His thumb under my chin gently forces my head up to look at him. “Still, we should be careful, just in case. I’m not going to let him hurt you.”

“I know,” I reply, genuinely meaning it.

Today was so nice, Aiden and me just being ourselves without having to worry about drama or other issues. I want to get back to that. I need to get back to that. It might be my fault, because I did ask him about it, but he would’ve told me eventually. I’m making a promise to myself, right now, that I’m going to live out our remaining time together as normally as possible before I’m forced to move and we have to switch to long distance. I’m going to be with Aiden like a normal teenager and I’ll be damned if I let Aiden’s father ruin that.

5

Noah was not joking about throwing Aiden a huge party at his house. Even though people are mostly intimidated by Aiden, there are a lot of people here.

Noah somehow convinced his parents to go on a romantic three-day stay at some fancy hotel a few hours away, so he transformed his house into the ultimate place to be on a Friday night. Earlier today, Annalisa, Charlotte, and I threw streamers and balloons all over the place to make it more festive, and the guys were in charge of setting up the keg. Chase got one of the guys from school to bring his equipment and DJ the party for us, and now the music is so loud the walls are practically vibrating. Everyone here is someone that we (or at least the Boys) know; we’re all talking, hanging out, drinking, and dancing, and there has been a total of zero party crashers. So much more fun than the last party we all attended.

Aiden’s not really a drinker but he’s having fun hanging out and talking to people. The moment he catches me staring from the other side of the room, he shoots me an arrogant wink. I roll my eyes even though the sight of him having fun sparks the butterflies. Look at us at a house party, making eyes at each other from across the room like regular teenagers.

Turning my attention back to Charlotte, I throw my hands up in front of my face. “Oh my God! Char!”

“Sorry. Forgot you’re all camera shy.” She puts down her phone and stops recording. “There’s just this new app, S-Live Time, that lets you live stream videos to your followers and save all the videos to your feed! I’m so obsessed with it.”

“Maybe just don’t get me in any videos, okay?”

“Fine.” She exaggerates her sigh. “But you know you’re, like, the weirdest teenage girl ever, right? You’re going to need to get on social media sooner or later.”

“Maybe later,” I reply absentmindedly as my eyes wander over to Aiden, who’s talking animatedly to some guys I don’t recognize.

“Things are really good between the two of you, huh?” Charlotte states more than asks, almost wistfully.