The Trouble-Makers

The next few days at school were, to sum it all up, odd. Zack often took it upon himself to go out of his way to talk to us; and not just me, but all of us. He even walked up to Alex once to start a conversation. The boys were all pretty annoyed and tense about the entire situation, but I tried to stress to them that Zack was just trying to be nice. And, from what I could tell, even the clique weren't happy with his actions lately. Nicki even started sending me the nasty text messages again, but not as often.

In the boys, I could see them growing easier with Zack around. Even Alex. Of course, they didn't trust him, not even in the slightest, but it was a start. They would talk to him back, but I knew in a heartbeat they'd still throw him under the bus if a situation sprang up. But, really, this was all I could ask for right now.

A hand fell onto my shoulder as I felt someone pull me back towards them. Automatically, I assumed it was Alex, but I was surprised to find it was Jack speaking above me. "Someones making eyes at you," he said quietly down to me.

"Yeah, I know," I told him, taking a step away from him. It was after school and the boys decided to ditch English again, but this time I stayed in class. I wasn't in the mood to screw around with them and all I wanted to do was sleep - which is exactly what I did in that class.

"Does she think she's not being obvious?" Jaime asked, walking up on the other side of me. I shut my locker door to turn around. Jack had already stepped to the side, and this time I faced the criminal head on now: Nicki. She ignored me the entire time in class today, which I was thankful for, but now she was standing with a group of people and was making eyes at me.

"I don't know, but I don't like that look on her face," I spoke and the aggressive tone shocked even me.

"Princess is on the hunt," Jack joked.

"Why don't you go over there and wipe the look off her face?" Jaime asked. It was meant to be joking, but I knew the offer was serious. He had yet to see me in an actual fight, and I always did my best to avoid them.

"Nah, I'm good. As long as she doesn't screw with us, I don't have anything to say to her."

"I do," Jack said, holding up a hand and flipping her off.

Nicki's face flared up and we all started laughing, walking slash partially jogging away from the scene. I couldn't believe at the start of this school year I used to hate these guys.

***

"I don't like this," Mike said from the backseat. "I don't think we should go."

"Right there with you," Alex murmured, and I punched his arm.

"We're already almost there and I'm sure the rest of the guys are already there," I told them firmly. Today Zack invited us to his house after school, and since all the guys were so shocked they didn't say anything, I agreed for them. I admit, though, even I was shocked by the invite. But, I had faith in him that he wouldn't do anything stupid.

Alex pouted and rubbed where I punched his arm, and I chuckled. As we pulled up to Zack's street, I pointed to which big house was his.

"I know which ones his," Alex said, playfully smacking my hand away.

"How do you know?" I asked as he pulled over to the curb, right behind Jack's car.

"We egged his house once," he explained. I gasped but Mike started cracking up at that.

"You can't be serious," I told him.

"Totally," Alex said, all of us walking out of the car at once to meet up with the boys in front of us.

"Why are we here," Jaime pouted quietly.

"Ask princess," Jack said, leaning back on the side of his car.

"Well, none of you were saying anything to it and it was a nice gesture," I defended myself.

"He better not pull anything funny," Alex said, hooking an arm around my waist and pulling me close to him. He was always extra clingy to me when Zack was around, as if to show it to Zack that I wasn't his anymore.

I smirked up at him, shrugging my shoulders. "I guess we won't know until we actually go up to his house." All the boys were quiet at that, watching me. I huffed, furrowing my eyebrows at them. "Fine, I'll go first."

***

"No, no, no, over there! In the corner! Kill him!" Jack shouted as he leaned forward in his chair. Him and Zack were currently playing a round of Call Of Duty. And this is how this night went; all the boys playing video games. I was never much of a gamer, so I declined any offer they gave me to play, but I was happy to see the boys bonding over this.

"I got him!" Zack called back, making his player chuck a grenade into a room.

Mike and Rian were sitting beside them, waiting for their turn, and giving out their own advice on what to do with the situation. Since I've only really played this game once when I was visiting my aunt with my cousin, I tuned them all out. Alex was the most reluctant to play the games, but he did hitch in every now and then to play.

"I think the boys are bonding." Jaime snickered at that, sitting down on the other side of me. Alex and I had sat a few feet away from the group, watching them or talking about random things.

"Are you kidding? Give Jack his worst enemy and sit him down with a video game and they'll become best friends by the time the games ended," Alex said through a smile.

"What do you guys think of him?" I asked, my head resting against Alex's chest.

Jaime shrugged his shoulders. "Definitely not as bad as I thought he'd be. I mean, I never had a beef with him before; it was always Kellin or some other douche in his group."

"I still don't trust him," Alex muttered quietly.

"Same, but at least he doesn't seem that half bad of a dude," Jaime agreed. "But we still need to watch what we say when we're around him."

I lifted an eyebrow at that.

"He could feed information to the clique about us, so we can't trust him yet," Alex explained.

I nodded my head. "I have to admit, I can't believe you guys are already this close with him. I thought you guys burnt down all your bridges with anyone related to the clique."

Alex chuckled at that, and Jaime stood up to go join the boys, as if already knowing Alex and I were about to do 'couple' things. "Yeah, well, that all changed with you."

Notes

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