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19 | chill that you're in my head

The next day, for quite some time, Soler and I didn't speak, just like the previous day. I simply discussed the case with Miranda and found him doing the same thing a couple of times.

But the guilt was eating away at me nonetheless. Miranda was right. If it had been any other situation, I wouldn't have been the least bit bothered that Soler was angry or hurt with me, but this was different.

Here, I clearly knew he'd done nothing wrong, and I'd been the one to go out of line. I mean, it probably wasn't that much of a big deal, but I absolutely hated feeling guilty about anything. I didn't like any guilty conscience weighing down on me.

So I decided that I should apologise to him and make things go back to the way they were. Where we hated and mildly tolerated each other instead of having this unwanted tension and guilt between us.

Later that evening, I took a deep breath and walked over to Soler's room. After rapping twice on the door, I heard his footsteps approaching before he opened it.

He froze on seeing me, his look turning cold instantly. "What are you doing here?"

I held out the plate I'd been carrying to him. "Ceasefire?"

He looked down at my plate. It contained some choco chip cookies, which I'd taken from Miranda (bless her for having those in abundant supply).

He looked back up at me and gave me a deadpan look. "Seriously? You're trying to win me over with cookies?"

"Don't flatter yourself, I'm not trying to win you over. I just...I realised it was wrong of me to lose my shit at you when you didn't have anything to do with it, so this is me coming to say sorry and offer some cookies as a peace offering. Or ceasefire. That seems more appropriate, considering you never know when we'll declare war on each other next." I was rambling, I didn't know why.

He caught me by surprise when he cracked a half smile at that. "That's true. I can never really tell with you, when you're going to do something to piss me off next."

"Hey! It's not just me, you're not a saint either."

He smirked. "See? You're already getting ready to start our next fight."

I glared at him. "You just did this on purpose, didn't you? You little shit."

This time, he laughed. Like a genuine laugh. Somehow, the sound of it made me smile, I don't know why.

"Come on in, I don't want you standing at my doorway the entire time," he said, beckoning me to close the door behind me.

I took a seat on the small couch as he began eating the cookies, without sparing so much as a glance at me.

"You're really gonna eat those cookies in front of me and not give me a single one?"

He looked up, his mouth full and cheeks puffed up. "Yep. I don't share," he said, matter-of-factly.

He looks cute this way. Wait what? No! Ew!

I mentally yelled at my brain to get rid of these ridiculous thoughts. What was coming over me now? Why was I suddenly finding him "cute" and liking the sound of his laugh? This was just disgusting on so many levels.

Outwardly, I didn't let him know what was going on in my mind. I simply held up my middle finger, something which I did very often with him.

He flipped me off too and returned to his cookies. I decided he'd received enough of an apology, so I got up to leave.

"Alright, I'm leaving. If you're gorging on those cookies like this and behaving normally with me, I'm assuming we've moved past yesterday's incident?"

He shot me an amused look. "You technically still didn't say sorry."

I looked at him in incredulity. "I literally got cookies for you and admitted my mistake! What more do you want, asshole?"

"Say sorry, I'd love to hear that at least once from you." He shrugged.

I shot daggers at him. "You're doing this just to see me suffer, aren't you?"

He smirked. "Say what you will, I don't give a shit. Now say sorry."

After giving him one last death-glare, I gave in. "Soler, I'm sorry for being rude to you yesterday. I shouldn't have said all those things. But you're still an asshole, and I'm not sorry for saying that. Happy now?"

He grinned. "Very. Now you may leave. Dismissed."

"Ha. Ha. Very funny."

He waved me off, as I exited his room and went back to my own. Somehow, even though he messed with me and I had to apologise to him for the first time in my life, I felt weirdly...happy about the whole thing. And also relieved.

Like a weight had been lifted off my chest.

I quickly texted Miranda to thank her for putting up with our fights and let her know I'd fixed things with Soler, that there would be no more awkwardness within our group.

At least for now.