The Bluest of Eyes

Chapter two

Magnolia Café had long been the hangout place for Kenzie and her friends. They’d meet up for lunch to gossip and catch up. The last few meet ups had been even more special as they would be the last they’d have for a long while. The group of four friends would split up come autumn, when they all set away to new adventures. Three of them were going away to college, while Kenzie would be left behind in Austin.

While she had always been a good student, there was nothing that particularly thrilled her about going away to college and spending an additional four years studying. She had made the decision to take a sabbatical year and figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Her parents hadn’t exactly been supportive, but agreed to leave the arrangements like that if she found herself a job. Said and done, she had found herself a job as a barista at Starbucks and oddly enough, she was looking forward to her employment.

“As much as I’m going to hate to leave all of you behind, I think this burger might be what I’ll miss the most from Texas,” Courtney Adams stated with a smirk and took a bite of the bacon swiss burger she had ordered. She was going off to New York to study fashion at Parsons, a lifelong dream that the brunette had managed to achieve. “They don’t make burgers like these up north.”

“They don’t eat at all up north,” a short girl put in and snickered. Lily – nobody ever called her Lilian, which was her actual name – was going to attend UTA. While she was still in the state, she’d be over 3 hours away by car, so Kenzie and she wouldn’t have many opportunities to see each other once she had settled in on campus.

A third girl, Nicole, nodded in agreement. “All they have is Starbucks coffee. No offence, Kenzie. I know you have to be loyal towards them now that you’re going to be working there.”

“Excuse me, you’re going to Paris! They eat snails and frog legs there. Starbucks coffee is like heaven in comparison to that,” Kenzie remarked and the girls laughed.

The cafe had music playing in the background on mid-volume, and Lily squeaked when a familiar song started playing – Love you twice as much.

“I love this song!” she exclaimed and started to hum along.

“You think he’s hot.” Nicole stated and rolled her eyes.

“Doesn’t mean that the song’s not good, now does it?” Lily retorted and shook her head. Suddenly, she gasped and looked at Kenzie, who was sat right next to her. “You know what I heard? They’re holding a singing contest and the winner gets to record a duet with him. You should totally join it!”

Kenzie looked at her friend with bewilderment.

“And then you can introduce him to me, and we’ll get married and live happily ever after. You’ll be made godmother of our kids. You know, as a sign of gratitude,” Lily continued frantically.

“Erh… No.”

“But Ke-“

“No.”

It had only been a week since her audition fiasco, and Kenzie was still in the ‘I never want to talk about singing ever again’ mindset. Frankly, at this point she was ready to give it up altogether. Her mother’s encouragement had made sense at the time, but the minute that people started to call her and ask her about how she had done and she had to own up to screwing up, things didn’t quite look as bright as they momentarily had in the car.

Kenzie saw that her harsh reply had left her friend disappointed, so she turned towards her with an amicable look.

“Sorry Lily, but I’m sort of done with it.”

“Singing?” Courtney inquired, quite surprised by the statement.

Kenzie nodded.

“That’s stupid, Kenz,” Nicole commented ungraciously.

The blonde shrugged her shoulders.

“Whatever. If I was really meant to do this I wouldn’t have made a fool out of myself at th-“

“The Idol audition,” her friends completed her sentence in sync. They, much like her family, had done their best to be supportive, but Kenzie was keen on continuing her ‘woe is me’ act as long as possible. While they could understand her disappointment, they were getting fed up with her wallowing.

“Just give it one more try. Think about it – that audition was the first time you sang competitively; of course you’re going to be really nervous,” Lily started and was accompanied with the pep talk by the other two.

“Exactly,” Courtney continued. “Now you’ve got more experience and you can work on your nerves so it doesn’t happen again.”

“Besides, you’d win easily.” Nicole finished.

“Guys… I don’t know,” Kenzie thought out loud and bit her lip. She then looked at Lily. “When is it?” She asked, apparently giving it a second thought, much to the happiness of her girlfriends.

“Next week on Saturday.”

“I’m probably going to regret this, but… Fine. I’ll do it!”

Kenzie couldn’t tell if the excitement that ensued was because they had managed to talk her into it, or because they saw their chance of getting to meet Colton Arden and act like complete fan girls around him.

Well, she had a pretty good idea, and it wasn’t the former.