Friday, evening

The whole ordeal had caused Noah to avoid Layne as much as he possibly could, and by the time they had to work together on Friday, Layne had dropped the subject of ‘the game’. He was back to his old self, joking around with Patrick, and now even Santino, who had been asked to pick up a shift behind the bar.

With Layne serving, and Santino behind the bar, Noah did have a pretty quite evening in the kitchen, enabling him to finish all dishes earlier than usual. His parents gave him money to spend while going out—Noah really wouldn’t turn his new friends down when they asked him, even if he needed some quite and peace.

He joined Julia and Daphne at the bar, waiting for Santino and Layne to be done with their shift, falling straight into another conversation about Santino and his many wild stories. Or, well, stories others came up with.

“The scar on your feet,” Julia told Santino, gesturing wildly at him. “And don’t tell me you got run over by a train because I’m not a dense idiot.”

Noah instantly snorted, and laughed when Santino pulled a goofy face, entertaining Noah’s father at the same time.

“Do I even want to know?”

“We already concluded his arm wasn’t mangled by a shark, sir,” Daphne said, chuckling along with Julia, “and now we want to know what happened to his foot.”

“What wild stories are being told about it?” Noah asked after grabbing himself a coke, “aside from a train.”

“A satellite crashing to earth,” Julia told him with a shrug, “particles that hit him on his foot.”

“Right,” Noah laughed, shaking his head in disbelief, “who comes up with these stories?”

“I have a theory that Santino feeds these rumors himself, to add to his mysterious persona,” Daphne wisely said, causing them all to laugh.

“Well, San?” Julia encouraged him to tell the real story, “we already know they’re all lies.”

“Do I have to tell? I still haven’t forgotten how you damaged my reputation by spilling the truth about my arm to them,” Santino nodded at Noah, who stared at him amused. “I’ll just give you a tip on the house. If a knife drops, let it drop.”

They all ended up in a fit of laughter, including Noah’s father, who seemed to really like Santino and his stories.

“Did you really try to catch it with your foot?”

“My hands were full, okay?” Santino dryly replied, “and I was eight, so, yeah.”

“Didn’t you break your arm when you were eight?” Julia frowned curiously.

“I said, my hands were full… of cast. Well, one was.”

Noah shook his head, gesturing for Santino to stop talking. His stomach was hurting too much.

“All these real stories are even funnier than the fake ones,” Daphne said while she was trying to catch her breath. “Are there stories behind more recent injuries? Like your fading black eye from last week?”

“I already said I got intimate with a kitchen cabinet,” Santino grumbled, all of the sudden not joking around any longer. He didn’t look up despite the silence that followed, and he probably didn’t mind when Noah’s father told him to help with a bigger order.

After that, there were no funny stories told by Santino. No more debunking crazy stories, no more laughter. Noah spoke with Daphne and Julia for another half an hour, mostly about school and an upcoming test for Biology the three of them were stressing over. But still, it didn’t feel right to Noah that Santino’s mood had switched like night and day.

He just didn’t dare to ask him about it.

And Santino’s mood wasn’t the only one that changed from good to bad in minutes that very night. Once him and Layne were done working, they had gladly used Noah’s offer to take a quick shower at their place before heading over to Sei for a few drinks.

But inside the club, Noah felt himself become more annoyed and—worse—jealous. And for that, he could only blame Karen. She had kept up her promise to Santino to not be as clingy, and apparently that made her more attractive to him. He had been glued to her side for most of the night, and Noah couldn’t help but feel jealous.

He really needed to get his act together, which was why he had decided to text Colin again for some distraction—and flirting—while he tried to entertain himself with his friends. And just because he liked it when Colin liked Julia’s posts on Instagram, he made a few selfies with them and posted them on his own profile.

He didn’t need Santino’s attention to have fun. Seriously, until last week, he really didn’t, so why now?

Colin: having fun?

Noah smirked at his phone, a few minutes after posting, noticing Colin didn’t need much time to like all of them.

Noah: could be even better ;)

“You’re boring,” Julia yelled into his ear, pushing his phone down.

“I’m kinda sick of dancing,” Noah admitted, allowing Julia to drag him towards the bar. “Don’t you guys have another cool place in town to go to? Maybe we can get our hands on some alcohol and just chill.”

“Hmm,” Julia replied, pretending to think hard, “maybe. Why?”

“I don’t know. I feel like going on an adventure.”

“Is it that, or is it the fact you want to throw up every time you see Sonny and Karen? Because if so, you’re not alone.”

“Why would I care what he does with her?”

Julia pulled a face, rolled her eyes and ordered them shots and beer before she turned back to him. “I figured; you want to go on an adventure to be alone with him again afterwards. Like last week.”

“It would’ve been more fun if you and Layne could’ve stayed.”

“Really? So… nothing happened?”

“Why would anything happen? Santino’s with Karen.”

“He wasn’t last week.”

“I’m also a guy.”

“So?”

“So?”

Julia snorted, held up her shot and waited for him to do the same, “cheers.”

“Cheers.”

Noah drank the shot, keeping his eyes on Julia. Had she just admitted that Santino was bisexual? Not with that many words, but she hadn’t denied it either. She had insinuated that it didn’t matter that he was a guy. Still, she told him nothing new. He had known that she knew someone in their group wasn’t straight, and he knew who it was because the guy in question ended up sleeping with him. Still, she didn’t know he knew. And she couldn’t know either.

“So, adventure?”

“Sure, wanna head to Perton hill?”

“The bad neighborhood?”

“Where adventure waits around every corner?”

Noah shrugged, for some reason, he really didn’t care about the consequences in that moment. He just wanted adventure, he just wanted to live a little, and he indeed wanted Santino away from Karen for at least five minutes.

He went to Layne to tell him they were going to Perton Hill, and Julia went to Santino to pry Karen’s ugly fingers off him and take him with her. They met outside, where Karen was following shortly after them.

“Seriously?” Karen said, stopping Santino from walking further down the street, “you’re leaving? I thought you would go home with me.”

“Who says I’ll be out for long?” Santino replied, pulling her in his arms, pecking a kiss on her cheek, “but you hate the smell of weed and we’re just gonna go for a quick smoke around the corner. I’ll be right back.”

“Can you just not smoke?”

“No, and you know what happened last week, when you acted like I couldn’t go out for five fucking minutes. I’ll see you back inside, okay?”

Karen sucked in her breath, allowed him to kiss her and watched him walk back to them with narrow eyes. She was mainly staring at Noah, who nervously shuffled a foot. She seemed to want to kill him on the spot. Thank god for him looks couldn’t actually kill. But seriously, he really wanted to know why she disliked him as much as she did. Unless she knew what actually happened last week, there was no reason for her to hate him. He had been kind, polite, and mostly silent in her presence. To make himself feel a little better, Noah just told himself that Santino had just straight up lied to her, to go on an adventure with them.

At least he still preferred them over her.