Trouble In Paradise

31. "Why do you care?"

"Well, this is great!"

At my words, eight heads turned to give me disbelieving looks. Well, almost eight heads. Mae was sitting beside me so silently, it was as if she were asleep; and knowing her, she probably was.

This was, without a doubt, the tensest ice cream party I had been to. And contrary to my words, this was clearly not great.

Chocolates & Whatnots was a popular ice cream parlour among most of the population of Paradise High. It was conveniently closer to school and the prices weren't over the top either. All in all, everyone loved it.

I had thought that it would take approximately fifteen minutes for all of us to be done- after all, how long could it take nine ice cream-loving teenagers to have ice cream?

Turned out, I was wrong.

For the last seventeen minutes, everyone was staring awkwardly at their ice creams (I was staring at Ethan's ice cream sundae since I'd already finished my ice cream). But Torryn had different definitions of eating ice cream- ones that included staring at Cody. Correction: not staring, trying to transport ice through his glares to Cody, who was sitting opposite Torryn and me.

The coldness in his eyes was sufficient to keep my friends' ice creams from melting. At this point, I was very confused. Why is Torryn glaring at Cody?

"Psst," I leaned into Torryn's side. He didn't reply.

"Hey," I whisper yelled at him. Cody looked up at me and raised his eyebrows. I shook my head, smiling at him.

"Hey," I whispered, "Stop troubling him."

"Stop troubling whom?" He whispered back, not taking his eyes off of Cody who was smiling at me for some reason.

"You know very well, I'm talking about Cody," my voice came out in a harsh whisper. "Now, stop troubling him."

"Why should I?"

"What?" I sputtered, not expecting him to refuse it outright. Everyone glanced at me again.

"What's wrong?" Cody asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

I coughed a little, "Uh nothing, just a piece of chocolate that got stuck in my throat," I lied, smiling my way through it.

"Oh," he nodded and smiled at me again. Then he looked around the table, clearing his throat. And struck up a conversation with Owen about some English homework. He looked very awkward even when talking to Owen and the reason was sitting beside me, enjoying an amazing-looking Belgian chocolate ice cream and simultaneously glaring at him.

"Will you stop?" I whispered again. "This is very rude, Cole."

"And?" He shrugged.

"Urgh, you can't just go glaring at him," I scolded.

"Why do you care?" He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Because he is my friend. And it might come to you as a surprise but I won't let anyone else treat you like that either," I huffed.

"Treat me like what?" He turned a little in his seat, facing me now.

"Glare at you so hard, you start rethinking every decision of your life. Look at the poor bloke," I subtly pointed at a sweating Cody, "He'll die if you keep going like this."

"Good."

"Okay, why do you hate him?" I asked, my face painted in confusion.

"He's annoying," Torryn answered without missing a beat. "He is always smiling," he rolled his eyes and then muttered something that sounded suspiciously like at you under his breath but I shrugged it off as nothing.