Dylan’s P.O.V
“The past month and a half has been great. Quiet. Any damned fool could have realized that for a while, I was running away from my feelings for Tony. But there was no turning back now; I’m all in. He made me promise him, barely twelve hours after I landed back in San Diego, that I’d never leave without a good reason. And to seal it off, the title “girlfriend” was bestowed upon my name. The sex we’d had the first night I got back was almost like a reset button for the month before that. After that night, we never talked about my spontaneous expedition back to the east coast, or Ashley and Jack, who, by the way, was arrested while Drew and I were in Boston. He’d turned himself in while in a drunken mess with a broken foot, and a lot of regrets. We’d all refused to testify against him, figuring it would be better to leave it to the authorities. But it turned out they didn’t need us anyway. Jack had committed several different crimes between San Diego and Miami, presumably while trying to find Ashley. Last week, he was sentenced to twelve to fifteen years, for a number of charges. The sigh of relief that washed over the house was taken as silence on the subject, and everyone trying to get back to normal.

Of course, however, with changes. Upon having becoming an ‘item,’ Tony was moving in with me into my small, Spanish-style home. The boys’ large house was getting quite crowded, what with everyone living there. Jerry was still living in the house he and Drew once shared, but when she called off the wedding, she, of course, chose not to live there. Ashley was still refusing to go back to her old house; there were too many bad memories there, she’d said, and she wanted to start fresh. So, if Tony and I hadn’t left, there would have been eight people living in that house, and that is just too much. My nephew took Tony’s old room, and Drew slept with Mike, obviously making their affair well-known to everyone. But no one seemed to care.

I have also grown interestingly close to Jaime. He’s the only one that wasn’t entirely affected by the whole two-month ordeal, so he’s almost like a support system; someone to go to when you needed advice, or sometimes someone to just make you laugh. But seemingly, I’m the only person who took full advantage of that. We spend a whole lot of one-on-one time together, and besides my sister, he was quickly becoming my best friend. But no one seemed to care.

I can admittedly say that it’s sort of scaring me how no one seemed to have anything to say about anything that’d happened lately; I’d always been the kind of person to communicate and let my feelings out orally. But everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and I didn’t want to let them down…”

A knock on the door turned my attention away from the words I was writing on my laptop. I was writing sort of a reflection journal on the things that had happened since I met the boys. “Yeah?” I called in the direction of the front door, saving my writing and closing my laptop.

“Hey, girl,” said Ashley as she walked in and planted a kiss on my cheek.

“Morning!” I said and gave her a quick hug. “Coffee?” I asked her. She nodded, and we both walked into the kitchen.

“So what are your plans for today?” she asked me as I filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove.

“Well, I have to be to the shop in like two hours. And I work until seven.”

“What about after that?”

“Jaime’s taking me out to some bar. Why?”

“Hm...Jaime, huh? What’s up with you and Jaime?” Ashley asked, completely ignoring my question.

“What?” I chuckled. “Nothing! I’m with Tony, you know that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just be careful. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that he has a bit of a crush on you.” She spoke in a sing-songy voice.

I furrowed my eyebrows at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re just friends,” I responded as I bit into an apple that was sitting in the fruit bowl on the counter. I hate apples, I thought to myself as I chewed and swallowed the odd-tasting fruit.

“That’s what they all say.” She playfully rolled her eyes.

“I’ll have you know, that’s exactly what everyone thought about Vic and me, until some fierce little shit like you came and got his attention.” I laughed as I spoke, skillfully changing the subject.

“I did not get his attention!” Ashley protested.

The kettle began to whistle, and I dropped my partially-eaten apple into the trash can before grabbing two mugs out of the cabinet. I poured the piping hot water into the mugs and reached into a different cabinet, pulling out my instant Folger’s decaf coffee. I put a teaspoon of the grounds into each mug, then I placed one in front of Ashley before putting the cream and sugar on the counter for her to help herself. “I hope you’re not tired. This is decaf, so it won’t do anything for you.” Ashley groaned, and I laughed aloud. Then I spoke again, putting cream and sugar into my coffee. “But you did get his attention. Just because he’s Vic Fuentes doesn’t necessarily mean that he goes after every girl that goes after him. Soon, all that playful making out y’all do will turn into something a bit hotter. He’s totally into you.” I raised my eyebrows knowingly as I took a sip of my coffee.

“Well, about the making out part…” She smiled and blushed as she spoke.

I put my mug down a little too fast, but I ignored the small spill it caused. “Ashlana Marie Lopez. You did not have sex with Vic Fuentes!” I said, shocked. When she just sat there and giggled, my jaw dropped practically to the floor. “Oh my God! How was it? What’s he like? Is he like, huge? Is he a moaner or a screamer? Ashley!” I said, exasperated, as I bombarded her with questions.

“I’m not gonna tell you that!” she said, equally as exasperated as me.

“She’s right to keep quiet. I do not wanna hear about sex with Vic,” I heard a very sleepy Tony say. “Good morning, babe,” he said as he wrapped his arms around my waist and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Morning, Ashley.”

She waved to him. “I didn’t even hear you come in, baby,” I responded, grabbing a paper towel and cleaning up small puddle of coffee I’d spilled.

“That’s because you were too busy fangirling over the idea of Ashley boning my best friend.”
I gawked at him, and he simply chuckled as he helped himself to some coffee.

“Well, I have to get to work. Dylan, call me!” Ashley said as she got up to leave.

“Okay! And I still want details!” I said relatively sternly.

“Gross!” Tony said somewhere behind us.

“Shut up, Tony!” Ashley and I said at the same time. He threw up his hands in defense and walked back toward our bedroom. I walked Ashley to the door, and we said our last goodbyes before she left.

Notes

Everything's back to normal, right? We'll see about that.

This is the last chapter I have written, so updates are going to come a little bit slower than usual, but I'll try to get one done before the weekend is over.