Choosing Home

Chapter Fifty Seven

Hadie couldn't help but smile as he rode through the horse pasture over at Charmington castle, Alexandria riding past on her palomino and gold horse. Sure he didn't have a horse of his own, but Chad had been happy to load him his horse Arthur for the day.

Chad's certainly changed a lot since he was at Auradon Prep, Hadie thought. Though it was for the better—after all Chad had been the one to teach him how to ride a horse a couple of years back. Jay was off at college before getting scooped by the Auradon Lions Tourney team, Ben was doing his kingly duties...and Harry was caught in the 'honeymoon' phase of his relationship with Uma.

As great as the death of the denial had been, that didn't mean Hadie wanted to be around his surrogate brother while he was being all...Hadie couldn't even think of the right word to describe how Harry had been acting. Maybe annoying but that just fit Harry in an every day situation.

Not to mention Gil was just as...maybe cutesy was the right word to describe the way the two boys acted with their girls but that didn't fit VKs. Though it did fit the way Gil acted with Macaria.

Honestly, I swear that boy's about two seconds away from proposing, Hadie thought with a small snort. No one knew exactly how the two of them became a thing and at this point, Hadie was scared to ask.

"Whoa! Easy Mirabelle," Alexandria said, grinning as she slowed from a gallop to a trot, trying to keep her horse so that she was at the same pace as Hadie. "You've got something on your mind, Hads? You're quiet."

"Just thinking," Hadie told her. "Not to mention I'm more focused on not falling off the horse."

"Chad wouldn't have lent you Arthur if he thought that he'd make it so you'd fall off," Alexandria said. "Arthur's so well behaved, especially recently now that Chad bought Ginny Gwen."

"Can you really call a gift given a year ago a recent one?" Hadie asked.

Alexandria giggled. "Oh hush. Arthur's the tamest of the four of our horses, probably the one that matches his temperament is Mirabelle. Though I figured you wouldn't want to share a horse, would you?"

"Not with the way you gallop," Hadie told her.

"Don't tell me the big bad VK is frightened?" Alexandria teased with a small chuckle.

Hadie shook his head. "Oh please, the way you ride a horse should come with a disclaimer. Riders accompanying the Princess who holds these reins may end up meeting Lord Hades before they're ready."

Alexandria stuck her tongue out at him and Hadie chuckled. They'd been friends long enough that they could tease each other and still know that they were friends in the end. Honestly it was almost like the report he had with CJ or Celia or Dizzy.

Sura was nice to hang out with but the daughter of Stromboli wasn't exactly on Hadie's 'tease and stay friends' list. Plus she still preferred to stick to Quinn above all others.

Evan Fitzherbert was great as the son of a former thief, same with Ashaki though as a daughter, since they both got the fact that not everyone would have the same leaning toward morals as people in Auradon would. In fact, when Hadie first got to Auradon, he'd started a pick pocketing competition with Evan.

Or maybe it was Evan who started it. Either way, there was a competition that Hadie swore still went on to this day.

Herkie and Melody were probably two of Hadie's favorites of the small group of friends, though if he said that, people would probably assume it was because they were family. And yes there were some benefits to being friends with family.