Alex’s POV

Another art class, another day on working on this stupid poster. Rian was the most useless partner ever. You see, he was the math/science kid, while I was the more arty kid. Sure, he could play the drums, but that was about it. He had good grades and actually still cared about school. But he just couldn’t do art. It was getting pretty frustrating.

Luckily, Ash and Lianne were still sitting in the same spot as all the other times. So I could still freely stare at Ash by just looking up. It would just look like I was staring ahead, but I was actually watching the most beautiful girl in the world. At least her partner was also drawing and working on the poster. Rian did his best, but it just didn’t work out. But Ash just looked so cute when she was drawing. Occasionally her hair would fall in front of her face and she’d calmly push it back, not taking her pencil or eyes off the paper. Then she would also sometimes smile after Lianne would say something. Observing this girl was just so amazing.

“You know, maybe we should just print out a picture of Ash and stick it on,” Rian brought me out of my daydream.

“Why would we do that?” I continued drawing the cartoon boy on the left side of the paper.

“Because you were just staring at her for ten minutes straight,” Rian shrugged and watched me doodle.

“So what?” I scoffed.

“Just ask her out already!” He whisper-shouted and nudged me.

I rolled my eyes and started coloring in between the black lines, “well, she doesn’t like me back. So there’s no point.”

“How are you so sure about that?”

“She literally told me. I was even able to tell her how I felt about the whole situation without saying it was about her. I thought it was pretty obvious I was talking about her, but she didn’t seem to notice. She even gave me advice, like what the fuck!”

“So, just follow her advice and see where it takes you,” Rian told me like I hadn’t thought of it myself.

“That’s what I’m doing,” I groaned, not wanting to talk about this anymore.

“So she told you to be a stalker and creep from a distance?”

“No, you dipshit! Start off being friends and then see if I still like her and see if she likes me. After getting to know me better, she might feel the same way.”

“Oh… yeah. I’m pretty sure things will turn out ok. I mean-”

“Wooo! Harper!” The girl with the blush pink hair, and the one with the beautiful dark blonde hair screamed out.

I looked up to see the two girls clapping for their friend who had just entered the classroom to get some art supplies for another class. People around them also looked up and started giggling. It must have been the best entrance Harper had ever made.

The old woman, who was supposed to be our teacher, and who’s name I never could remember, suddenly shouted, “girls, you’re disturbing the class!”

Asha and Lianne immediately stopped and looked at each other, trying their best not to laugh. But their attempt did not really work. They both burst out laughing and the teacher glared at them, saying their names out loud to get them to stop. However, Lianne and Ash had some troubles and would occasionally giggle. They were definitely disturbing the class, but I didn't care. At least I got to see and hear her beautiful laugh again.

Harper got the supplies she needed and walked past her two friends again, but not before giving them a note. Lianne looked at the note while Ash opened it. They were discussing something and looked at me before Ash stood up and walked in my direction. She walked around and behind me, dropping the piece of paper on our poster, before continuing to the pencils and choosing one. I picked it up and quickly opened it.

“What does it say?” Rian said, probably a lot more excited than I was.

“I don’t know!” I fumbled with the paper, “let me unfold it first!”

“Ok,” Rian waited until the writing was visible, “so what does it say?”

“Umm…” I read over the text before I said anything out loud, “Harper’s parents aren’t home, her brother is going to stay at a friend's house, she wants them to come over after school to hang out and to ‘ask Alex and his friends if they want to come as well’.”

“Why would she ask you to come as well? Does she want to sleep with you?” Rian questioned.

“No,” I sighed, knowing this was part of Harper’s ‘master plan’; a plan I knew nothing about, but just knew it existed.

“Did you already sleep with her?”

“Yes, but that’s not why,” I told him without thinking.

“What the fuck!” Rian pushed my side, “when!”

“It was a long time ago,” I shrugged off, not mentioning anything about us apparently almost doing it a second time, “but Harper knows.”

“Knows what?”

“What’s with the questions!” I snapped.

Rian raised his hands up in defense, “I’m just asking.”

“She knows about my, as you like to call it, crush.”

“Oh,” Rian nodded before his eyes went wide with realization, “oooh! That’s why she wants us to come over! Well forget band practice today, we’ll hang out with them. We will catch up with practice tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him skeptically.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “we’ll tell Jack and text Zack later.”

“Ok,” I looked and Ash and Lianne, who were looking at me for an answer. I gave them a thumbs up, getting a grin back from the girl I liked so much.

----
Ash’s POV

After driving past Towson High and picking up Zack, we went to Harper’s house. In case you were wondering, the guys were all driving with Alex, and Lianne and I went with Harper. There were too many people to fit in one car, and Alex and I wouldn’t be able to get to school the next day if we didn’t have a car. Well, unless we wanted to walk, but there was no way Alex would be able to wake up fifteen minutes earlier than normal.

Harper’s house was huge. It was in one of those gated off communities, something you rarely found in Germany. I was used to being in a very large house, but the four guys obviously weren’t. Sure, they had been here before for parties, but the house would be completely packed. Now they nearly had the whole house to themselves.

“Just make yourself at home,” Harper threw her keys on a small table close to the front door, “we’ll go out to the back in a bit.”

“Umm, ok,” Rian seemed so amazed by the size of everything.

I went with Harper to the kitchen to get us some snacks and something to drink. She got out seven beers and gave them all to me. Goosebumps raised as soon as the cool glass touched my skin. It was warm outside, much warmer than what I was used to, and I couldn’t wait to jump into the pool she had in the backyard.

We all went out to the back and sat on the lounge foldable beach chair things they had around the pool. Of course, we first moved them so we would sit closer to each other. I was going to sit down somewhere, but Harper somehow managed to get me to move up all the way to one end so that only Alex was sitting next to me. I was here to hang out with all my friends, not just the guy that I basically spend most of my weeks with because he was literally just a couple of meters away from me.

I handed one of the beers I had put on a plastic table to Alex, “don’t drink too much, you’re my ride home.”

“Oh, so you’re thinking of taking me home, now, are you?” Alex winked before frowning at his beer, “we need a bottle opener.”

I tried getting Harper’s attention, but she kept ignoring me and was talking with the others. They were totally excluding us right now. Why would they do that! I sighed and fell back onto the chair. But I really wanted to drink the beer, believe it or not. After Jack had made me drink tequila, I was totally open for alcohol. If I could handle that, I could handle anything.

I looked around to see if I could find anything to open them with, but there was literally nothing. So what did I do? I just knocked it against the chair, and the cap came off. Alex looked just as surprised as I was. He let out an amused and amazed chuckled and I took his bottle to try it with that one as well.

“Let’s see if I can do it again,” I tried using the same method, and somehow I actually managed to do it a second time.

Alex started hollering and I threw my hands up in the air, letting out a triumphant cry. That definitely suddenly gave me all the attention from the group of friends that were ignoring me just a couple of seconds before. Alex and I were laughing and they were just looking at us with grins on their faces

“What happened?” Jack asked and smirked.

“I just managed to open these two beer bottles on the chair,” I held up my bottle and Alex did the same.

Harper giggled, “you know we have a bottle opener, here, right?”

“Well, you guys were ignoring me, so I didn’t know!”

“Aww, wewe we ignowing wou?” Jack said in a baby voice and pouted.

I glared at him, “yes, and I know you were doing it on purpose because I made eye contact with Rian and Zack, but they didn’t do anything!”

“So upsetting.”

“Did anybody ever tell you that you are really annoying?”

Jack thought for a bit, “yep.”

I rolled my eyes and sat down on the chair. Jack really didn’t understand, did he? Some people might like him, but he can be the most annoying human being ever… if you could even call him a human being. I could swear to god he was an alien or something. That boy just couldn’t be of the same species.

However, sitting back down maybe wasn’t the best idea, because they all started ignoring and excluding me and Alex again. I sighed and looked at him, “I swear to god, it’s like they are forcing me to only talk to you.”

Alex froze up, “haha, yeah… that’s a weird idea.”

I shrugged, not thinking anything of his weird response, “oh well, at least I have someone to talk to.”

“You don’t like talking to me?” Alex frowned and looked at his hands.

I didn’t want him to be upset. For some reason, I actually wanted to be his friend. Hopefully even be good friends. Even though he could be really annoying and awkward, sometimes he would act normal and he was actually really nice. One minute he’d be talking like a normal person and laughing with me, and the next he would stumble over his words. It was pretty confusing, but then again everybody here was pretty confusing.

“No, of course, I do,” I smiled at him, “you know, I’d actually like to be friends, I mean we do have to live in the same house for another while.”

He looked up at me and his eyes twinkled, “really? I’d like to. We do have to be civilized with each other until Christmas, but I like the idea of being good friends a lot more.”

“Until Christmas,’ I nodded and took a sip of my beer.

“Yeah… until Christmas…” Alex looked out over the large garden, zoning out while thinking about something.

“So, how’s the pursuing-the-girl thing going?” I changed the subject, but I was also honestly curious. Alex didn’t seem like the guy to have a crush on somebody, so I wanted to help him as much as I good.

“Good, I guess. We are friends now,” he explained and drank some of the cool bottle of liquid in his hands, “I still like her. Now I just have to see where it all leads to. I don’t think she’s realized it yet.”

“Oh, that really sucks,” I gave him a half smile, “but you still have time. What’s her name?”

“That, I can’t tell you,” he pointed a finger at me with the hand that was holding the beer.

“Awe, come on. Why not?”

“To save myself some dignity,” he laughed.

“I promise I won’t tell anybody,” I nudged, “I also promise I won’t tell the girl.”

“Sorry, no can do.”

“Ugh, fine,” I put my beer on the floor and got up.

“Where are you going?” Alex asked me curiously while squinting because the sun was right behind me.

I took off my shoes, “I am totally wearing the wrong bra for this.”

“What?”

I proceeded to take off my clothes, finally getting the entire group to look at me again. So all a girl has to do to get attention was to take her clothes off. Nice to know. I would never ever do that for attention again. But then again, I wasn’t doing it for attention, I would have actually preferred if nobody was looking at me.

I dove into the water, letting the refreshing water cool down my body. When I went back up for air, everybody was still staring at me. I was nearly about to think I had done something wrong when Harper spoke up.

“Agh, fuck it,” she stood up and started taking off her own clothes, “I’m going in as well.”

In no time everybody was in and I was on Alex’s shoulders. We were splashing Lianne and Jack, who were in a similar position as me and Alex. Alex was tightly holding onto my legs so I would fall off while Lianne and I were trying to push each other. Everything was good fun and caused a lot of giggles.

I could totally get used to being friends with these weirdos.

Notes

Yay, Ash and Alex are friends! But Ash really has no clue that Alex has the biggest crush on her. That must be pretty frustrating, right?

Here's the Zack gif I promised (only the best for you guys, and with a Jack appearance):