Chapter 6: Face-off
Spending time with Ethan and chole made time fly by too quickly and before they knew it, the wedding was only a day away. It was decoration day and the three had to go and help out
"Are you guys ready" Ethan asked from behind the door
"Shut up, it takes time to get ready" chole said and they heard him grumbling before he left after 20 or so minutes more they we're finally ready
"Right on time" Susan said as she brought in the breakfast
"Eat, I'll drive you kids" she offered and they couldn't be happier, to take a cab is such hassle plus the payment, they could save that money and add it to the wedding gift. After breakfast the three hopped into Susan's car and she drove off. The car ride was silent but comfortable until all their phone dinged at thesame time, they all looked at eachother then laughed,the one who left Susan a voicenote was martha, chole's mom, she asking where she was
"Chole, tell her we're on our way" Susan said as she was driving, chole replied to the voicenote then checked her own message, it was from Berlu and it read
"Are you coming, we need to talk" before she could reply she recived another text from frank, she sighed and decided not to reply to any of them, she was sure that they both decided to text her and she who she'll reply first, how childish she scoffed, jian glanced at her shaking her head, her friend was truly in a dilemma. Checking her phone she saw it was a message from seth, he just sent a simple
"Hello", jian didn't know what to say so she just sent back a "hi",
"Whose that" Ethan asked and jian hid her phone
"Were you peeping" she asked eyeing him,
"No, i just happen to see it" he denied looking offended, even though he did peep to see who it was, he had a feeling it was that pest from two days back
"Oh its a friend" jian replied but ethan was looking at her weird, he was looking at her as if she was a cheating wife being caught which made her chuckle
"See" she said showing him the text only then was he satisfied
"Is it that pest" he asked and jian nodded giving him a thumbs up for guessing it right
"Who texted you" she asked and he immediately tried changing the topic which jian was not having, was he cheating on their friendship
"New best friend huh" she asked frowning
"What no" he immediately denied,
"Lemme see then" he asked trying to grab the phone by force
"Probably girlfriend" chole commented and ethan looked at her as if she have grown two heads
"Really" jian asked nodding, it made sense why he didn't want her to see the text, i mean she knew all his passwords and he never kept anything from her, but now he was hiding his messages it definitely had to be something big, like maybe a girlfriend
"Its not a girlfriend" he said cutting off her train of thoughts
"Looks like I've lost a son-in-law" susan joked making jian embarrassed
"Mom" she yelled and they all laughed, they joked on and chatted, but jian didn't forget about the message that her very transparent best friend refused to show her, and she didn't press on it, maybe it was indeed a girlfriend or it was his own little secret, everyone has one, so even though she was dying to know and it left her a bit uneasy she let it go.
"Woah" jian commented as they reached the venue, true jacob was loaded, the place was beyond beautiful
"Inside is even prettier" Susan said as they got off, the place is huge, with manicured gardens, cascading fountains, with status so elegantly craved, the mable pathway leading to the entrance, the flower vines crawling on the walls, everything was so beautiful and susan was right inside was even prettier, the crystal chandelier with intricate design, the intricate designed ceilings, the floor to ceiling windows, it left them in awe
"I wanna get married here" chole chimmed,
"Well that can be possible since its privately owned by the Vanderbilts, so basically Jacob" Susan informed and the girls began squealing
"But you'll need to find yourselves husbands first" she added which successfully shut the girls up, she chuckled before she went to join the others in the kitchen to see through the food.
"Lets check the place out" the girls squealed as they ran off leaving Ethan behind, it was no use calling after them so he just let them go and squeal at everything that's appealing to them match.
"Ethan" he heard someone calling, he turned behind and found Marco, and three other guys he wasn't familiar with
"Hey" he greeted the moment they walked close enough for them to hear him without him screaming
"How was your program" he asked as ethan responded, seth sized him up, so this was the face to the back, at the cafe he just saw he's back and didn't have a clear view at his face, so he's a nerd too, jian was into nerds he thought, Ethan felt someone staring at him and he looked up which reminded marco to introduce them
"Oh these are my seniors at the University" he introduced proudly, they weren't just insanely handsome, but rich too, they were very smart untop of that, toping each class without even trying so he was proud to show them off,
"Seth, frank, berlu this is my friend from highschool, he was my senior, he's very smart too and ki-" seth cut he's rambling short, stretching out one hand out with a smile, he saw the tiny shift of expression when marco said he's name
"Seth" he repeated as if to leave a warning
"Ethan" he introduced with a smile as if saying challenge accepted, everyone just stood there awkwardly staring at the two who were still shaking hands, you can literally see little veins because of how hard they were gripping unto each other's hand
"Um, we should go" marco said fixing he's glasses, he didn't like the atmosphere one bit, but the two were still intensely staring at each other, gripping even harder they only stopped and turned when they had giggling
"Oh hey jian, Chloe" marco waved over and the two walked over
"This place is so gorgeous" they commented oblivious to the atmosphere
"Right" marco agreed
"I'm so getting married here" jian commented and the two men just happen to glance at each other at thesame time, when their eyes meet seth smiled but Ethan didn't bother being nice which made seth chuckle,look like this pest is going to be harder to fight than the last ones, harder doesn't mean impossible, so ethan wasn't worried. The other two tried getting chole's attention but she refused to even acknowledge their existance, she was still mad about what happened at the bachelorette party.
"What are you guys doing standing around there" the heard someone say and they all immediately knew who it was
"Hey Stephanie" the greeted but she wasn't in no mood for greeting, she was even more stressed than the bride, as the bride's best friend and wedding planner, everything had to be perfect,
"Go hang those flowers" she yelled and they immediately started running towards the buckets and buckets of flowers strings but she stopped them
"Marco, chole and jian go do the flowers" she waved off and they immediately took off
"You four" she said pointing at frank, berlu, Seth and Ethan "the lights" she added pointing at the dozens of boxes filled with light bulbs to fix in places before she saw someone placing the wrong cutleries and she walked away to scold them.
As they walked on the flowers, the girls couldn't help glance at the boys, jian felt the weird atmosphere between seth and ethan and she wasn't fine with it, what did she miss she thought to herself and chole although she acted like she was mad, she really didn't want anything to happen between frank and berlu, they're like two pees in a pod and she felt like it was her fault that they were having a fall out.
"Hey, did you introduce ethan to seth and the others" jian asked she couldn't hold it in and marco's answered confirmed it for her, she wasn't dense maybe a bit ignorant but not dumb,
'wait, were they fighting over her', she immediately started laughing, okay she wasn't dense a bit ignorant but not dumb what she was is delusional, fighting over her, when did she even reach that conclusion she thought to herself
"You okay" Marco asked concerned
"She's fine, just a bit off" chole said patting marco on the back who just nodded but still kept stealing glances at her as she was still chuckling and shaking her head, on the other side there were four men fixing the light bulbs and two trying to getting to know each other and the other two trying not to blam each other for the silent treatment they're receiving from chole.