Don't forget to leave a vote!! 👉👈(I'm shameless)

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Seth 15:21: haha I can imagine x)

Robbie 15:21: Yeahh T^T

Seth 15:22: ah shit I gtg:(( Talk to you later xx

With a stupid grin on my face, I flopped onto my stomach, feet kicked up in the air like some pathetic high-school loser with a crush. Which I guess, wasn't all too far from the truth. A pastel blue squishmallow stared at me in disappointment, and, probably, judgment, glossy black eyes piercing into my soul. Geez, no need to be rude about it. I huffed and reached out to shove the whale-bunny-egg hybrid in its white stomach, causing it to tragically fall over. Mood. The worst part was that I hadn't even planned to text Seth. I was just waiting for Aleksia to come home from her day out with friends when I realized I still hadn't replied to Seth's message from when I gave him my number. Now it was like an hour later and Aleksia had been home for at least fifty of those minutes. 

Robbie 15:26: alrighttt talk to you later! :D

A smiley face? Really? I'm so screwed. I dropped my face into a messed-up stack of pastel orange and pink pillows, groaned into them, and threw my phone to the other side of my bed. Yep, screwed. It was genuinely embarrassing at this point. So, ignoring the annoyingly sappy K-pop music blaring from my speakers (thanks again, Mason), I dragged myself to the living room in the hopes of finding some sort of sanity there. 

Aleksia glanced up from her Kindle with a smile, dark brown hair hanging over her shoulder in the form of a loose braid. "Hey you! You've been rotting in bed all day, what's up?"

Frowning, I walked over to the couch to sit down next to her. "You've only been home for like, an hour," I argued, struggling to find a nice position to sit in. 'Problem was, the temperatures were way too high for a couch to be comfortable. Everything was sticky and sweaty. Which was quite concerning, considering it wasn't even officially summer yet.

She narrowed her eyes at me, nose crinkling at the effort. "Well, am I wrong?"

"Oh fuck you."

Laughing, Aleksia placed her Kindle down on the little wooden coffee table and shook her head. "Thought so." A lopsided smile formed on her face. "So, what's up?"

Every time. Aleksia always knew. And I mean, there wasn't anything wrong, but there was still something. I shrugged, because well, what else do you want me to do, and pulled my knee up to my chin. "I... I have this friend and—

Aleksia's eyebrows right about shot through the ceiling, a smug grin on her face. "A friend?"

"Not like that!" I immediately exclaimed, because my god, that'd be an interesting one to explain later on. "Just a friend, seriously. I didn't magically turn straight. Anyway, she has a little sister and— uh, I was wondering if you'd want to maybe babysit her-? She— she's deaf, and— uhm—

"Robbie," Aleksia cut me off, her face suddenly dead-serious. "I work at a special school. I'm not a babysitter."

Shit. No. That wasn't the script. "I know!" I shifted around on the couch again, because fuck, I could feel my skin. "Just— it's just for one day. My friend —Reagan— she just wants to go to the beach with us. But she can't... Unless there's someone else who can understand her sister. And I know you can."

Rubbing her temples, Aleksia sighed. "When do you guys want to go?" she asked with a tired smile, hands rummaging through her purse to pull out her phone. "I'm free on Saturday, if that works."

My face lit up with a smile as I nodded eagerly. Success! "Yeah, that'd work, I think. I'll have to text everyone to make sure."

"Okay, if you give me Reagan's number, she can text me the details."

Although I was well aware of the regret I would feel within the next thirty seconds, I leaped over and attacked Aleksia with a hug, mouthing out a muffled string of 'thank you''s until she was laughing and begging me to let her go. 

"You're welcome! Now please let me breathe." With a laugh, she managed to shake me off of her. Straightening out her blouse, she offered me a more genuine smile. "In the group I work with, there's too many kids who see their older siblings as parental figures. It's sad. That's why we're working on a program for the weekends; I'm hoping to give those poor kids some time to breathe." Her smile saddened. "If everything goes well, we should be able to launch it somewhere along September. It's still a long way to go, but at least it's something, you know?"

Her words punched me right in my ribcage, and I had to try my damn best not to get too sappy. "You already do so much for those kids. I can't even imagine how grateful they are.. But I know I am." Wow. Not sappy at all.

Aleksia grinned and leaned over to ruffle my hair. "I'm grateful for you, too. Now shoo, go text your friends!" She shooed me away with her hands, tickling my ribs to chase me off the couch.

"Okay, okay! I'm going!" I made out between laughter, my hands up in surrender as I jumped off the couch and almost dislocated my ankle, but that was a worry for a different time. Mission beach date had been a success!

-

Robbie created a new group 

Robbie 16:01: guys guys guyssgsgd are yall free on saturday 

Almost immediately, Reagan and Seth began to type. And I was grinning again, sat down against my white bedframe because the floor was nice and cool. 

Reagan 16:02: omg did your sister say yes??

Seth 16:02: I'm free😎

I had no clue where Mason was, considering he was usually the most chronically online out of all of us, but I felt way too excited to care. 

Robbie 16:02: she said yes!! Reagan ill send ur number to her so yall can figure the details out :P

Reagan 16:03: YOU'RE THE BEST<3 im literally so excited rn robbie tysm

Seth 16:03: that's awesome (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞ We owe u big time :}

Grinning at the stupid emoji Seth'd used, I reacted with a white heart to Reagan's message and then put my phone away to process it all for a second. My eyes dilated out of focus and zoomed back into the succulents on my windowsill, specifically on the little fly buzzing from plant to plant. Ew. I shook my head, blinking rapidly to gain back control over my eyeballs. We'd actually made plans. And, unless some monstrously awful thing was gonna ruin my hopes for life last minute, it seemed they were going to make it out of the group chat. My phone pinged again. 

Maaason 16:05: yaaaaaay beach date😸

And again.

Maaason 16:06: help i asked nyx if they wanted to come nd now theyre chasing me wirh a pillow weeeeeeeee

I tried to imagine Nyx chasing Mason, which then made me snort. It didn't take long for the entire group to get involved in the scenario and Mason began to send voice messages, begging for someone to save him. As I was in the middle of writing a paragraph pretending to be a police officer, a notification popped up on my phone. And I, as the well-behaved and collected person I am, accidentally clicked it, opening up a different chat. I shouldn't be entrusted with social media.

Seth 16:17: hey 

My brows pulled together in confusion. Why was he texting me in private when there was a full-on riot happening in the group chat?

Robbie 16:18: Heey

Seth 16:18: don't know what's happening in the groupchat lol but I just wanted to say-- what you did for reagan was really kind <3

I was already typing out a lame reply when my eyes scanned his text a few more times and I suddenly noticed. I'm going to fucking die— "What the fuck?!" My hand slammed in front of my mouth just a little too late and I heard Aleksia shout something about shouting or whatever the fuck but that didn't matter because he'd send a heart. And not one of those fake-ass colored ones either, with all their confusing meanings no one ever remembered, none of that. Now my heart was going into overdrive and my stomach felt funny. Nothing about it was funny, though. It felt fucking horrible, some swarm of insects racing around my abdomen. Do not recommend. 

Okay. Well, shit. Now I obviously had to reply, and I'd already taken an abnormal amount of time gay-panicking about a fucking heart, so he probably thought I was fucking weird for leaving him on seen for so long. Life is impossible, I swear. But, how do you reply to something like that-?!

Robbie 16:20: groupchat's pure chaos lmao💀

Perfect. Just completely ignore the goddamn thing. How brilliant of me. I was planning to throw my phone away, again, because well— you gotta something. But for some reason, my stomach wouldn't stop feeling weird and fuzzy, like I almost felt guilty for leaving it at that. Okay, maybe not guilty, but just, bad. It felt bad. 

Seth 16:20: haha yep 

Not even two seconds later, a photo began to load on my screen. Once my fucking incapable phone had loaded enough, I felt the corners of my mouth tug up into a grin. The photo was a selfie of laughing Seth, awkwardly angled towards the camera to show Harvey sitting on his shoulder. His glossy eyes and orange little face peeked out from Seth's blond hair like a curtain, pink tongue blooped out on the side of his mouth. Sunlight poured onto Seth's face like liquid gold, specks of warm-white glittering around his Earth-like eyes. It captioned; Harvey wanted to say hi :D

The skin on my face heated up so badly I could physically feel it burn, and unfortunately for me, blaming it on the sun would be downright pathetic. Semi-seethrough curtains were drawn shut to prevent my room from becoming a boiling room and safety hazard, the only wing of sunshine that managed to slip through resting on my brown curls.

And as my fingers hopelessly hovered above my phone, another text popped up. Oh fuck me.

Seth 16:21: my mom's calling me(⊙_⊙;) I gotta  r u n -- byeeee

I —yes, once again, shut up— chuckled at the odd emoji Seth'd used. Then, I don't know what in God's name possessed me to do so but, I reacted with a pink heart to the photo and began to type faster than my brain could keep up with. 

Robbie 16:21: hi harvey:D oh, alright!! bye byeeee ^-^

Then I really tossed my phone away and flopped over into a fetal position on my fluffy white rug. It may have looked so incredibly stupid, yes, but sometimes all you need is to lie on the floor and pray to whoever the fuck is actually up there, cause hell if I know. That is a weirdly phrased sentence, but you get what I mean.

"Should I call an ambulance?"

My eyes shot wide open at the sudden voice, the human instinct to get up and run for my life quickly vanishing once I remembered Aleksia was the only other person in this apartment. And if she wasn't, asking whether one should call an ambulance or not would be a weird thing to say to someone you're about to assault. I groaned, hugging my knees up to my chest for honestly no reason at all. 

I heard a sigh and then a chuckle. "I take that as a no. Then what, are you having your period?"

Wow. With an unimpressed face, I shuffled around until we were facing each other. Aleksia now looked even taller than she already did, slim figure leaning against my door frame with her arms crossed over her chest. She raised a daring brow, waiting for me to explain what the fuck I was doing. 

Chewing at my lip and curled up so much my mouth was pressed against my knees, I glanced at her. God, this is so pathetic. "He sent a heart.." I squeaked out in a muffled voice, temporary death wishes growing stronger with every passing second. 

Say, if the roles had been reversed, would I have been laughing my ass off right now? Yes, very much so. Did that justify Aleksia losing her breath as she clutched at her stomach with laughter? No, absolutely not. I groaned even louder and stretched out all my limbs to lie on my back; probably the straightest position I'd ever be in. 

"Sometimes I can't believe we're related at all," Aleksia sighed with a laugh and a shake of her head, wavy strands of dark brown bouncing around her jawline. "Okay but, what'd you send back?"

Face heating up all over again, I pursed my lips at the still fresh memory. "Uh... nothing-? 

Aleksia's face dropped in disappointment, the kind where you can't even say anything to properly convey your emotions. The bad kind. She inhaled sharply. "Don't tell me you—

"I didn't say nothing!" I hastily cut her off, shifting into a cross-legged position on the rug. This new field of vision made me realize I needed to water the hanging plant right next to the doorframe, its tiny round leaves slowly turning brown and.. crispy, but those were worries for a different time. "I just— didn't exactly react to that." Doesn't make it any better. Racking my brain for some piece of information to make myself look less bad, I remembered the selfie. "A heart! I reacted with a heart to a selfie he sent! His gecko wanted to say hi to me, his name's Harvey, literally the cutest gecko I've ever seen. Such little squishy eyes, it's adorable. Oh and—

"Stop talking. I'm ordering pizza." Eyes focused on her phone screen and fingers with silver rings tapping away on the keyboard, she'd just shushed me. Ouch.

I furrowed my brows. "What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

She glanced up from her phone, eyes flitting down to me with a disinterested glance. "I need to get to a meeting in five minutes. Are you really questioning me right now?"

Well. This could go two ways. Either one of those involved my death one way or another, so might as well take the risky option. I gulped. "Yes."

"I'm ordering pizza. You're gonna have to figure out how the karaoke machine works because I haven't used it in years. It's behind the TV cabinet. I'll be back at around eight, and I'm expecting a full presentation about this mystery boy."

A massive grin took over the muscle control on my face but I didn't mind. Pizza night. "Be careful what you wish for, I'mma whip out a whole-ass PowerPoint with fancy slides and all."

Aleksia grinned too, dark blue heels thudding against the carpet as she began to walk away. "You and I both know you won't!" she called out right before the front door clicked open and then shut with a slam, leaving the whole apartment in an echo of silence. 

Like any sane person, I chuckled to myself. Alone. In an empty room. Yup. Sane person.

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Bit of a shorter chapter here, are we even surprised atp ;-; But uh yeah, yeah...

ANYWAY :D What would we rate Robbie's flirting skills 1-10 🤔Beach date next chapter weeeeee also someone call help for mason plz😔✋

Stay hydrated and cya next Sundayyyy<3