CHAPTER 9 - Crushing

The next day, a little past noon, saw a group congregating in the backyard of the Bishops’ house under a rather bright sun. Zack, Thea, and Chloe were discussing the events of the past day. The young man and the blonde were sitting on a loveseat, his arm around her shoulder, as the redhead wanted to giggle every time she looked at her closest friends tangled up with one another. It would be her normal reaction, but looking at Zack meant recalling the memory of their parents fucking each other in a threesome, and she didn’t want to give any hints that something had indeed happened.

Maybe as the days and weeks passed, she would be able to come to terms with what she saw, Chloe figured.

“So, yeah, as you can see…,” Thea grinned while motioning at herself and Zachary. “Our mission was a total failure, but we ended up doing something way more interesting.”

“Yeah,” Chloe let out a quick chuckle. “I suppose that saves me one ‘if you hurt my friend, I hurt you’ speech, doesn’t it? Can threaten you both at once.”

Zack smiled and scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. “Hey, we’re just fooling around. Thea will be gone at the end of the month, so it’s not serious,” he told his old friend. “So, Thea said that Cody told her you were checking something last night, Chlo? What happened?”

“Oh,” the redhead blinked twice, taken aback at the question. The memory still made her incredibly horny, so she didn’t trust herself not to spill it if pressed for more information. “It was nothing. I just saw your mom coming to my house, but they were just having dinner. My mom was there and all. Sooo…, your suspicions were all wrong,” she forced a smile to help mask the lie.

“Alright, so we were possibly wrong on all accounts, then?” Zack said, his gaze shifting to the ceiling over the deck as a thoughtful expression took over his features. “Taylor told me she came clean to Dean and he promised the camera wasn’t with him.”

“If you wanna do a stakeout of Mr. Reed’s house again, I’d be happy to accompany you,” Thea winked suggestively at the younger boy.

“Dammit,” Chloe groaned, causing the other two to laugh. “Don’t do that in front of me, please.”

Zack smiled at his best friend, but before he could comment on a potential redux of their operation on Eric Reed, a head popped up above the fence separating his backyard from the McRoses’ one.

“Hey, guys!” A grinning Holly McRose, back from the sleepover with her friends, called out to them. “Can I come in?”

“Oh, sure! Get in here, Hols!” Zack smiled back, waving at her.

The 17-year-old excitedly made her way around her house to the side gate of her neighbors’ house and stepped into their backyard. The happiness she felt died abruptly when she turned the corner and saw the way Zack and Althea were sitting together, like a sword being violently run through her chest.

I knew it! I fucking knew they were gonna hook up last night! Tears stung her sky-blue eyes, but Holly bravely held them back, taking a deep breath. The enthusiasm and the color in her whole demeanor, though, were gone.

“Hey, there,” Zack greeted. “Back from the sleepover?”

“Yeah, Mrs. Zimmer picked us up,” she droned, sitting on a chair across the table from Chloe. Her right foot began tapping on the deck as her fingers fidgeted. She wanted to run out of there, as fast as she could, anything not to see her sister’s friend cozying up to Zack with Orion playing on their laps, but it would draw too much attention and raise too many questions. “So, what happened? I can see a new development.”

Chloe and Thea raised an eyebrow, Holly could be a little abrasive at times, but never sad. The younger redhead looked almost… broken, for some reason. Thea had a strong suspicion about what was behind it, and she almost disentangled herself from Zack because of it, but figured that her lack of a motive for that would only out the feelings she suspected Holly harbored for her older sister’s best friend, so she kept her mouth shut. Chloe was none the wiser, though.

“Never mind that, did something happen to you?” The older ginger inquired, worried about her sister. “You’re looking dead.”

“Did you and Indigo or any of the other girls have a fight?” Zack pressed, starting to get worried himself. He had always felt protective over Holly. Back when he lived in Azure Rocks the first time and now, since his return.

“No, stop that!” Holly retorted, annoyance creeping into her voice. “And I asked first, what happened last night?”

“We didn’t find anything, neither of us,” Thea jumped in before Zack could try and explain their new relationship to the younger girl. There was no need to rub salt to the wound. She had experienced crushes that didn’t pan out before and knew how gut-wrenchingly painful it could feel.

“So now what?” Holly asked, trying to force a smile.

Zachary let out a long sigh. “Now I’m going to the police.”

“Zack, are you really sure about this?” Chloe was the one who asked.

“I’m done, okay, Chlo?” Zack replied, a little firmer than he wanted, but thinking about their neighbors lying to him was driving the young man insane. “Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, I’m driving to the ARPD. End of story.”

A silence fell over the four teenagers and the black kitten as he frantically moved his paws in the air on his human’s lap. No one seemed to want to say anything for a few moments, until a serious sentence came out of Holly’s lips.

“You won’t need to do that,” she said, lifting her gaze toward her crush’s dreamy icy-blue eyes.

“No, Holly, we’ve been over this,” he said, as gently as he could. “I’ve made up my mind.”

The younger girl let out a sigh and stood up. “Follow me, c’mon,” she motioned with her head as she walked down the steps from the deck. When she saw the other three were just dumbly looking at her, she rolled her eyes. “Move your asses, dammit!”

Zachary, Althea, and Chloe exchanged a confused look, but slowly stood up as well, Orion leaping to the floor as he followed his human and the other three to the old wooden shed at the back of his house’s backyard.

The inside was old and battered, Zack himself hadn’t set foot into it many times in the two weeks and a half since they moved into the house. It had shelves on both sides and an old table, and was filled with some old belongings that Monica meant to throw out but never did, besides some stuff that the previous owners had left behind. The sun was shining brightly outside, so enough light came in through the windows. Holly took a deep breath and faced the older teens.

“Why are we in the shed, Holly?” Zack gently inquired, though some frustration was creeping into his tone. “And what did you mean back there?”

Holly took a deep breath, there was no escape now, but well, circumstances had changed greatly while she had been away on that silly sleepover. “Alright, I’ll try and keep this short,” she began and then looked directly at Zack. “Do you remember how it used to be when you lived here in Azure Rocks the first time?”

“What part?” The older boy inquired, confused, while Chloe picked up Orion in her arms.

“When we were kids, dammit. How you’d always play with me and Chloe,” she clarified before forcing a smile. “I remember it always made me smile when you put your foot down to include me in things, even when sister dearest didn’t want me tagging along.”

Chloe snorted. “It could be pretty annoying sometimes,” she giggled. Much like Zack, though, she was lost as to why her little sister had brought them there.

Zachary smiled fondly, the memories rushing back as well. “Well, you’ve always been part of the gang, at least to me,” he told her. “Felt wrong to exclude you just ‘cause you were a grade below us. Hell, you’re closer in age to me than Chloe.”

Holly snickered. “Yeah, she’s an old lady, alright.”

“Hey!” Chloe protested.

“We’re not old!” Thea laughed.

“Anyways, I guess when you came back, I just wanted things to go back to how they used to be,” Holly continued, in a more subdued tone. “Soooo…, I did something. Please don’t be mad at me.”

“Why’d I ever be mad at you, Hols?” Zack asked, a soft smile forming on his features.

Holly returned the smile but didn’t say anything, she just turned toward one of the shelves and reached to a spot between two of the old cardboard boxes before pulling back her arms, and secured in her hands, was Zack’s lost camera.

“My camera!” Zack exclaimed, his heart beating madly, both in confusion and relief. “It was in my shed the entire time?!”

Holly walked over to him and handed him the camera. “I didn’t really plan this, but when I saw your camera on that table at the party, I instantly got this whole crazy idea to create this fun scavenger hunt that we could solve together, so I hid it here. I dunno, like I said, I just wanted to spend some time together like in the old days, but well,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I just figured that since you’re dating Althea now…, y-you won’t have the time for it anymore.”

Chloe smiled and went to her sister, hugging her from the side. “You silly little goose,” she said before Holly returned the hug.

While Zack stared at the camera in his hands and seemed to process what had just happened, Althea felt like a monster for taking Zack off the market for the rest of the summer, even if they weren’t really dating. Chloe’s sister really loved him and the gears in the blonde’s mind began spinning madly to try and come up with ideas on how she could put the thought in Zack’s head before the summer ended. He absolutely needed to get together with Holly at some point during the upcoming school year.

“Holly…,” Zack finally said when her actions finally sank in. He looked at her with unshed tears in his blue eyes. “You’ll never need to come up with all these elaborate stratagems just to hang out with us, you know?” He gave her a genuine smile. “All you need to do is come to us, wherever we are.”

The younger redhead nodded and disentangled herself from her sister’s embrace before rushing toward his arms for a much needed hug. It felt like home to the future junior, just basking in the feeling of his strong arms and his scent filling her nostrils. She noticed Thea smiling at them from the side and actually got into her to smile back at the older blonde. There was no rush, she told herself. Once school began and she had her eighteenth birthday about a month later, no one would stand between her and the love of her life. He could have his fun until then.

“But jeez, Holly,” Chloe laughed. “You pretended real good whenever we talked about the camera. Did you ever think about trying out for the drama club?”

THE END… for now