28

irl

they arrived at their house at a little past 4. everyone piled inside the house and slumped on the couches in the living room.

kaia had only been to la two other times for photoshoots of her own without the triplets. almost everything else for her social media she can do from boston.

"this place is nicer than i thought it would be." chloe jokes.

"thank you, it was expensive." chris responds cockily.

"chris." nick stops him.

"what should we do?" nate asks.

"i need a shower. i'm exhausted and sweaty." kaia says.

"you can use my bathroom, nobody goes down there." chris replies.

"thank you." she answers, dragging her suitcase downstairs.

"movie?" matt asks.

"this is us." chloe suggests.

"a real movie, not a one direction documentary." chris rolls his eyes.

"yeah, but picture the look on kaia's face when she comes back and we're watching it." chloe adds.

"whatever, just put it on." nick sighs.

everyone brings their bags to their rooms while chloe puts the documentary on.

after they all return, everyone sits together on the couches and matt makes everyone popcorn.

"we're gonna have to go shopping later. we cleared everything out of the fridge last time we left la which was months ago and we need food." chris says.

"can we go t-" matt starts.

"no, matt. we're not going to erewhon. just because we have the money doesn't mean we have to waste it." nick cuts him off.

"you sound like mom." matt crosses his arms and rolls his eyes.

"i don't care. don't be stupid." nick complains.

kaia eventually finishes up in the shower and brings her suitcase to nick's room, but sees what they're watching on the tv on the way upstairs.

"guys! what the fuck?!" she shouts, carrying her heavy bag.

"chloe's idea." chris says, his arm already around her.

"hurry up so you can watch with us." chloe smiles.

kaia runs upstairs and leaves her things on nick's bed. she races back downstairs and the only available seat is between matt and nathan.

she doesn't think too much about it and just sits there to share the popcorn with nate.

she almost immediately notices matt looking at her from the corner of her eye, but she ignores it.

everyone passes out while watching the movie due to exhaustion from the plane and doesn't wake up until 7.

matt is the first to wake up and he notices kaia asleep on nate's arm, so he stands up and grabs pots and pans from the kitchen.

he starts banging them together and everyone jolts awake.

"matthew, what the fuck is wrong with you?" nick shouts, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"we need to go grocery shopping before everwhere closes. and we won't have time tomorrow with setting up the party and everything at the venue." matt says.

everyone groans and stands up, throwing on sweaters and getting into the car once matt pulls it out of the garage.

they drive to a local grocery store and stock up on the food they'll need for the time they're gonna be here. kaia and chloe have to act like their moms because all the boys want to get is junk food and nothing for cooking actual meals.

chris got aux on the way there, so matt gets it on the way back. and as matt says, sad music makes him happy, so he puts on phoebe bridgers.

"way to kill the mood, matt. enough with this sad bullshit." chris whines.

"you got it on the way there, i get it on the way back." matt reminds him.

of course, kaia and chloe also like the music, and nick knows it but always want to listen to melanie, doja, or ariana.

kaia hums along to the music silently in her head while everyone talks.

i wanna make you fall in love as hard as my poor parent's teenage daughter. she'll be the best you ever had if you let her.

they arrive home, and everyone helps carry groceries back inside. chloe and kaia make everyone actual dinner in the kitchen while the boys play mario kart in the living room.

they called dinner and everyone eats at the dinner table, but inevitably wants to go to bed by 10:30.

chloe (again) sleeps in chris' room, nathan in matt's, kaia in nick's.

matt wakes up from a dream at 3am that he was hugging kaia again. the actual dream was probably only a couple minutes, but it felt like hours; he never had to let go of her. but when he wakes up, he's just hugging a pillow.

everyone sleeps in pretty late because of how tired they were. chloe wakes up first because of chris' snoring. she checks her phone for the time; 4:19pm.

she jolts up out of bed and wakes chris up, then runs to nick's room to wake him up. chris wakes up matt and nathan.

"nick, wake up." chris shakes him quietly, not waking up kaia.

"nick, it's past 4." chris whispers.

nick rubs his eyes and sits up. kaia slept on the side closest to the wall, so he silently got out of bed and left the room with chris.

chloe, chris, nathan, matt, and nick all meet in the kitchen. nick pulls out the circle vanilla cake he bought at the grocery store yesterday.

chris and matt worked together in an attempt to put pink and blue frosting on the cake to look like the fine line album cover.

it looked awful, but once they were done, chloe brought out her mini harry styles lego man and put it right in the middle and wrote "happy 18th birthday kaia" around it.

matt put in the candles and they all snuck down the hallway to nick's room. they stand infront of the bed where she's sleeping and count down from 3 to start singing happy birthday.

matt gets distracted by admiring her beauty, even in sleep, and starts singing after the others.

"happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you-"

kaia sits up and smiles when she realizes.

"happy birthday dear kaia, happy birthday to you." they all sing in the same tone.

she smiles quite possibly the most beautiful smile matt has ever seen, and she tucks her hair behind her ears before blowing out the candles. matt wants to cry at the sight.

"17 years of us being friends." chloe brags.

"you mean 18?" chris asks, dumbfounded.

"no, 17. we met because our moms were friends through church and she brought me to kaia's first birthday. she ignored everyone else there." chloe explains.

"that's cool." chris nods.

"i love you so much." chloe leans down and hugs her bestfriend.

"i love you more." she hugs back.

"cake time!" chris says excitedly.

"i just woke up, damn." kaia complains.

she gets out of bed and follows everyone to the kitchen.

"cake for breakfast." nate smiles to himself.

they slice up the cake 6 ways and each eat their peice.

"what did you wish for?" matt asks.

kaia looks at him through her eyelashes and makes eye contact, blushing.

"can't tell you or it won't come true." she says, taking another bite.

"we really need to hurry, we had to be at the venue at 3, it's 4:30." chloe reminds everyone.

they all finish their cake and put the dishes in the sink. they all get dressed into their party outfits and kaia and chloe get dressed together to help the hair and makeup go quicker.

matt, nick, nathan, and chris are all ready first and wait by the front door. by 5, kaia and chloe come running down the stairs in their dresses and matt and chris' jaws both simultaneaously drop.

"pick those up off the floor." nate whispers to them.

"sorry." kaia and chloe apologize as they put their shoes on in a hurry.

"okay, ready." they both stand up.

nick holds the door open and everyone floods outside and into the car.

"you, uh- you look nice, chloe." chris says nervously.

"you look quite dashing yourself." she smiles back.

they drive to the venue and have missed calls from the bartender, dj, and security company.

everyone arrives to the building they're holding the party in and they all rush inside. first person they see is the bartender setting up.

kaia runs up to him and pays him in cash and apologizes for being late. then she goes over to the dj to talk to him while everyone else pulls out all the decorations and starts putting everything up.

nick calls the security company and confirms that people will be arriving at 8. any other birthday party wouldn't need security, but a huge building full of teenage influencers in the dead center of los angeles is bound to get messy eventually.

kaia pays the dj and everyone works together over the next few hours to set the place up. they had to set up decorations inside and outside, nate and chris cleaned the pool with skimmers, the bartender had to put up his display of bottles and the dj was working on the playlist kaia sent him.

they were pretty much done by 7:30. laura shows up with madi and nick brings them into the main room with everyone.

"kaia!" nick calls to her from across the huge room.

she turns her head and sees them, rushing over to meet laura and madi.

"so nice to meet you two." kaia smiles and hugs them both.

"you're even prettier in person." madi smiles back.

"stop, your makeup is perfect. and i loooovvveee your dress, girl." kaia compliments her.

they share friendly banter and nick assures laura to keep madi safe. laura leaves and the triplet's closest friends start to arrive.

cole and paige show up at 7:45, nick introduces them to kaia. then madison, nick, noah, josh, and gabriella show up.

by 8 o'clock, people were piling in the building and kaia was struggling to greet everyone.

9:45; the place is shaking and everyone is singing their hearts out to the music. the triplet's obviously stayed sober, but kaia and chloe are both a few drinks in. kaia had taken her hair down and was singing with nick and chloe with a drink in her hand.

she looks at the door as more people continuously arrive, and see sydney serena and kristina alice. yes, a couple years older, but lots of the influencers there are in their early to mid twenties.

kaia runs over to them and chloe follows behind.

"so, so nice to meet you girls. i heard you're friends with madison?" kaia asks, quickly hugging them both to be polite.

"yeah, i've kept pretty close with her over the past couple years, i've heard so much about you through her and nick." sydney answers.

"well, i'm so happy to have you two here, help yourself to the bar and the snacks are outside." kaia smiles.

on the way back to the triplet's, kaia and chloe stop at the bar and both grab another strong drink.

"tara!!" kaia runs up to the girl and gives her a massive drunk hug.

"kaia! happy birthday, girl. nick has told me so much about you." she shouts over the loud music.

"i've heard so much about you too! my kind of party girl." she laughs and takes another sip of her drink.

"this is my ex boyfriend jake, and his roommate johnnie." tara introduces them.

"nice to meet you guys." kaia shakes their hands.

"happy birthday from the tina's." jake laughs, slightly drunk himself.

chloe leads kaia back to the triplets and she stumbles into matt. he holds her up and she fixes her hair.

"sorry!" she shouts over the impossibly loud noise of the room.

matt didn't hear her and just keeps talking to chris. kaia, in her drunk form, takes this as he's ignoring her. she snatches chloe's hand and drags her outside to sit by the pool.

"you okay, girl?" chloe asks, sipping her drink and rocking back and forth.

they take off their shoes and dangle their feet in the edge of the pool.

"no. i thought things were getting better with matt but i think he hates me again." kaia shouts, chugging back the rest of her drink.

"he doesn't hate you, babe." chloe slurs.

"i said sorry and he ignored me." she frowns.

"so what? he's still, like, obsessed with you." chloe says.

"no he isn't. he's bored of me!" kaia shouts.

there are groups of people circling the pool and talking outside, a few people in the pool, and there was also a speaker outside so it wasn't any quieter.

"there's no way he is! don't you like him back?" chloe shouts back.

"duh! but i think he still hates me for yelling at him." kaia answers.

"nuh uh! i'll go find him." chloe stands up, manages to get her shoes back on, and stumbles inside.

kaia's mind is shouting at her to stop chloe, but she's drunk and can't seem to force herself to care.

once the panic sets in of chloe telling matt she likes him, kaia stands up and hurries herself around the front of the building.

there were people absolutely everywhere. she sat by the front door and some sweet girls offered kaia an unopened drink.

she gladly accepted, and a big group of girls all shotgunned tweas together, some people recording.

the croud cheered when kaia finished first, and everyone cheered "birthday girl" repeatedly.

chloe stumbles inside to look for matt. she catches sight of chris standing with him and nick, and walks up to them.

"chris!" she shouts with a smile.

he notices her and hurries over to help her walk.

"where's kaia?" chris asks.

"i have no idea." she laughs and finishes her drink.

"you have no idea?" matt asks.

"i was with her by the pool but i came inside to look for matt and i'm pretty sure she left." chloe drunkenly shouts.

"what? why were you looking for me? is she okay? is she outside?" matt asks loudly.

"she says you hate her because you ignored her earlier. i have no idea where she went." chloe says back.

"are you kidding?!" matt shouts and storms outside.

he looks around for her everywhere but can't spot her with how many people are everywhere. matt sees her shoes sitting next to the pool and picks them up as he continues looking for her.

he hears "BIRTHDAY GIRL, BIRTHDAY GIRL, BIRTHDAY GIRL" being chanted from the front of the house and he hurries over.

there are two men who have kaia hoisted up on their shoulders and she's chugging straight from a bottle of vodka.

matt's eyes widen in shock and he runs up to the group recording her.

"kaia! get down!" matt shouts, one of the few sober people here.

when kaia realizes matt found her, she gets down in a rush. she turns away from matt and starts trying to walk away.

she hits her vape when matt catches up to her and puts a hand on her shoulder.

"leave me alone!" she keeps walking and hitting her new birthday vape.

"no! you're drinking too much! you need to slow down!" matt yells over the noise that is really starting to hurt his ears.

over the speakers, kaia hears love on the brain by rihanna start playing and she starts dancing with girls nearby.

"kaia! please listen to me!" matt shouts.

kaia stops dancing and tries to run away from matt again. she nearly trips over a stick in the yard and he catches her, dropping her shoes to do so.

"matt, leave me alone! i know you still hate me and you're only pretending to be nice." kaia yells, starting to tear up.

he can tell she's probably way drunker than she should be and he holds her still so she won't fall over.

"i'm not pretending anything! kaia, i don't hate you! i've been in love with you since we met!" he yells.

she looks stunned, but still doesn't believe him.

"no you're not! you might think so, but you're not!" she argues, a tear falls and she keeps trying to get away from him.

"i'm not lying!" he says.

"you know i'm the only one with real feelings and you're trying to make me look stupid because i'm drunk!" she shouts.

"you have real feelings for me?" he asks.

"obviously! then i fucked everything up by yelling at you in the car and i ruined my chance, i'm done trying! i don't care anymore!" she cries.

"you knew i liked you, though." matt argues.

"no i didn't!" matt lets her stand by herself.

"i thought you knew! as soon as i tried to kiss you in the car, and when i hugged you in boston, i thought you knew!" he yells.

"that doesn't mean anything! i've kissed and hugged chloe, you think she's in love with me?!" she yells, tears streaming down her face.

and i run for miles just to get a taste-

"no, i am! don't you care that i'm in love with you?" he shouts back.

she stands there in shock and stares at him. she stops crying and begins trying to scan his face, but her vision is slightly too blury to focus for more than a few seconds.

he stares back at her, and decides "fuck it"

MUST BE LOVE ON THE BRAIN, THAT GOT ME FEELING THIS WAY

matt grabs her face and pulls her into a kiss, she deepens the kiss, finally feeling safe in his arms.

2949 words