Fly Like A Hawk

Chapter 45 - Broken Friendships

I woke up that weekend with a text on my phone, "Meet me at Golf'N'Stuff. 7pm." I rolled my eyes, rolling over in my bed and putting my phone back down on the bedside table. This was really it, the last chance that I was gonna give Eli before it was over. I rolled out of bed and got dressed into some comfortable clothes, sliding into my desk chair and spinning once before opening my laptop. I had three assignments due next week and I wasn't going to get a bad grade because of a guy.

I spent the rest of the morning completing them, marking off one after the other then ventured out into the garden to see what mom was doing. She'd been gardening a lot in her free time and today was her day off. I found her planting bulbs into pots and assisted her for a little while before heading back inside and finishing my chores. I tidied my room, vacuumed and hung up the fresh washing that mom had left out for me to put away. By that time, I'd passed the whole day on without much effort, my phone pinged, alerting me to a new message. "Please come." It was Eli again, begging me to go join him at a crumby mini golf course from the 80's. I looked round my room at the neatly organised objects then snatched up my phone, "Fine. But you better be on best behaviour." As soon as I sent it I got to work, digging out some clothes that I thought would be perfect and changing almost immediately. I grabbed my jacket and set of for Golf'N'Stuff.

When I arrived I saw Hawk's motorcycle in the car park, parked in line with a few others. I sighed, letting the hope that tonight would be just us two slip away with my expectations of the night. I scanned the car park and saw Chris' small red car parked in one of the staff places before shaking my head at my stupidity, this wasn't a romantic gesture, this was payback for Cobra Kai and I had been stupid enough to think that Eli had changed. However, I didn't feel like going home, not yet so I humoured him and went inside, pushing through the glass double doors and entering the multicoloured arcade.

Hawk was sitting at one of the tables with his Cobra Kai friends when I arrived, there was a pile of tickets from the game machines stacked in front of them. "Hey." He called, waving them over as I took a deep breath.

"Hey."

"Your just in time."

"For what?"

"We're gonna spend all these tickets." He gestured to the mound of paper.

"Come on, Eli. I bet you didn't even win these, you probably stole them." He frowned, acting hurt by my words.

"Of course we didn't, we won them like honest gentlemen." I shook my head and attempted a smile.

"Whatever, can we just get on with whatever you've got planned." I looked over at Mitch, who was greedily riffling through the tickets and sighed, "Plus I know that Chris works here, if this is just some cheap stunt to get back at them then you can count me out."

"No. That's not what this is, we won these fair and square, we're gonna hand them over and get our prizes." I knew that there was a catch but I couldn't be bothered to fight this argument again.

"Fine, alright, come on then." I held a hand out in the direction of the prize booth and watched as Hawk smiled excitedly, he had a devilish glint in his eye that I still didn't trust.

"After you." I rolled my eyes and led the way, stalking across the arcade while his friends followed with the tickets.

"Hey, prize wench." Mitch chimed as we saw Chris behind the counter, he looked at me and shook his head. I tried my best to apologise to him with my eyes.

"What do you guys want?" Chris asked, looking between all of us.

"Why to spend our hard earned tickets, of course. Why don't you be a good girl and grab us a bobble head." I watched as Chris rolled his eyes then headed down the prize counter to get what Hawk had asked for. Hawk moved quicker though, snatching as many soft toys as he could from the plush section and throwing them across to Mitch, Chris turned and ran back at him, but not fast enough to catch him as he selected one more and leapt the counter once more. He grabbed my hand and raced after the others, dragging me along with him.