Present Day | June 7th, 2019

"How did the rest of the evening go?" Officer Hudson asked looking me in the eyes.

"Not great, but not horrible. Marilyn managed to qprevent some of Thomas's rude comments and the ones he did make, Kaden shut him down immediately. At that point in time, Kaden had never talked to me, in depth anyways, about his family situation. Whatever Thomas said Kaden took, which was incredibly hard to watch." I stopped for a second, trying to decide whether or not to say what I had planned to add on.

"That night, Kaden had just as much to worry about as I did. But he still listened to me rant about my issues for weeks, not even mentioning his concerns."

"So Thanksgiving 2018, you met Kaden's family which brought you to understand him better, which brought you closer, am I correct?" Officer Hudson asked, his eyes skimming his notebook.

"Yes."

"And I'm assuming Thomas Wells isn't your biggest fan?" His question caused me to laugh.

"Thomas Wells doesn't like anyone, and that included Kaden. In fact, I'm pretty sure he hated Kade." My mouth fell open after I had referred to Kaden as the uncreative nickname I had given him when we first met.

"Kaden." I corrected. "I'm pretty sure he hated Kaden."

"How did Kaden handle that?"

"Too well. He was always so concerned with helping me and my problems, when I tried to talk to him about his, he usually shut me down immediately."

"Usually?"

"We're not at that part of the story yet."

"Okay, what part are we at?"

"The part where Kaden and I spend nearly three weeks in New York as an attempt to forget our average lives." I spoke in a dramatic voice, emphasizing my sarcasm.

Officer Hudsons poker face was impressive, if I was dealing with me right now I would've been screaming.

"Okay then, December?"

"Yeah, December."

Giving me a nod, I focused my eyes to the paper he was now scribbling on once again.

In messy handwriting, he formatted a list.

Possible motive #1: Thomas Wells.

*

"Happy Birthday Cole!" We all exclaimed in unison as he stepped through the door. Each of us decided to show up for the Saturday morning shift today, which is one usually nobody wanted, so that showed a lot.

"Aw guys, I'm touched." He replied dramatically, placing a hand over his heart.

"Yeah, it's the one day we have to pretend we like you!" Kendall exclaimed, but the smile spread across her face showed that she was clearly joking.

"Sticks and stones Ken." Cole spoke, acting offended.

"Alright Cole, since we all got up for the Saturday shift, I think I'm speaking for all of us when I say I need some coffee." I laughed, earning nods from everyone else.

"Then we have a surprise for you!" Molly exclaimed.

"Oh dear God, let me make my own coffee just to make sure you don't poison it." Cole muttered, putting on his apron before heading to the back.

We all laughed.

"You're so dramatic." Kendall spoke.

"Well sorry I don't want to die! I just turned eighteen!" He yelled back with a laugh.

When we all had our coffee, we sat down at the booth we use for HCH's.

"Alright, the shop opens in thirty so we better make this quick." Cole laughed expressing clear sarcasm, because we all knew he didn't really care.

"Okay, well first we all got you cards." Molly said, while we all got the cards we had bought for Cole.

"How thoughtful." Cole tilted his head as he spoke and let out a laugh."I'll open Ken's first."

The took the pale blue envelope off of the table and lightly ripped it open.

His smile grew wider when his eyes scanned the front of the card, his laughter becoming amused.

"Congratulations Cole, you're three!" She exclaimed. The card had a large flower and a smiling sun on it. The cover read "Birthday girl."

"Gee Ken, you know me so well." He dramatically put his hand over his heart.

Inside of the card, there was a ten dollar Target gift card.

"Now don't go too wild with that Cole."

"I'll try my best." Even though it was a joke, Cole seemed actually happy with the gift.

"Cole, I'm kidding. I got you an actual present." She shook her head and laughed, pulling another card out of her bag.

This time, it was a nicer, more average card that said your typical "happy birthday" on it. A smaller, more genuine smile appeared on Cole's face as he opened the card.

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes scanning the contents which implied that she had wrote him something.

Finally, he looked up.

"Thanks Kendall." He smiled. She nodded.

"What'd she get you?" Molly asked.

He held up a one hundred dollar gift card to Nordstrom.

"I know you hate shopping, but this way you can spend three hours in a nice store!" Kendall laughed.

"There's nice stuff at Hollister!"

"Yeah okag, but you don't have to look each thing they had a million times!"

"I wanted to make sure I had the best buy!"

"Cole, you're literally rich."

"Doesn't mean I can't get a good deal!" Cole and Kendall usually argue a good amount, but it's usually annoyed arguing. This time it was more, lighthearted?

As Cole went through the various gifts, they were all similar and contained gift cards in neat envelopes.

After he finished, we still had a remaining fifteen minutes left before we opened Mugs.

"Okay, we have another surprise." I spoke up.

"Well, not really a surprise, I think you guys do it every year." I added.

"We're drawing names for secret Santa!" Molly exclaimed, grabbing a jar full of folded pieces of paper out of her bag.

"I should've known. Oh wait! It's Vree's first year." Cole's voice was filled with amusement.

"So what? I've done secret Santas before." I shrugged. Suddenly, Molly, Kendall, Kaden and Cole bursted out laughing.

"But you've never done a Mugs one before." Kaden's tone matched Cole's previous one.

"Uh, what's the difference?"

"Okay for one, it has to be meaningful or some shit, it can't just be like a bag of someone's favourite candy." Cole started.

Kendall picked up what he was saying. "Second, we have to buy a white elephant gift to go alongside the secret Santa gift. Last but not least, the person who gives the worst gift, which is decided by an unbiased vote by Helen, has to dress up as Santa for three days of work."

"Wait, actually?" I laughed slightly as I spoke. Kaden's expression looked disgusted.

"It's true, I lost last year. It was the most traumatic three days of my seventeen years of living." He spoke, sounding genuinely disturbed.

Kendall, Molly, and Cole let out a booming shriek of amusement.

"It was hilarious." Cole could barely speak through his laughter.

Kaden huffed. "It was not! I had at least five kids ask to sit on my lap, I had two pillows stuffed down my shirt all day, and Cole purposefully spilt coffee on me because he knew I couldn't change! I wanted to die."

Now I was laughing.

"Okay, okay. Enough torturing Kaden, can we pick now?" Molly spoke up, but she was clearly still trying to hold in laughter.

As we passed the jar around and grabbed names one by one, butterflies grew in my stomach. Why? Couldn't tell you. I guess I just get nervous before these things.

"Alright Ave, you're up." Kaden voice was taunting, but in a lighthearted way.

I stick my hand in the small jar, only three names were left. Shaking them around a bit, I grabbed one that continuously stuck to the left.

Pressing it to my chest so nobody could peak, I lifted it up slightly so I could read the name.

Cole. Of course.

Maintaining a straight face, I put the piece of paper into my purse.

"Alright, and when is this due again?" I ask.

"Next hot chocolate hour." Kendall answers.

"Alright."

We all stood up and cleaned the slight mess we had made, bringing our cups to kitchen, wiping the booth we had sat in and flipped the closed sign to open.

"Why are we working again?" Don't the old people get Saturdays?" Cole complained.

Kendall slapped him lightly. "Don't be rude! Francis, Claudia and Robert are so nice!"

"I didn't say the weren't nice! I said they were old!" He replied in a defensive tone.

What I had picked up in my three, almost four months of working here, is that when Helen is hiring new employees, she tends to target teens in high school-like us, or those in the ages 60-70 who had already retired and were just looking for a hobby.

As I've explained before, the older workers tend to work when we're at school, or weekends while we take the later shifts.

But today, we had requested that we all get to work in honour of Coles birthday, giving the others a day off.

We all tended to other jobs while we waited for our first customers of the day, which usually arrived around eight.

However, the first dreadful ring of the door came at 7:45 today.

"Welcome to Mugs!" We all said simultaneously.

❦ Psychotic ❦

"I'm gonna fail Calc." I complained, sitting harshly on Kaden's desk chair.

"If you studied maybe you wouldn't think so."

"Okay, you have a point but still. Its unfair."

"What's unfair?"

"That you're just naturally a genius and I'm over here having to study to be good."

"Oh no! Studying to be good at something? I can't believe it." Kaden was smiling as he spoke sarcastically. I glared at him.

"You are never doing homework." I pointed out.

He was sitting on his bed, typing profusely on his computer, so actually, for all I know, he could be doing homework right now.

"Because I do it in class." His voice seemed out of focus as his eyes scanned his screen.

"Are you even listening to me?" I asked.

Kaden nodded. "Unfortunately."

"You know, I'm just gonna leave and move to Texas and then you'll-" I was about to finish whatever ridiculous sentence popped into my head, but I was cut off when Kaden let out a laugh. He leaned over, grabbing my wrist and pulling me beside him.

"This is abuse!" I exclaimed, although I didn't move.

"Ave, calm down. Here, look." Kaden motioned to his computer.

"Seriously Kade? We get it. You're a rich kid with the newest MacBook, but I'm gonna fail here! We're talking about my future a-" As I spoke, Kaden rolled his eyes, grabbing the my hand and moving where I was pointing, which was previously on the MacBook logo.

My eyebrows furrowed as I realized what he was looking at.

"New York?" I questioned, looking up to him.

"Yep, we're gonna go over the break. Then, you won't be so sad about your parents being gone."

"You want me to go to New York with you?" I was shocked by the offer, but I was inwardly exploding with excitement. New York was on my long list of cities that I was desperate to see but never have gotten the chance too.

"Basically."

"I'm in. I've never actually been to New York." A smile spread across my face as I answered.

"It's about a five hour drive from here." Kaden spoke.

"Wait, what about your parents?" I asked. "Won't they want to see you?"

"They've been gone every Christmas since I was thirteen." Kaden shrugged. My mood immediately dampened.

"I'm so sorry. Jesus, you must think I'm such a whiny bitch.  I'm constantly complaining to you about my crap but you're going through the same thing and have been for longer" Kaden laughed at my comment.

"Ave, I think you're the opposite of a 'whiny bitch.' and if you haven't noticed, I'm pretty used to dealing with my problems. I'd much rather talk to you about what's going on in your life than stress about what's going on in mine." Kaden's voice wasn't rude or cold, it was reassuring but also showed that he didn't want to talk about the topic anymore.

"Thanks Kade."

"So, where would we stay?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Haven't figured it out yet. Wanna look?"

"Sure." We looked on various websites, figuring out the details of our spontaneous trip to New York.

What we had figured out so far is that we were gonna be there throughout the break,  that we weren't gonna cheap out, since it was kinda a "screw you for not spending Christmas with us families!" trip, and that we were gonna stay at the nicest hotel in the city.

The Kingsley.

"Great, we're gonna miss a H.C.H." I groaned.

"I'm sure you can talk Kendall into letting us skip just one." Kaden insisted. I looked at him with wide eyes.

"I don't think anyone could talk Kendall into letting them miss a HCH."

"Well, then we'll just not tell her until we're there." He suggested.

"We could, but I don't think that would work out."

"So just, hope for the best?"

"Yep."

Kaden and I spent all evening planning out things we wanted to do over the break, I mean, since we're two teenagers who have three weeks in New York to do whatever we want, it wasn't necessarily hard.

"Alright Kade, I have to go." I sighed, noticing that the time was 11:30pm. I gathered my stuff and threw it into my backpack.

"Don't die." He replied, referring to me driving at this time.

"I'll do my best. But even if I do die, it won't be because of a car crash."

Kaden furrowed his eyebrows. "Then what will it be?"

"My Mom murdering me after she realizes I have a C in Calc."

Authors Note

i am so genuinely sorry this chapter is so bad its all filler and i have no inspo and i hate it. i feel like its super rushed and its really short BUT hopefully next chapter will be better.

also, if you didn't already know, the kingsley is the hotel in "City Lights." by okaykendall and we will be doing a crossover!! so make sure to check out her book (THIS IS NOT PAID PROMO IT WILL GENUINELY CHANGE UR LIFE!!!)

have a great rest of your day!!!