Every Part Of Us

3. Play nice

"Can we stop?" Evan pleaded.

I'd tuned the couple out for as long as I could. I'd almost immediately regretted carpooling with them because it'd been mostly bickering so far. Evan seemed intent on pushing all Jakes buttons and usually that was my favorite pastime but today there was a feeling of uneasiness that I couldn't escape.

The trip to Connor's house was making me stressed and the arguing wasn't helping.

"How many times do I have to tell you no before you actually listen to me?" Jake sighed.

"You can keep saying it but that doesn't mean I'll stop asking."

"How come you only seem to listen to me when your dick is out?"

"Guys that's gross please talk about your dicks when I'm not here." I interrupted whatever foreplay was happening right now.

"I'm hungry," Evan complained.

"We don't have time to stop again we are already ten minutes behind schedule." Jake reasoned but it was only reasonable to him.

We were on track to get to Connor's house well before the graduation party. We could probably go out to eat for lunch and eat like snails and still make it on time to the party. Evan and I had tried to get rid of Jakes planners and the various schedules too many times. So far nothing had worked. He loosened up a little bit when it came to Evan but not nearly enough.

"You're really going to let me starve just to stick to your schedule?" Evan turned to his boyfriend with the fakest pout I'd ever seen.

"You're not starving I stopped twenty minutes ago."

"Yeah but I only got a soda and some chips, I need some real food."

Before Evan Jake would never have stopped even once but now I could see him start to cave. It was one of the reasons regardless of my personal feelings about Evan I would always support the two of them. Evan was good for Jake and it made me happy to see him let himself have some fun.

"Nothing too messy or I'm making you clean my car when we get home." Jake relented.

"But you're so much better at cleaning than I am." Evan complained.

"Stop whining you're getting what you want." Jake said.

"What are you going to do if I don't?"

"I-,"

"Before you finish that sentence please consider that I'm still here and can hear everything you say." I cut my friend off.

I was seriously regretting carpooling with the two of them. Luckily my phone buzzed with a text so I had something else to distract myself with instead of listening to the couple any longer.

Sasha- reunited at last

Attached was a video of Connor running at Nico, Sasha's boyfriend, trying to give him a hug. It went about as well as I expected it would. The second Connor got semi close to Nico he shoved him away causing Connor to fall on his ass. Connor was laughing the whole time and even if he tried to deny it I could see the smile Nico was trying to hide.

It'd been too long since I'd seen my college roommates and teammates. We spent four years together and then now that we all graduated and split back up we saw each other less. We kept in contact and I knew they met up with each other a lot more than I did with them.

I wasn't good at that and I knew I needed to work on that before I actually ended up alone. At least I'd always have Jake, even when I tried to get rid of him it never seemed to work. But this graduation party was the perfect time to set things back in motion and make sure I didn't lose the friendships I'd worked so hard to build.

We pulled into a McDonald's and the second we parked Evan was out of the car hurrying in to get something to eat. When Jake took his time giving me one too many glances I already knew what was coming.

"Do I even need to say it?" He asked once I got out of the car.

"Don't you get tired of this speech?" I avoided.

"If you learned how to not be an ass I wouldn't have to keep saying it."

"I'll learn to not be an ass when you learn to stop scheduling your whole life." I fired back.

"Please just play nice, it's Connor's day and he doesn't need you being a jerk and ruining it. He's come a long way so put a smile on and play nice."

"A smile? What's that?"

Jake rolled his eyes and reached out using his hands to lift my cheeks and make it look like I was smiling.

"You going to do this all afternoon?" I questioned.

"No just for a minute and hope your face gets stuck like this long enough so it looks like you actually want to be here."

"I'll play nice, you know I am capable of being a decent human being." I knocked his hands away from my face.

"Really? Is that something you learned recently?"

"Fuck off." I shoved him playfully and walked into the McDonald's.

I could play nice and be friendly. It wasn't something that came easily but I could do it. I hated meeting new people or being in situations where there was a lot of people. Having to lead a conversation made my stomach hurt. I was always uncomfortable at these things and when I was uncomfortable all of the wrong things seemed to come out of my mouth.

I had somehow missed when everyone learned how to have regular conversations with others. I froze and blurted out whatever was in my head and sometimes those thoughts weren't things you should say to someone.

People had filters for a reason and mine seemed to be faulty. Jake had learned to deal with it a long time ago but first impressions mattered and I didn't seem to know how to make a good one. Trying to make friends was hard.

But every time Jake pulled me aside and told me to be nice I did try to listen to him. I did my best and that was all I could do.

A/n:

I have some stuff going on in my personal life that's been really making it hard to feel motivated to do anything. I've been dealing with a lot of work stress and now I've got personal issues on top of that. It's just a lot right now. But I'm going on a little trip this weekend to see my best friend so hopefully that will help get my mind off some things for a bit.

I'm going to keep trying to stay caught up with my chapters because I do want to get this story out to you. I want you all to be able to continue to get to know these two characters and grow to love them as much as I do,

Anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

-Cora Leigh