She was crying. Her nose was red and her eyes were watery whenever she looked at me. I didn't know how to help or even how to react.

"No one's picking up. Fuck, I knew I shouldn't have trusted Carlos." She whined out.

"It's not your fault, A." Nick replied. After hearing her yelling upstairs he rushed up to see what was going on. Now he was just sitting on my bed trying to calm her down while she paced around my room.

"You know..." She stopped as Nick got up to grab her, putting his hands on her shoulder to comfort her. "Carlos was the only one that was nice to me. I gave him my songs so he could tell me if I was good. I thought it was weird that Dave gave me the sheets back but I just brushed it off at the time. I'm so stupid."

Nick pulled her into a hug and cradled her head. "It's not your fault Anja."

I felt bad just watching. I didn't want to make it worse. "Do you have a lawyer? You could sue them." I suggested.

"I don't have the money for that. Plus I don't have a copyright on the music so it wouldn't hold up in court." She said, muffled by Nick's shirt.

"Do you wanna go get ice cream?" Nick asked.

She pulled out of his neck. "I'm not a child."

"Yes, you are. You're 19. Boop." He poked her nose.

"You're also 19 idiot." I said.

"But I'm an older 19."

"You just wanna drive your new car don't you?" Her tears had stopped, at least the little that was there.

"Maybe. Let's go."

----

Nick drove us to a corner street gelato shop just outside the neighborhood. We decided to sit on the patio to enjoy the sunset.

"This ice cream is really good." I said.

"It's not ice cream," Anja whined. "And Nick stop being an idiot, Disney World would be better."

"Universal lIterAlly has Harry Potter!" Nick's voice cracked.

"And Disney has princesses and fucking Star Wars." She yelled back.

"Ok. Guys. As a native of Orlando. I'd say Universal is better." I admitted.

"HA!" He jumped out of his seat and yelled. "Let's go to Universal!" She just glared at him. "Or we can go to... Disney." He sat down quietly.

"I haven't been to Disney in a while so I'm down." I said.

"Wait really? Karl and I have been talking about him coming down to visit. We should go to Disney with him."

"Who is Karl?" Anja asked.

"Streamer friend." Nick and I answered at the same time.

"If he can come down this week we can go on the 16th."

"I'll call him." He pulled out his phone and walked away.

Nick did a good job. Anja seemed to be calmed down and was slowly eating her ice cream. She was wearing a loose tank top and jeans. Her dark hair was oddly glowing in the dusk light. She was enjoying herself. She's so radiant like this. She looked up from her dessert to see me looking at her.

"Why do you always stare at me?" She jokingly asked.

"Cause you're pretty." I teased.

She started smiling but tried to hide it. "You're such a creep." I know.

----

Friday afternoon Karl got to Orlando after driving down by himself. His reaction to my face was priceless. He kept freaking out saying it felt illegal to actually see me and commenting on my height. People never believed me. He and Nick spent the night stream some IRL things while I sat in the vc. With all honesty, I felt left out seeing them together.

Anja and Karl surprisingly hit it off well. He kept making her laugh, they have a lot in common, and she didn't seem uncomfortable when he was near her. Not like how she acted when around me. Do I scare her?

Early Saturday morning day we drove out to Disney, deciding to go to the Magic Kingdom the night before. It was a cold 60 degrees out and sunny, an almost perfect day. When waiting in the line to enter parking Nick turned around to Anja.

"Ok. AJ, I need you to do us a favor." I could see her nod her head in the rearview mirror. "Cool. I need you to hang close to Dream and act all buddy-buddy with him in case me and Karl get noticed."

"Why?" She asked.

"Cause Dream is faceless online." Karl answered.

"Oh. Ok. Sure. I can do that."

After waiting for what seemed like forever, I finaly parked the car and we headed towards the entrance. Nick and Karl decided it would be fun to race on another to the ticket booths. Idiots.

"Fuck. I forgot to see how much the tickets are. I wanted to get fast pasts too. They distracted me last night." She whined.

"It's fine. I'll pay for it." I said.

She rolled her eyes and looked up at me. "No, you're not. I'm living in your house rent-free, the least I can do is pay for my own ticket."

"That's a shame cause I already bought our tickets." I gave her a fake frown while pulling them out of my pocket.

"No, you didn't." I violently shook my head 'yes' at her. "You like flaunting your youtube money huh?"

"Only for pretty girls." I smiled down at her. Why do I keep flirting?

She hid her face in her hands. "Why do you keep saying stuff like that?"

"I'm just being honest." She's cute when she gets flustered.

"Whatever. Let's just go in." We meet up with Nick and Karl at the park entrance. They were arguing over what we should do first; space mountain or big thunder.

"I really don't care. I just wanna see the parade and fireworks, oh and go shopping." Anja said.

"Let's do big thunder cause it's closer," I advised.

"YES!" Karl yelled as Nick started complaining.

We started to walk farther into the park when Nick was abruptly stopped by two teens running up to him. "You're Sapnap, right?" The kid yelled while he pulled out his phone.

I quickly wrapped my hand around Anja's waist and puller her with me to move us away before I could even think about what I was doing. I leaned down to her ear, "Sorry. I forgot to ask."

"No, it's fine. Just make sure you don't get noticed." She whispered.

I looked over my shoulder to see them taking pictures with the kids, one of them asking if 'Dream was here'. They lied and said I couldn't come.

"It must be hard hiding everything about yourself." I looked back to Anja and she was looking up at me. I didn't realize how close we were. I could see the light freckles on her cheeks and the green specks in her deep brown eyes like this.

"Yeah." I admitted. We kept eye contact for a moment before she folded and looked away.

The boys finished talking to the kids and we walked off to enjoy the park. The rest of the day was great. We would stop and take pictures with the princess and ever so often Nick and Karl would get noticed. We had lunch at Crystal Palace. Anja and Karl would cheer whenever Winnie the Pooh came nearby. We stopped at all the shops to get merchandise as Anja wanted.

"Clay," Anja called for me. "Do you think I should get this?" She had a pair of sparkling Minnie's ears on while she was looking at herself in the mirror. She was smiling.

"Yeah. I'll buy them for you." I said.

"No." She walked away towards the register pulling her wallet out of her purse.

"What do you mean no?" I wheezed. "I told you. I like spending money on pretty girls." I took her wallet out of her hand and put down my card. She tried getting her wallet back but I held it over my head. "Besides, you're helping me with my song. This is the least I can do okay?"

She crossed her arms and scowled at me. "Fine." She grabbed the headband and her wallet then headed out to the boys. They were talking to a few fans again so Anja stopped at the door with me pretending to look at some postcards.

"Speaking of music. Have you thought about posting your stuff online?" I asked.

"Yeh. I have but I'm just worried it won't get any traction."

"You know me and Nick would be more than happy to give you a shout-out, right?"

"That would just feel inorganic." She admitted.

"I think you should start a youtube channel."

"Maybe I will." She turned and smiled at me then walked off to the boys. It was nice to know I could make her smile like Nick and Karl did.

They went on a few more rides while I sat back until it was almost time for the firework show. Anja and Nick ran to get on the teacups one last time when Karl said he wanted to rest back with me.

"So, what's going on with you and Anja?" He asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked as I sat down on a bench, he joined me.

"I see how you look at her, you're totally into her." He teased.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh come on."

"That's my line, Karl. And nothing is going on between me and Anja. She's just... Nick's friend. So leave it at that."

"Okay. A sensitive topic I see." He teased. The rest of the time we just sat in silence while waiting for Nick and Anja to come back. As much as I was tried to shut it out, I kept thinking about what Karl said. I'm into her? No, that's stupid.

The park speakers came on announcing that the fire show would 10 in ten minutes. The four of us headed back towards the castle so we could see the show by the water. We made it there just in time for the lights to start going off. Everyone ooing and awing around us. There were character shapes and words every once in a while. Beautiful purples and blues, ever so often a white one would fall like rain over us. As amazing as the lights were, I couldn't stop looking at Anja. She was smiling so big and I could see the glow in her eyes. Her hair was let out and hanging down her back slowly blowing in the cool wind of the night, she kept moving a piece out of her face so she could see better.

She turned to me. "Why are you looking at me?! Look at the show!" She yelled, pointing to the sky.

"Cause you're beautiful. More than the fireworks." I said softly, sure she couldn't hear me.

Her face went straight. She just looked at me. Soft with red cheeks. Before I could think, my hand moved forward to brush her hair out of her face and then held her cheek, rubbing my thumb across her cool skin. She never broke my eye contact or the touch. Maybe Karl is right. I couldn't help but look at her lips, plump and pink. I want to kiss her.

But I didn't. The show ended and we went home. I regretted not doing it.