The first thing I noticed about the text was the name of the person. The second thing was the details of where they wanted to meet up.

I replied with a quick text of acknowledgement before putting my phone back in my pocket.

I cringed when I realised that I had to gently break the news to Lana that our two would soon become a three.

Chase Andrews was the quarterback and captain of the football team at our school, and he was my current fling. He was popular and cocky and everything that filled the criteria of the cliche football player.

The footballer and I were not confirmed girlfriend and boyfriend or even exclusively dating. We made out and we fooled around. We hung out and we understood each other. I was not interested in entering a relationship with him and he had never shown any interest in entering a relationship with me.

Lana seemed to be admiring the lights of the pier reflecting on the sea when she hummed “Who were you texting?"

I gently delivered "So…Chase is going to meet us on the pier."

"What?" She whined, obviously not jumping up and down with joy at the news "Chase is coming?"

"If you don't want to meet up with then I will ditch him. No questions asked." I assured her sternly before adding humorously "We will pull the period and sore stomach card and run away."

My voice was light-hearted and playful, but I was deadly serious.

She laughed but then her face contorted to confusion when she questioned "Do you even like him, Ella?"

Chase and I had been seeing each other for the two months. I had already known him for a few years prior, but we had just been merely classmates that spoke a few words when passing. I went to one of his parties and we got talking and that was that.

He was nice enough. When I felt alone at my house and when going to Lana's house too often would make her suspicious of my loneliness then he was a place I could go to.

"I know opposites attract and all but is he really boyfriend material for you?" My best friend voiced rhetorically, her tone giving away what she really thought.

Not knowing how to answer the liking him part of her question, I mustered up a weak reply “I don't want a boyfriend."

Lana frowned before softly explaining "I just think that you need somebody that challenges you."

"You were the one that kept pushing me and him together." I noted.

"Yeah, but that was way before we got to know him." Her nose crinkled a little in the middle as she spoke "He is so full of himself."

I could see the flashbacks of encounters with him whizz around in her brain. The one where he punched a guy on the football field in gym class. The time he got expelled for peeing into a Starbucks cup at the back of the class. The one time he got drunk, and strip teased the whole school at a party.