stella, jeremiah, and andy were sharing the bathroom mirror while steven was singing his heart out in the shower. "oh, girl, it's you that i lie with!"

stella closed the cap to her mascara. she didn't wear much make-up. just a little bit of mascara and occasionally some eyeliner was enough for her. she reapplied some of her pink grapefruit chapstick and took one last look in the mirror at her appearance.

they were getting ready for the bonfire and stella had decided to wear a pair of ripped black jeans shorts and a white tank top with white converse and all of her fun jewelry. while they were changing earlier, jeremiah had insisted that she would get chilly at some point throughout the evening and should wear something over, so she was also wearing one of his button up's over her outfit. it was a little oversized on her but it suited the outfit well.

"god, you're blocking my view," andy complained, shoving his sister to the side. 

stella sighed and put a hand on jeremiah's arm on the way out of the bathroom. he whipped his head around with wide eyes and his toothbrush still in his mouth. "i'm gonna go try and talk to connie."

jeremiah nodded and returned back to getting himself ready. the last thing stella heard before going back downstairs was jeremiah and steven singing a duet together.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

stella found conrad sitting by himself with his feet in the pool. she sighed and made her way over to him. "alright, nobody else is around. what's up?" she sat down next to him without putting her feet in the water.

conrad stayed silent for a moment. "wh- what do you mean, what's up?"

stella groaned. "you know what i mean. you're acting different, connie."

"nothing's wrong, stel." conrad blew a puff of smoke out of his mouth.

stella watched him carefully. "give me one."

he hesitated before giving one to her. "don't hurt yourself with these because of me."

"i'll smoke a hundred of these if you don't tell me what's up." stella struggled to switch on the lighter before actually getting it.

conrad sighed and avoided eye contact. a frown was forcing its way onto his face. he looked away from her. "i said nothing's wrong, stella," he said firmly.

stella inhaled deeply. she wasn't expecting him to use her full first name. he usually only called her "stel". she knew something was wrong and it hurt that he wasn't telling her for once. they always told each other everything. "what's your problem, connie?" she tried not to show the hurt feeling in her gut.

"what's my problem? you're the one that's considering being a debutante-" conrad started. he was interrupted by isabel walking outside with a towel.

stella couldn't stand to watch the two flirt and be a third wheel so she went back inside. she wasn't going to cry because that's just not who she was, but there was a terrible gut feeling sitting in her stomach. it made her want to throw up all her built-up anger and sympathy that she had for conrad.

she wanted her best friend back.

stella stormed back into the house, running into three people: jeremiah, steven, and andy. "woah, what's up with you?" andy asked, brushing off his shirt.

"connie is being a dick." stella crossed her arms and looked out the window to where conrad was sitting and talking to isabel.

jeremiah frowned and put an arm around her. "he's being weird lately. just ignore him and have fun with us."

stella nodded and replaced her grumpy face with a smile. she followed andy and steven out the door to announce to conrad that they were leaving for the bonfire. jeremiah watched her walk away with his unbuttoned shirt over her outfit. he loved the way it looked on her.

she looked really hot in that shirt- shut the fuck up, jere, he told himself. that's stel.

jeremiah jogged outside to catch up with everyone else. "alright, we're totally taking my car. you're not driving," jeremiah laughed, pointing at stella.

she raised her hands up and chuckled. "what?"

"come on, man, we're leaving," andy told conrad. "you ready?"

isabel asked if she could come too, but steven quickly shot that suggestion down. jeremiah explained that the moms were getting everything set up for her movie night. conrad started getting out of the pool. "see you," he mumbled to isabel.

"let's go, slowpoke," stella teased her best friend, trying to cheer him up.

steven laughed, nudging andy. "have fun with the moms!" he called out to isabel.

stella pushed his shoulder and groaned. "stop it!"

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

after much bickering on the way to the bonfire, the five teenagers decided that jeremiah was going to be the designated driver for the night. stella giggled. "i thought you said you wanted to have fun."

"i can have fun without getting completely wasted, stel," jeremiah assured her.

"i can't wait to find my summer girl," andy smirked, dapping up steven. they were definitely going to spend the whole night talking to girls. it was known that conrad was talking to this girl too, so that just left jeremiah and stella to hang out all night.

jeremiah let out a heavy sigh. "well, i guess that leaves us to hang out all night!"

stella cleared her throat. "actually... i have someone to meet up with here. it's not a big deal. we just met at a 7/11 earlier-"

"wait, what?" andy interrupted her. "no, what if he's creepy?"

"he's not creepy," stella scoffed.

"how do you know?" andy fought back.

the other three boys in the car were watching this argument go back and forth. "because i met him earlier and he was very nice!" stella rolled her eyes.

"but see! that's how they get you!" andy started making things up in his head. "they- they act nice... and then... and then they- they pounce! like sea lions!"

jeremiah let out a loud laugh. "sea lions?"

"what the fuck?" conrad muttered to himself. stella smiled at the comment.

"let her have a little fun, andy," jeremiah chuckled, making eye contact with a red-faced stella in the backseat.

they finally got to the bonfire. steven and andy were the firsts to hop out of the car and start jogging to the beach. conrad was keeping his head low, trying to look for a certain girl. that left jeremiah and stella to walk slowly onto the beach, taking in the sight before them.

stella sighed. "oh yeah. i've missed this."

"hell yeah, come on," he waved her over to the ice chests.

stella grabbed a solo cup and jeremiah grabbed a can of beer, which he poured half of into stella's cup. "are you gonna try and find your secret stud or are you gonna stick with me?" he asked, taking a sip of his beer.

"stella!" a voice in the distance called. stella stumbled around in a circle trying to find where the voice had come from. "stella, over here."

stella finally settled her eyes on a smiling daniel that she had met at 7/11. "ahh, it's good to put a face on the secret stud."

"shut up," she playfully elbowed his side then left to talk to daniel. "daniel!"

jeremiah chuckled. "oh and he has a name!"

stella turned around to jokingly flip jeremiah off then spun back around to talk to daniel.

"hey, i'm glad i saw you!" daniel smiled shyly. he held a similar solo cup to stella. "are those, um, your friends you were talking about?"

stella turned around and traced where daniel had been staring. she saw steven and andy half laughing and half throwing up in their mouths. there was also jeremiah who was telling them to shut up, but also trying to pay attention to what was going on with stella. then there was conrad who was talking to a girl, but also keeping an eye on his best friend.

once they had noticed that stella and daniel were looking at them, steven and andy pretended to be talking about something. jeremiah suddenly became interested in the sky or just anything else besides watching stella talk to a boy. and conrad had begun kissing the girl that he was talking to.

"uhh, yeah. those... are my friends," stella replied, embarrassedly.

daniel ran his hand over the back of his neck awkwardly. "so... are any of them your boyfriend?"

"oh, no," stella chuckled. "i don't have a boyfriend."

"oh okay," daniel smiled to himself and nodded. stella was still thinking about the fact that all of her friends had been watching her talk to this guy. daniel could sort of tell. "well, if it makes you feel any better, my friends are like that too sometimes."

they turned around to see his four other friends sitting around a campfire and talking. they seemed pretty normal compared to stella's crew. "they look pretty chill."

"i said sometimes," daniel joked. he invited her to sit down, but they were quickly interrupted by an eruption of noise from behind them.

stella looked closer to see two boys picking a fight with jeremiah and conrad. andy and steven had already gone to find isabel and take her to the car before she could get hurt. 

"oh shit, uh, i gotta go, daniel. sorry," stella apologized with wide eyes.

daniel nodded quickly, still surprised with the whole situation. "no, yeah. i understand," he replied, keeping his eyes on the fight going on about 20 feet away from them.

stella set down her cup and jogged over to the fight. "what the fuck is going on here?" she shouted at her two best friends.

jeremiah looked at her guiltily with a bloody nose and bruised knuckles. "stel..."

while stella was taking in the sight of jeremiah's injuries, she was elbowed in the face, sending her straight to the ground. "stella!" conrad cried, getting angrier the boy that had accidentally hit her. "you piece of shit!"

one of the two teenage boys's friends had dragged him away, leaving jeremiah open to help stella. "stel, i'm so sorry. this was supposed to fun. shit. i'm sorry, stel. i'm really sorry," he apologized repeatedly, trying to help stella up.

stella had a huge headache now from getting elbowed, but she was fine. "j, stop apologizing. you look terrible," she said, analyzing his injuries.

"aww, thanks, stel," he replied sarcastically. 

even through all of the cuts and bruises on his face, he still looked kind of cute- ew, stella, stop, stella told herself. that's j.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

author's note

i feel like i should stop here because i feel like enough has happened in one chapter for you guys :) idk

please vote, comment, etc. i love you guys and thanks for so many reads like omg wow

do you guys have any ideas?

who do you guys ship stella with? daniel or jeremiah? or someone else?

any predictions?