Chapter 17

The car is back, everything is okay with Chloe, and I am with Ace again. 

I'm not hanging out with him because Chloe said that it's fine and she doesn't care. She's lying, she's not fine, and she does care, which means that it's still not fine with me. It's Ace that won't leave me alone. 

"Are you sure we should do this?" I ask him.

"Admit it or not, you want to do this." 

"Not if we're going to get caught."

"We're not, okay?" He says and brings out another pack of weed.

"This feels like a crime." I say and he chuckles.

"Because it is." 

I swat his arm. "It's not funny. You're the one who suggested this in the first place. Meddling with drugs?"

"We're not the ones taking it. Tristan is. That is, if he's still alive after his parents find it in their mailbox addressed to their dear son." 

To summarize this whole thing, Ace suggested to do a little revenge prank on Tristan after drugging me back at that party. His plan is to put a supposed drug delivery in Tristan's house mail, and once his parents see the drugs addressed to Tristan, Ace expects them to search his room where he keeps his own drugs and then he'll get caught.

"Do you wanna add something to the note?" He asks me. 

I look at it and it says,

Tristan,

Here are the packs you ordered

"That's all you wrote?" 

"Hey, that's why I'm asking you." 

I thought for a while, and I couldn't stop the grin from taking over my face.

"What?" He asks, grinning with me while I write it down.

Tristan,

Here are the packs you ordered, this better be the last. 

You still owe me from that one you used on that Melannie chick at the party.

Better have gotten what you wanted.

"And here I thought you didn't want to do this." Ace teases.

"Tristan's a sick and twisted male, probably lacks a mother's touch. Though he won't be missing his mother anytime soon after she hits him in the head and he goes to juvie or something." 

To be honest, I never was a fan of revenge. I'm a strong believer of karma, and it's going to come when you least expect it. Turns out Ace was a strong believer of karma as well, except he also believes that he is karma itself, and so he wants to take it upon ourselves to do the universe's work. 

"Isn't this going to leave a trace or something?" I ask him.

"I don't think so, not if you smoke it." He answers.

"Oh well, I think the stench here in your room is enough to cover up any weed-smell." I joke and he rolls his eyes.

"Very funny."

On the contrary, his room actually doesn't smell that bad. He has all his dirty laundry in a hamper in the corner, his clothes drawer was a little cluttered, his nightstand too, but who am I to judge, and I could smell the strong scent of soap from the bathroom. Not what anyone would naturally expect from a teenage boy. 

"Where did you even get that?" I ask him as he looks for tape to seal the paper bag he put the packets in.

"It's not only Tristan who had sources." He grins and I gasp. 

"You smoke weed?" I ask a little too loud.

"Okay, announce it to the whole house, will you? And no. I don't, not anymore."

I stayed silent and kept my eyes on him, and I think he took it as a sign from me telling him to say more.

"I tried it when I was seventeen. Kind of went back to it a few times, but I really forced myself to stop. I haven't been smoking for at least a year now."

Part of what he said stuck with me. "Forced?"

"Yeah." He simply answers. 

He doesn't wanna talk about it. I try to think of something else to say.

"Huh, you said seventeen. You stopped a year ago..." I don't know where I was going, I wanted to divert topics but now my own brain cells are turning against me. He finally finds the tape and went back to the paper bag, but he starts to struggle finding the tape end. 

I managed to get my thoughts in line. "How old are you?"

He chuckles through a scowl because he still can't seem to find the tape end, I tried not to laugh. "What do you think?"

"I don't know, I mean, we're both seniors so I'm guessing eighteen?" 

"Nineteen." 

"When did you turn nineteen?"

He stops meddling with the tape and looks up at me. "How come you are so curious about me now?"

My brain stops working and I start to stutter. Damn it.  

"Are you seriously trying to keep your birthday a secret from me?" 

"No," He laughs.

"So when is it?" I press on.

"How about you guess?"

"What are we? Four?"

"No, we're nineteen."

"I'm eighteen."

"When did you turn eighteen?"

"How about you guess?" I throw his question back at him and he laughs.

I shook my head. "At least give me a month number."

"Okay.." He says. "9th or 10th month."

"Are you kidding me?" 

He flashes a playful smile.

"September?" I ask and he slowly nods, acting overly impressed.

For some reason, I wanted to use up all the odd numbers first. I went with the first of September, then the third, skipped ahead to ninth, I said about five to eight numbers and I still couldn't get it.

"Okay, I'm over this. Just tell me."

"I'll guess your birthday." He says and to be honest, it seemed more interesting than me saying every single number from one to thirty and so I went with it. 

"Fine, 11th or 12th." I say.

"Hmm, 11th? You seem like a November girl." He says and I laugh. "What's that supposed to mean?" 

"Wait, so I'm right?" He beams.

"No, you couldn't have been more wrong. I'm a December girl." I tell him and he dropped his smile and his face turned more focused, as if studying my entire being.

"Really?" He asks. "December girls are boring, though."

"September boys are dull." I clap back.

"You're just offended." He says.

"Are you guessing my birthday or not?"

He laughs. "Okay, fine. Uhm...December 3rd?" 

I shook my head. "I'm going to make this easy for you. It's the last day of the entire year."

"December 31st?" He asks with wide eyes and I nod with a grin.

"That's both so cool and miserable." 

I frown. "How so?"

"It's always a double celebration. It's two in one, your birthday and new year's party. You've never celebrated only your birthday."

"I never really had an issue with it."

"Do you want me to throw you an only-birthday-party?" He grins.

"What? Shut up Ace, you're kidding."

"I'm not, swear on your life." He laughs. 

I lightly laugh along, but it got me thinking about what our relationship exactly is. He wants to throw me a birthday party like it's something that he just casually does. I mean, we made out, but he pretends that he doesn't remember it, he thinks I don't remember it, we talk, but I don't know if I actually want anything to do with him. That sounds bad, but it's a lot for me.

He finally gets ahold of the tape and seals the paper bag, tapes on the note, smiles in victory, and waves the paper bag in the air. 

"Let's go." He tells me.