Sequins and Shots - Book Three of the Café Latte Trilogy

Part Three: Chapter 3

Hi loves, hope you enjoy this. Also, I hope you're having a wonderfully spooky autumn <3

Love, Cam

♡

Chapter Three

"Mother of God, it's true."

Everyone looked up, while I tried to discreetly spit out the glitter I'd just accidentally put in my mouth by clapping my hand to it in shock. Ross, looking petulant and hungover, sat down at our table, where we were making Pride banners.

"Shut up," he said, sitting next to Cyri. He looked mildly alarmed and recoiled at the flaming red hair, but I imagined that was mostly due to the hangover. "Morning, Red."

Cyri replied cheerfully, and Ross cringed away from the volume. I went back to my banner-making, but inside I was dying of curiosity. Ross Stone, at a community event? At Pride, of all places? He'd stopped coming years ago, mostly because Ross struggled to be around any massive crowds of happy people, and I suspected partially because it was becoming more of a family event as the years went by, and Ross hated being around families.

Harper nudged me under the table and winked, nodding towards Ross. He was asking Ross about who he was marching with. We all laughed at the notion of Ross, sulky and miserable, holding a banner as he marched with happy smiling faces.

Ross rolled his eyes. "I don't tend to march. I don't mind watching the parade, but it's a bit too cringe-inducing to be a part of. I'm just happy with attending the parties later in the evening."

"Of course it's cringe-inducing," Jasper frowned, looking genuinely confused as to why someone would think it wasn't cringe-inducing. "It's a bunch of people in costumes and glitter shouting terrible rhymes. It's still fun. Even my parents have come to watch."

"Are yours here?" Cyri asked Ross absent-mindedly, while she drew a butterfly in glitter.

Well, that slapped down on the table like a big bucket of water. I inwardly cringed, Harper tensed, Raven winced, and Ross stared at the table as though it held the secrets of the universe.

"Our mother died six months ago," Ross eventually said, the words coming out of him reluctantly. "But I didn't know her or my father, really. I left home when I was sixteen."

Cyri looked as though she would have preferred to sink into the ground and be swallowed whole than deal with this conversation. I couldn't blame her. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Don't worry about it," Ross said, waving my hand dismissively. "I didn't know them. They mean literally nothing to me."

The silence that fell was thick and unwelcoming, especially as it wasn't really silence, just an awkward dome of quiet on our table while everyone around us was merry and loud. Harper shot me a pleading look, and I squared my shoulders. Time for Social Faux Pas Fixer Edward to shine.

"So, Jasper," I said, smiling widely. "You were telling us about what happened to Harry Richmond."

"Oh, yeah," Jasper said, relaxing along with everyone else now that we weren't discussing Ross and Raven's Terrible Parent Situation(TM). "Well, we got called in for a meeting. Louise had told the story from her perspective, and then we all made written statements. Of course, they didn't match up, because Harry is a lying snake."

Ross was suddenly very interested in what I was doing, which I knew was him pretending not to listen to Jasper. I frowned. Louise? Must have been one of the classmates that saw the fight. It was good they had a witness.