Saving Mona

Chapter 8 ☕️

"What's he doing here?" I asked as soon as I got to where my friends were standing. It was Thursday and we had agreed to meet at Mystic Coffee, a coffee shop ten minutes away from Bloomville High.

After a lot of persuasions, I had agreed to come with them; I just didn't expect Dwayne to tag along. They all looked at me when they heard my question. Mel and Jarod groaned at my question while Layla looked like she would rather be anywhere but there presently. The smug bastard standing with them had the audacity of looking amused.

"I invited him," Jarod replied to my question. When I transferred my glare to him, he looked taken aback for a second, but he then recovered and shot me a curious look. Mel let out another groan and reached out to grab me.

"Don't be such a spoilsport Mona. I don't get why you don't like him but he's here now, deal with it!" she said dragging me inside the coffee shop while telling the others to follow.

"You only say that because you think he's cute." I retorted back to which Mel grinned and winked at me in response. We headed to the seating space near the window at the back. I was to seat with Mel, but she set me up with Dwayne. I shot her a dirty look while she mouthed "Don't worry; I think he has the hots for you."

Dwayne must have caught what Mel mouthed as he turned to raise an eyebrow at me. I simply ignored him and looked outside the window fairly aware of one of my bad decisions seating next to me.

Mystic Coffee was a quaint but warm coffee shop. Decorated in earthly tones and very comfortable sofas and wooden tables in place of the usual plastic or metal, it was different from what other coffee shops offered. And people liked different, they were fascinated by it.

They also had a different way of ordering; write down your order and place it in the small basket near the table and when you're done, press down the little button on the table. The waiter or waitress would come and take the basket and when your order was ready; the little button on the table would ring out and light up. It was quite easy actually.

We wrote down our orders and dropped them in the basket. Layla pressed the button as she was the closest to it. When she was done, she smiled at us, blushing a little when her eyes met Dwayne's. I decided not to think too much about it. Whatever they had going on was their business.

"Ah," Jarod breathed in, "It's so nice that we all are here together. When was the last time we hanged out together?" he asked.

I raised my eyebrows and looked away from the window to him. "We hung out on Sunday night. The party, remember?" I said dryly.

Jarod shrugged and leaned back on the sofa, his long legs meeting mine to which I efficiently kicked away. Melanie leaned in and wiggled her eyebrows at me. For what reason, I didn't know. I don't understand what went on in her head sometimes, most times.

"You see Mona, that's where you are wrong. We partied last Sunday, we didn't have a casual hang out."

"I don't know Mel, I think that pretty much qualifies as us hanging out," Layla said, her eyebrows furrowing while she brushed away a stray red lock. Melanie ended up shrugging and she and Jarod shifted the topic to how they caught Miss Melba and the school janitor getting it on while Dwayne and Layla talked. I refused to eavesdrop on whatever it was they were both discussing.

The ringing of our button cut short every conversation. No one stood up as they all kept eying each other. I suppressed the urge to scream out loud and instead just let out a tired sigh.

"I'll go get it," I announced and stood up. My friends sank in their sofas with relief evident on their faces, bunch of lazy asses.

"If you say so. Although I was about to go get it but it's okay, you can do it." Jarod started to say but I easily shut him up with a glare.