Three days passed since my embarrassing night with Mike and Alysha. I could tell that Mike was extremely upset with me because he hadn’t spoken to me the day after the dinner and through most of the day after that. It wasn’t until he needed something that he called me. First he sent me a text message that said: Hey. Usually when he said hey, it meant that he needed something. So I responded and said: Yeah. Right as I hit send, the phone lit up with his face. I hit accept and slowly brought it up to my ear, waiting to see if he had meant to call me or if it was a pocket dial.

“Hello?” I asked, my voice coming off a bit too strongly than I originally intended.

“Hey,” he said, dragging out the words. I could hear the sound of his blinker clicking in the background, telling me that he was in his car, talking to me over his bluetooth. “I’m having a bad day.”

“What happened?” I asked, sitting up slightly on the couch. I uncrossed my legs to better brace myself for Mike’s explanation. I was afraid that he had gotten in a fight with Alysha or Vic. But when he got in fights with someone he cared about, he got angry, not sad, so it had to be something else that happened.

“Well, I was driving around in my old cadi, and I just got done getting it detailed and I was driving home and cranking some music and just really enjoying the weather, you know…?”

“Yeah…” I responded, not sure where he was going with this.

Mike’s voice cracked and he burst into tears. My mind began to race a mile a minute. Did he get in an accident? Did he wreck his most prized cadillac? Did he run over a dog?

“I got a speeding ticket!” Mike finally exclaimed through his tears.

My face fell and my worries vanished. I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit as I said, “Ohhhh nooo.”

“Don’t laugh at me!” Mike said through his tears. He sniffled repeatedly. “I just pulled into my driveway but I’m still sitting in the car. I can’t go inside like this. Vic and Danielle are in there.”

“Do you want to come over?” I offered.

“Yeah,” he said through a sniffle.

“I’ll make you some french fries. How does that sound?”

“Will you make them crispy for me?”

I smiled to myself. “I’ll make them crispy just how you like them.”

“Okay,” Mike agreed, his voice small like a child’s. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Come on over, drive safe, and don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world, it’s just a speeding ticket, okay?”

Mike’s voice was small. “Okay.”

“I love you, okay?” I said, feeling that it was necessary to let him know that I wasn’t thinking less of him for crying to me over the phone. It was my duty as a best friend, and I didn’t take to those duties lightly.

“Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll be there soon.”

I peeled and cut the potatoes to prepare them for when Mike came over; it would only take him about ten or fifteen minutes to get over to my house on a weekday, since the traffic was minimal, so I placed the slices in a bowl of salt water to prepare them for the cooking. I wouldn’t start cooking them until Mike had arrived because he liked his french fries to be cooked to a certain level of crispy that he insisted was the same every time, but it never was. So I would cook them until he told me to stop - the results were different every time but it was worth it to see the way his eyes closed in bliss at the first bite.

Mike walked in and I felt slightly awkward at the sight of him. I hadn’t seen him in three days and the last time I did, he was rather upset with me. I felt embarrassed for the way I had acted and wanted to give him a proper apology in person, but I decided to hold off on that when I saw how red and watery his eyes were from crying.

I walked straight over to him and wrapped my arms around his torso. My head only hit to his shoulder, but there was this perfect spot that I could nuzzle my head into - the same spot I always rested my head every time we hugged. It was my spot. I pulled away, not wanting to linger too long and make things uncomfortable.

Mike looked around for a second. “You never change anything do you?” Mike said, staring at the way my macbook was still sitting on my dining room table, my chapstick sitting beside it and my phone charger sitting on the kitchen counter. “What do you do all day?”

“You act like it’s been years since you’ve seen me. Sorry I don’t rearrange my living room every two days,” I said with a laugh. I slid a vase over that was sitting on the table beside the couch but then slid it back into place.

“A couple days away from you feels like years,” Mike muttered, looking around.

“What?”

He let out a small sniffle as his fingers ran along the fringe of one of my throw pillows. “I’m hungry,” he muttered.

“Okay, okay,” I said, shaking my head and heading into the kitchen. Mike followed after me and leaned against the back counter as I poured the vegetable oil into the pan to get it heated.

“I’m not a pussy, you know,” Mike said softly. “It’s just...you should have seen the way the guy looked at me. The way he was talking to me when he pulled me over. He saw my tattoos and I know he was looking at my watch, and he instantly just gave me this look. You know, the look I hate,” he explained, waving his hand lightly as if it would help to conjure up my memory to know what look he was talking about.

But it didn’t help, I knew exactly what look he was talking about. It was the same look my neighbors gave him when he picked me up for dinner earlier in the week. It was the look that showed judgment and presumption. He didn’t always get that look, of course, but for some reason having a lot of tattoos and a nice car and a big, flashy watch immediately made people assume that he had dirty, selfish money.

Mike was the most selfless person I had ever met. He sacrificed a large portion of his year to tour the world and make his fans happy. Then he would come home and use the money he had just earned to spoil the people he had waiting at home. In everything he did, he had others on his mind. He didn’t want to praised or recognized for it, but he hated it when other people - clueless people - gave him the look that made him feel like society hated him.

“Mike, you worry too much about what other people think,” I said, dropping the potato slices in the hot oil. I pushed them around with some tongs to make sure they were fully submerged.

Mike sighed. “It just sucks.” He ran his hands through his hair after taking off his hat and setting it down on the counter. “Do you ever get the look?”

“Sometimes. There was this one time that I had to return my macbook after I got it for christmas from my parents because it was the wrong screen size, and when I went up to the register and told them that it was the wrong size, and that I needed something bigger, the lady waiting to be helped next to me gave me the look. I didn’t get upset, though. I just really wanted to punch her in the face.”

“I wish I could be like that. Not wanting to punch people in the face, but just not letting it make me so emotional. I fucking cried when the cop pulled me over. I cried in front of him,” Mike admitted.

“No you didn’t,” I gasped, chuckling slightly. “Aww, man.”

“Yeah, he probably thought I was trying to get out of the ticket.”

“What did the ticket say? Do you have to go to court?” I asked.

“No, they’ll be sending me the link for the optional traffic school and the fine. I just have to go into the courthouse to pay it,” Mike explained. “It was just the usual: my name, address, the weather conditions, the speed limit and how fast I was going…”

“In other comments did he write: weak ass pussy?” I teased.

Mike groaned and buried his face into his hands, laughing slightly and muttering something to himself. He pulled his hands down, wiping off his face and turned serious. “You better not tell anybody about this!” Mike warned, pointing at me with a knowing look. A smile started to play at his lips. “This isn’t going to turn into one of those funny stories that Vic tells in our interviews. Got it? Nobody. I mean it...not even Jolee.”

“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try,” I agreed with a laugh.

It was silent for a moment as I continued to push the fries around. They were starting to brown so I motioned for Mike to come look at them. His phone began to ring, but he still shook his head, to tell me that they weren’t ready yet.

“Why is your sister calling me?” Mike asked, looking down at his phone.

“Which sister?” I asked, leaning forward so I could see. I had two sisters, each were younger than me. “Lorena? Why is Lorena calling you?”

Lorena was my youngest sister. She was a junior at the high school that I worked at, but it was a rare occasion that I actually saw her. In her younger years, I was the one who raised her because my mother had to spend two years in Germany, taking care of her grandmother. The plan was for her to go take care of her through her sickness and then she was going to take her back home with her, but her condition continued to worsen so my mother just decided to live there until her last days. When my mom arrived, Lorena would call her by her actual name, Heather, just to piss her off. Lorena never quite grew out of that phase and after a couple of months she was calling our dad by his name, Daniel, and then every single person she met after that she would call by their full name.

She was the odd child out in the family. She was the one with the strong opinions and beliefs that strayed from societal norms. I didn't see her much when I was working because she was actually involved in a large amount of curriculars. She was in marching band and was also the president of the LGBT club, amongst other things.

Lorena had this strange obsession with Mike, sometimes she would call him just to talk. It was cute how she liked to keep tabs on him, but I think it was mostly because she listened to Pierce the Veil and wanted the close connection for concert tickets and access to meeting her other favorite bands. Mike knew this, but didn’t mind. “She’s a good kid. She does well in school and doesn’t do drugs, so I don’t mind giving backstage passes to her and her friends,” he would say to me.

Mike put the phone on speaker when he answered. “Lorena?” Mike answered.

“Michael? Hey!” she said, dragging out the hey. “Are you with my sister by any chance?” There was some noise in the background and I could tell that she was with some of her friends, which was usually when she would call him - to show off.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I responded when Mike looked to me. “What’s up?”

“Mom wants to know if you’re busy,” she responded. “She wants you guys to come over, if you can, for my birthday party.”

“Why didn’t you call my phone?” I asked, a sly look on my face. I liked to push her buttons and embarrass her in front of her friends. But what older sister wouldn’t?

Lorena groaned. “I tried, like three times, actually. But it went straight to voicemail.”

I looked to the left where my phone was sitting, plugged into my charger, but the charger wasn’t plugged into the wall. “Oops, my bad,” I said to myself. “Wait, why didn’t anybody tell me that today was your birthday party?”

Lorena and her friends laughed at something that someone had said and I decided to just drop it. “Lorena!” I called out to get her attention.

“What?” Lorena responded through some laughter. “Are you going to come over? Michael’s invited, too.”

I looked to Mike and whispered, “of course you are.” In a mocking tone. Mike rolled his eyes and answered for us. “Yeah, we’ll be there soon!”

“Okay, bring bathing suits, we’re all swimming! Even mom!”

Mike’s face lit up with the most excitement I had seen in a long time. The last time Mike was that excited was when I told him that my niece, Mindy, had taken her first steps and that was over a year ago. He must have had a really bad day for him to get excited about swimming like he did. I nodded with a sigh. I hated swimming with Lorena’s friends because most of them attended the school that I worked at, but I decided to allow it since it was summer vacation and the expression on Mike’s face was too cute to let down.

We hung up shortly after and Mike yelled at me, telling me that the french fries were perfect but I had to get them out of the oil before it was too late. I transferred his french fries into a container with a paper towel and set it on the counter. “Take those with you to my parents’ house because you know they’re no good left over. I’m going to get ready.”

I went into my bedroom and changed into my most appropriate bathing suit to wear in front of my sister’s friends and my family. I pulled on a bikini top that had the most coverage over my bust and a bathing suit bottom that didn’t reveal too much of my ass, but it was difficult since most bikinis were revealing and there was nothing you could do. I pulled some high-waisted black shorts over my bottoms and tossed a cardigan on over my bikini top, not bothering with a shirt since we would be sitting by the pool for the rest of the day, anyway. I slipped on some black ankle boots and grabbed my only black hat and called it good.

Mike offered to drive since we had to swing by his house so he could change into his swimming attire.

I didn’t have a gift for her, so Mike scoured through some boxes of his newest PTV merch and pulled out two different shirts in her size and shoved them into a gift bag that was leftover from Mike’s birthday party back in December. He found an old, unused visa gift card that was given to him as a gift and we tossed it into the bag and wrote both of our names on the gift.

I let myself into my parents’ house - a burst of laughter and conversation carried from the backyard through the house. It was common that my parents invited their best friends and some of my aunts and uncles over on a weekend or special occasion. Since my father had opened up his own dentistry practice, they decided to upgrade the backyard and got a nice swimming pool put in, a large bar complete with a flat screen and beer on tap, and a large shed that was converted into a soundproof room with my sister’s drumset and drumline equipment. There was also an Xbox in there connected to an old computer monitor, but nobody played it except for when my cousins came over and took a break from swimming.

Mike set the gift down on the dining room table where there were others and continued to follow me into the backyard. He had his french fries tucked under his arm and mumbled something about how he hoped nobody was going to try and have some because he didn’t want to share.

As soon as we emerged through the sliding glass doors, the laughter and conversation was in full volume, my parents sitting around the bar with my Aunt Stacy and their best friend Jeff. My uncle Paul was behind the bar, mixing up some kind of drink and my cousins were all swimming in the pool. Lorena and her group of friends were taking up the entire jacuzzi - so many of them were piled in there that the water was elevated, making it level with the edge of the pool.

“Michael! Sindel!” Lorena called out, waving dramatically.

“Of course she says your name first,” I muttered, waving back.

“Get over it, she likes me better. It’s life.” Mike shrugged and began to walk over, but stopped and quickly turned around, pulling his french fries in their container from beneath his arm in one, swift motion. “Put these in your purse so nobody sees them.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled apart the straps on my purse so he could shove his container inside. Once he was clear, he turned back around and made his way over, greeting my sister and her friends as if he was just another family member, strolling on by. I could see the way her friends looked at them - their eyes wide but their heads hanging down from nerves. Most of Lorena’s friends were people that were on the drumline or in marching band with her, so the fact that Mike was a successful drummer made them marvel at his sight, and a lot of them marvelled at Lorena for knowing him, too.

Mike secretly loved the attention he got from Lorena and his friends - it was in his nature to treat people who looked up to him with kindness and acceptance. Much like his fans, my sister and her friends were accepted into Mike’s life and treated with love and equality.

“Are you guys going to get in with us?” Lorena exclaimed, standing up in the center of the jacuzzi. She was wearing a tshirt on over her bathing suit, the shirt sticking tightly to her body.

I immediately began to shake my head to tell her there was no way, but Mike was already pulling his tshirt from over his head and kicking off his vans. “Screw the jacuzzi! I’m going in the deep end!” He began to hurry over toward the opposite end of the backyard, where the kidney-shaped pool stretched to the deepest part. Mike was still holding his things and went to set them down on the lawn chair by the pool, but froze when he noticed that I wasn’t moving. “Take off your shorts! Let’s get in!” Mike exclaimed, nodding his head in a motion to wave me over.

“You go ahead, Mikey, I’m going to visit with my family for a bit.”

Mike quickly scurried over to me, shoving his shirt and shoes into my hands. He began to walk away again.

“Mike, your phone,” I warned, knowing that he had left it in his pocket.

He held up a finger and hurried back over to me once again, fishing his phone and keys out from his pocket. He dropped them into one of his shoes and rubbed my shoulder. “What would I do without you? You take such good care of me.” He grinned and in a flash, he was jumping into the deep end - the water splashing a majority of the backyard, the cold water hit my sister and her group in the jacuzzi, causing them to squeal at the coldness.

I brought Mike’s things over to the outdoor table that was adjacent to the bar, leaving my purse with his things before I made my way over to the bar, immediately signalling to my uncle, telling him to make my usual drink. He was always the bartender of the family, and was the first person to introduce me to mixed drinks.

“Aw, my darling Sindel,” my mother purred, holding her arms out for a hug. I fell into her embrace, immediately melting into the warmth of her love. “You don’t visit as much as you used to. Your sisters and niece miss you, you know.”

“Where’s Mindy?” I asked, taking notice that my sister and her daughter were nowhere to be found. My sister, Daisy, was the middle child at a young age of eighteen. Mindy was my beloved two-year-old niece, Daisy’s daughter. Daisy never went through a troubling or rebellious stage, but she did start having sex at a young age and made a mistake with her boyfriend by getting pregnant, but nobody seemed to care as soon as they laid eyes on Mindy. Nobody seems to even notice Daisy’s young age anymore because we love her daughter too much to care about how she was brought into this world.

“Mindy was fussing so Josiah and Daisy brought her on a car ride. You used to do the same thing, you know. You would cry and cry but fight the sleep. We’d have to strap you into your car seat and take you around the block a few times before you could crash,” my mother went on.

“All three of you girls did that,” my father added from his spot beside the grill. “You did it the longest, though.” He pointed his spatula at me before flipping a burger over.

“I bet your kids will do it, too,” my mother added, taking a sly drink. “Just you wait and see.”

“Well, I hope you can wait, because that’s not happening for a while,” I replied, rolling my eyes as my uncle slid me my drink. “You always bring it up, but nothing has changed.”

“That’s because you never date anybody, Sinny. You worry me,” she groaned, her features angry but also sad.

I reminded myself that this was exactly why I didn’t come to visit often. My mother always began to pester me about giving her grandbabies, much like my grandmother on my father’s side. Why are you still so skinny? You need to eat some more so you can give me healthy great grandbabies!

As if right on cue, Mike walked up, hugging me with his soaking frame just to try and piss me off. There was no use in fighting it, though. It was my fate. Every time we were near water, Mike would sneak up on me. No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, or how hard I tried to get out of his grasp, it would happen. “What are we talking about?” Mike asked, rubbing his wet hair onto my cardigan, soaking the sleeve. “Now you might as well just get in.” Mike said, smirking.

As soon as Mike let go of me, I removed my cardigan, tossing it onto the back of a chair.

“I agree, Heather,” Mike spoke to my mother, “I actually was just pestering her about that the other day. She got so angry because of it.”

“Can you please not talk about this as if I’m not standing right here?” I asked. “Plus, this is embarrassing. Lorena’s friends can probably hear you guys.”

“We’re just worried about you, Sindel,” Mike added, his expression the same as my mom’s. “I know you spend most of your days cooped up on your computer or trying to mend Jolee and Tony’s relationship. It’s not healthy. You need more interaction.”

“I get plenty of interaction. I just went out to dinner with you and Alysha.” I nearly cringed at the memory of that night. Alysha’s squinted eyes and tongue-biting smile instantly coming forth in my thoughts. I shook it away as subtly as I could, but then all I could see was the image of Mike’s hand holding her thigh from under the table.

My mom tilted her head and gave me a knowing glare. “Sindel, baby, you have to hear how sad that sentence sounds. You’re almost in your thirties. Have you even had sex in the last ten years?”

My dad instantly dropped his spatula and covered his ears. “La la la! I don’t hear anything! This conversation is not happening right now! All of my daughters have never been touched by anyone… la la la!”

“Dad, Daisy has a daughter,” I said, reminding him how absurd his comments were. He was just trying to make himself feel less awkward about the situation, but it was fun to make him feel uncomfortable about the topic of sex.

My dad shook his head and picked up his spatula. “It was a gift from God,” my dad joked. My uncle and their best friend laughed, all understanding that the joke was funny because we were not even semi-religious.

“But seriously, you need to try dating,” Mike said, bringing the conversation back. “I’m not trying to be mean or force it on you, but Sindel, if you want to fall in love and have a family someday, then you need to start putting yourself out there.”

“I don’t need to do anything. Do you want me to get knocked up, is that it? Then will everybody leave me alone?" I turned around, hating how angry Mike had managed to make me. It seemed that every time we were together, we were getting upset at each other. And it was usually about the same thing every time.

I shimmied out of my shorts as I walked toward the deep end, Lorena and her friends so caught up in their conversation about some girl who hooked up with a guy in the band room supply closet that they didn't even cringe as I dove into the pool, the cool spray of water hitting them once again. As I soared through the water, I began to wonder why my life had come to this. I was always the single one of the group. Even in my high school days, before I knew Mike, I was the single friend. It used to bother me a lot back then because every high school girl just wants to feel wanted, but now that I was older it didn't bother me. So what if I was single? So what if I spent my days surfing the Internet for new clothes or reading articles in psychology? So what if I spent my nights texting Jolee about her relationship with Tony? I had a glass of wine to keep me company, and it was all I needed.

Why couldn't Mike understand that my friendship with him, Jolee, and the rest of the gang were enough for me to feel wanted and loved? Sure, it got a bit lonely at night when I had no one to crawl in bed with, but it wasn't anything that made me furrow my brow and think about the "what ifs" in life. This was life, and just as Mike had said, we were getting older so I didn't have time to think out the "what ifs" - I just needed to enjoy what I had and spend my time with the people I already had in my life.

As I surfaced, I took note of how happy my sister was with her friends and how they had all seemed to forget that Mike was even present. Their conversation had shifted to how Gary in the trombone section could never march in time with the others and how he had nearly tripped one of Lorena's friends. Their minds were so focussed on this and it made me smile - they didn't need to be talking about who hooked up with who. They were passionate about their music and their marching band, and that's all that mattered.

"Burgers are done!" my father announced, dismissing himself from a conversation he had been having with Mike. Mike seemed to linger by the grill for a moment, his head hanging slightly as he was in thought.

Why couldn't Mike, of all people, understand how embarrassing it was for him to say those things to me? They didn't bother me, and I didn't normally think about it, but with everyone bringing it up so often - and with so much aggression, too - I couldn't help but start to let it creep into my thoughts.

All the years of my mother asking me if I had a date in my weekend plans. All the years of my mother trying to set me up with people she would meet at the grocery store or the sons of her coworkers. All the years of my mother pestering me and pestering me until she established a firm wedge between us. It was almost as if she wanted that wedge to be there, as if she was saying: we could be close again, if only you would get a boyfriend. It was cruel and psychologically damaging.

My father would never get in on it, and neither would my sisters, thank goodness. Mom was more than enough for all of them. But also, my father didn’t mind that I was single. He would make comments once in a blue moon if he thought that he had met someone I would really like, but my father trusted my judgment and knew better than to try and mess with the vision I had of my life.

Once I emerged from the pool, most of my family had cleared out of the backyard and went inside to eat their burgers. Mike was sitting on the lawn chair near the deep end, his tupperware full of french fries on his lap and his towel draped over his shoulders.

“Hey,” I said, shaking out my hair as I held onto the edge of the pool.

“Hey,” Mike replied, shoving a french fry into his mouth. “They all went inside to eat. Lorena and her friends went up to her room to do only God knows what.”

I rolled my eyes. I could imagine their High School conversations of “he-said-she-said” and who hooked up with who. “You didn’t want a burger?” I asked.

Mike shook his head and nudged his container. “You already covered my hunger.” He picked up the soda he had beside him. “Thank you, Sindel. I meant what I said earlier. You take care of me.”

“Of course,” I replied, smiling slightly. Even though Mike could get on my nerves and really challenge me, I loved him dearly and I knew that he loved me all the same.

“No, really,” Mike sighed. “You take such good care of me. You treat me so well and yet all I can manage to do is make you angry and embarrass you.”

“Don’t, it’s okay,” I said, shaking my head.

Mike shook his head, not accepting my words. “No, it’s not. I know I keep bringing it up, and I think it’s because it’s just hard for me.”

“What do you mean?” I pulled myself up on the ledge and out of the pool. I moved myself around so I was sitting along the edge, my feet still dangling in the water.

“It’s just hard for me to adjust to this. I know that Alysha and I have been together for five months now, but it’s still so difficult for me to adjust to being close to a woman that’s not you. I’ve relived the thrill of getting to know someone and discovering an interest and well, love. It’s a feeling that I didn’t know I missed until Alysha came along. It’s a feeling I want to share with you.”

Mike words weren’t making much sense, so I remained quiet, trying to understand what he was getting at. My heart began to beat faster as I tried to decipher his meaning. Surely, Mike had to of been mistaken. For a boy that assisted in writing lyrics for a band, he wasn’t very savvy with his words at times.

“What I mean is that I wish you were going through the same thing as me, at the same time. I wish that you could meet someone and get to know them and fall in love with them...like I am with Alysha. I wish that we could go through this journey at the same time,” Mike clarified. “We’re supposed to do everything together, and I wish that this wasn’t the exception to that.”

I did wish that, too, but I didn’t want to be in a relationship. I wanted to share the same thoughts and feelings as Mike, but this had to be the exception to that. I suddenly understood the distance I had felt between us on the night of the dinner. I didn’t understand love like he did. Love changes you and your mindset, and because of that, Mike’s compatibility with me had been altered just slightly, bringing a distance between us. We were no longer completely in sync. I couldn’t finish his sentences or stories anymore, he had an actual girlfriend for that. He had Alysha and I had nobody.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Mike asked after a long moment of silence.

I chuckled softly. “I’m glad you clarified that because for a minute it sounded like you wanted to fall in love with me.”

Mike snorted and I turned around just in time to see a piece of french fry that had come through his nose, hanging over his open palm, ready to catch it. But he didn’t pull it out right away, he waited for me to see because only best friends could appreciate something as disgusting as this. He motioned for my purse, which was sitting right beside him. He must have moved it when he got his french fries. “You have to send this to the guys. My phone is in your purse.”

I pulled out his phone as quickly as I could and snapped a picture, the flash capturing the snot that had coated the french fry. It was probably the most disgusting thing I had seen Mike do in at least a year.

“Are you going to send it to Alysha, too?” I asked, handing his phone back to him.

Mike removed the french fry and blew his nose into a napkin. He took his phone and looked at the picture, a laugh so loud bellowed from his gut - Lorena and her friends could probably hear him laughing from upstairs. I couldn’t help but join in on the laughter. I wasn’t laughing at the french fry, per se, I was just laughing at how disgusting we were. Who on earth would rush to take a picture of a french fry that had been sucked from Mike’s throat to his nostril?

Our laughter calmed down and we simultaneously began to gather our belongings to head back into the house. The sun was setting and a chill was setting into the summer air. I shivered as we walked toward the house.

Mike slung his arm over my shoulder and brought me close to him for the short walk across the yard. He looked down at his phone that was resting in his free hand, the picture still on the screen. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s something I’m ready to share with Alysha just yet. You’re the only woman I’d show my disgusting side to.”

Notes

Sindel's Outfit

I'm sorry it's been so long since I have updated. Life has been rather crazy. I've been working forty or more hours a week, plus some school drama that was happening, and then I just got a new puppy, so yeah, life is busy. I work in a Barnes & Noble bookstore, so I leave work everyday wanting to write so bad, but by the time I get home, exhaustion hits and I'm just too tired to even get a word written. I know you guys understand, but I still felt the need to explain.

I love all of your support and thank you so much for putting up with my super slow and sporadic updating patterns. I will TRY to be more regular, but I can't promise anything.

Let me know what you guys thought about this chapter. I'm trying to give some more insight on how Sindel feels about everything and gave a little preview of her family life since family is going to be important in this story.

Thanks for reading!