No Hard Feelings

seven

S E V E N

"WILL THESE BE enough?" Hadley asks Sadie, eyeing the packs of marshmallow and graham crackers littering the counter top.

She tries to make a mental calculation, wondering how many s'mores Dexter and Colin can shovel into their mouths before one of them dies of diabetes. She isn't quite certain she bought enough for all of them.

"Don't worry much about it," Sadie says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "We have pizza, and I'm sure Aanya's bringing more food than necessary. Again."

"You're right," Hadley concedes. She gives the stack of marshmallows another wary glance before finally stowing them in a larger plastic bag, grabbing some of their own shop's chocolate bars to bring with them too.

The door opens and Hadley looks up to see Colin. There's a pinched look on his face and his eyes look around the shop first before zeroing in on Sadie. Hadley raises a brow when she sees the smile on Sadie's face as Colin marches towards them, his strides quick and purposeful.

He stops when he's near enough, and only when he raises the CD case does Hadley bite her lower lip to suppress a laugh, taking a small, precautionary step back.

"What," he practically seethes out, "the fuck is this?"

Sadie gives him a look of mock remorse. "I'm sorry. I honestly thought it was your CD I'd sat on and broke."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

"Well, it's not like you checked either," Sadie points out. "I mean, I know you're not the brightest crayon in the box but..."

"I'm not what?"

"Oh, it's a figure of speech, honey. It means—"

"I know what it means," he nearly growls. "Well, news flash, 'honey'. I got into the same college as you."

Sadie flashes him a sickly sweet smile. "Aren't you just excited? All those days we'll be spending comparing notes, pairing up for assignments, doing homework in the library."

Colin pulls back and gives Sadie one last sour look before turning away, leaning back against the counter with a prominent glower on his face.

Sadie gives Hadley a satisfied look, to which she replies with a smile and a shake of her head. She has long given up on trying to understand why, exactly, Sadie enjoys pissing Colin off this much, but she'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy it.

Colin busies himself with some game on his phone, seemingly intent on ignoring Sadie and, apparently, Hadley, so the two girls just continue double-checking the things they'll be bringing to the beach with them.

Dexter left a while ago to buy some pizza and they're waiting for him to come back and for Aanya to arrive (most likely bringing enough snacks to feed a whole army).

They almost always usually meet up at the shop whenever they go out in groups. They say it's because it's close to everything else, but Hadley suspects it's actually because they're looking to get some free candy from her father (which, of course, he'd enthusiastically provided before he and Mom left a couple minutes ago).

Taylor hasn't come home since yesterday. He spends Fridays with his friends and Saturday mornings nursing a hangover. Not that Hadley's complaining. In the two weeks he's been back, she's quickly beginning to remember why she'd looked forward to him moving out for college.