needed to be.

"Hey... um Stacey?" Asher speaks up after I finish ordering my food. "That's your name, right?"

The young curly-haired waitress nods, confusion clearly displayed on her face. She reluctantly grabs the menus from my hand, looking expectantly in Asher's direction.

"So I was wondering if I could add something to our order."

"Um... sure," she replies, prepared to type it into her tablet. "What would you like?"

"Don't listen to him—"

"Asher, don't—"

"Well, you see... I'm looking through the menu but I can't seem to find your name anywhere," Asher replies as he hands her his menu, flashing her the most charming smile he could muster.

My eyes widen in shock while Devin rolls her eyes and Aaron runs his hands over his face, shaking his head. Neither of them seem surprised. I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time Asher has flirted with a waitress before.

Surprisingly, the waitress isn't angry or offended by Asher's comment. She simply laughs it off, shaking her head as she walks away from their booth.

"You're so stupid," Aaron says, removing his hands away from his face. "I'm embarrassed. For you— I'm embarrassed for you."

"It was worth a try." Asher laughs with a shrug as he picks up his phone from the table. "Oh, don't act so innocent, Aaron."

"Do you do that often?" I ask him curiously, leaning over the table on my forearms.

"You have to stop doing that!" Devin says, unintentionally answering my question. "I've told you before. Some people find that offensive and rude."

"And by some people you mean you, right?" He asks as the smile quickly drops from his face.

Here we go again.

"One day you're gonna say some stupid remark like that to a woman, and they're gonna slap the shit out of you. And I really fucking hope I'm there to see it."

Asher rolls his eyes, shaking his head. "Devin Summers, everyone. You can always count on her to suck the fun out of everything."

"You guys argue every single time we go out," Aaron interjects in a tone laced with annoyance. "No, you guys argue every single day. No matter where we are, who we're around, you always find something to fight about."

"I was just welcoming Estella into our little friend group." Asher shrugs. "Not my fault Devin decided to make it about her once again. But hey, what's new, right?"

I cringe once Asher brings my name into this argument. Not one bone in my body wants to be involved in their issues. Knowing Devin, she'll forget the reason she's angry and simply turn to me, roll her eyes, and slump in her seat again.

"Why do you hang out with us?" Devin redirects her attention to me, the way I knew she would. However, her question still manages to catch me off-guard. I set down the green crayon I was using to color a dinosaur in the kid's menu.

"What?"

"Are we your plan B?" She asks. "Your other little posse is busy so you settle for us for a little while?"

I frown at Devin's words. I know that Devin isn't exactly fond of me, but what I didn't know is that she's truly bothered by my presence. So much so that she can't stand to be sitting at the same booth as me.

"Dev, what the fuck?" Aaron asks as he shakes his head. "What does she have to do with any of this?"

Devin shrugs lightly as she stands up in the booth, tapping Asher's shoulder. "I'll be back."

"Where are you going?" Asher asks, looking up at her.

"Can you move out of my way?"

"Well where are you going?" He asks again.

"To fucking pee!" She yells. "I need to pee."

A frown takes over my face as I watch Devin walk to the bathroom of the restaurant. I want to go after her, explain to her that I'm not using her or her friends at all. But I know better. After knowing Devin for only a few weeks I know she would rather be alone, and me following after he would only make things worse.

"Everything alright over here?" Stacey asks as she returns with four glasses on a silver tray. Two with lemonade, one with Coke, and one with fruit punch, which is mine.

"Everything's fine, thanks," Asher replies.

She leaves breadsticks at the center of the table and walks away, probably feeling the sharp tension between the group.

Devin returns soon after, sitting back in the booth and taking a sip of her Coke. She sighs, looking between me, Asher, and Aaron.

"Can we talk about something else?"

Asher nods, licking his lips, but nothing comes out of his mouth. And when Asher is speechless, well... it really says something.

"You guys excited for the senior camping trip?" Aaron chimes in. "It's coming up soon."

"Oh shit, next week, huh?" Asher replies.

Aaron nods, looking over to me as I sip my fruit punch. "Are you going?"

I pull away from my straw and furrow my eyebrows. Out of the almost-three weeks I've been at school, I haven't heard a single thing about a camping trip.

"I didn't even know there was a senior trip," I admit, my voice laced with confusion.

Devin, Asher, and Aaron begin talking over each other to tell me all about the senior camping trip that I just have to go on.

I've never been away from home for long. Honestly, I've never spent a night anywhere else besides my own room. Two days in the wilderness with a group of students I don't know anything about is kind of scary to think about.

By the end of our meal, all is well between Asher and Devin. Aaron, with the help of Asher, convinced me to ask the front office for a permission slip.

Wilderness, here I come.

-

Brooke pretends to read over the permission slip that I handed to her once we arrived back at the house.

"Yesterday when I went to eat with Asher, Aaron, and Devin they told me about this trip," I explain. "I wanna go."

Jackson grabs a Coke can from the fridge and takes a sip as he walks over to Brooke, placing the can at the back of her neck.

"Babe!" She screeches.

He laughs and then takes another sip of the soda. "You said this trip is three days?"

"Two nights." I nod.

"Seems like an opportunity for a bunch of teenagers to have sex," he says, his eyebrows furrowed. "That's probably why everyone's so excited about it."

"Jackson!" Brooke and I yell at the same time, laughing afterwards.

He shrugs innocently, bringing his soda to his mouth again.

"You remind me of Asher sometimes."

"The little douche you met on the first day of school?" Jackson asks, placing a hand over his heart in a mock offended manner.

"He's not a douche." I defend.

Brooke looks up from the packet of papers that consisted of information on the trip. "He kinda sounds like a douche whenever you talk about him."

Jackson nods in agreement. "Thank you."

I shrug. Asher can be a little rude when he wants to be, but he's never been that way toward me. I don't know what I would do if he did all of a sudden have the same demeanor toward me as he does with Devin. Turning my attention back to the unsigned permission slip in front of Brooke, I point to the line where her signature goes.

"Why aren't you signing it?" I ask.

Brooke sighs, flipping the packet over and grabbing the black pen I provided for her from the countertop. "Just make sure you let your mom know you're going. She'll be pissed if she comes back and has no idea where you are."

I nod happily, practically jumping out of my stool to give Brooke a hug. She wrapped her arms around my small frame tightly as she rests her head on top of mine.

Jackson looks at the two of us with soft blue eyes, focusing on his girlfriend.

I pull away from her, watching the way Jackson's smile never fades as he looks at Brooke with admiration all over his face. I know that they'll last forever, even though they're both in their mid-twenties with a long life ahead of them.

I know that this is just the beginning for them.

"Dinner, anyone?" Brooke asks, opening the oven and pulling out the lasagna she cooked for the three of us.

"I'm starving." I walk over to a cabinet and grab three glass plates. I hold them out for Brooke to place a piece of lasagna on each.

We take our usual seats at the large dinner table that has way too many chairs than necessary considering Brooke and I are usually the only ones who eat here.

"How is it?" Brooke asks as we all dig into our lasagna at the same time.

"Amazing," I reply with a mouthful of the dish.

Brooke never fails to make a delicious dinner for us. She doesn't even have to make dinner. She could heat up ramen noodles every day and I wouldn't ever complain. But instead, she decides to go out of her way and make a filling meal on the daily.

"It's really good, babe." Jackson agrees.

We continue eating our meals, talking about my experience at a regular high school for the most part, occasionally laughing at Jackson's jokes.

"I never got to hear about homecoming night," he says as he finishes his last bite of his second round of lasagna.

"It was a crazy night, huh?" Brooke smirks at me, sipping water from her glass.

"Was it?" Jackson asks with bright eyes.

"No," I lie, knowing very well it was probably the most eventful night of my entire life.

Jackson furrows his eyebrows, looking between me and Brooke with anticipation.

"Okay fine, I'll tell you." I say quickly with a smile.

I explain the entire night in detail. He hangs on to every word that leaves my mouth as I speak animatedly about my night. Either he's really good at pretending to care or he's genuinely intrigued by my story.

I'm pretty sure he's legitimately interested.

"So this guy, Aaron... he likes you?" He asks after I've finished explaining everything to him.

"That's what I think." Brooke shrugs.

"I don't know," I say.

Which isn't a lie. I have no idea how Aaron feels toward me. He's definitely friendly, which I appreciate more than he knows. Either way, I still don't know much about him or who he really is.

"But he gave you his jacket," Brooke counters as she cuts off a piece of her lasanga and stabs her fork into it. "When a guy lets you wear his jacket, it means something. Right, Jackson?"

He tilts his head from left to right. "It depends, I guess. He could have either just felt bad about you being cold or he wanted you to know that he cares about you."

I nod, looking back to Brooke with a shrug, saying see? with the quick gesture.

"Either way, the gesture shows he cares about her," she rubuttals. "I bet you that he'll confess his feelings for her over the trip. That's why he wants her to go so badly."

"I bet you he won't." Jackson shrugs. "I bet that he's gonna be way too pussy to confess anything to her."

I switch my focus between the competitive couple. Both of them stare at each other intensely, waiting for the other to say something.

"Twenty-five dollars?" Brooke challenges.

"Double," Jackson says with confidence.

"Fifty dollars?" Brooke asks with a laugh. "You're on, Bighead."

"Fifty dollars plus a massage."

She furrows her eyebrows. "Fine."

They both look to me at the same exact time. "Are you okay with this?"

I chuckle, nodding my head. They both turn back to each other and shake hands, sealing the deal on their bet.

"So we'll meet back here after the trip. Estella will spill all of the tea and we'll see who gets the fifty dollars," Brooke tells the both of us with a quick raise of her eyebrows directed at Jackson.

"Sounds perfect." Jackson smiles cockily.

"Got it." I nod.

Brooke stands up, taking mine and Jackson's plates from the table and walks over to the kitchen, placing them into the sink.

Jackson and I both follow suit, sitting in our usual stools at the island.

"I have a question," I say.

"Shoot," Jackson replies.

I bite the inside of my cheek, hesitating to ask the couple, but I decide to do it anyway.

"Do you two plan on having kids?"

Jackson and Brooke both share the same shocked expressions on their faces. They glance to each other before looking back to me.

"Um— maybe," Brooke replies with a shrug. "One day... in the future."

Jackson nods in agreement. "Yeah, one day."

I nod, hoping that if they are to have kids one day, I would be able to do what Brooke does for me. I hope that I'll be a part of their lives, there for them whenever they need anything.

I know that they'll forever be here for me. The both of them, Jackson and Brooke. I know because they're my only company in this house. They're the only people I trust with my life. Even if they're not related to me, I still trust them more than I've ever trust my blood relatives.

They're my family.

-

author's note:

HEY EVERYONE! how are you all? how are you liking the story so far?

also, i promise there's a reason why all characters are the way they are. can't wait to show you guys their stories too and their backgrounds!

i've edited the next few chapters so those will be published soon :)

- blizfvl <3