Page 50 of Dire Straights

He blushed, just a little, before raising his gaze to the roof of the bus. “Yeah, I know. Well, I’m glad you had fun, at least.”

“Of course,” I said. “Any time I’m with you is fun.”

“Even creative writing class?”

“Well, the parts where I get to talk to you, yeah,” I said. “And anyway, just the fact that you were willing to introduce me to someone in your family, even just as a friend… That means a lot to me.”

He stared at me for what felt like a long time, with a lot of intensity in his eyes. They were so blue and so pretty, I could have looked into them forever.

“You say really embarrassing things, you know?” He finally said, but I could tell he was happy.

“You’re not used to that yet?” I questioned, and he chuckled, a really cute grin on his face.

“I guess I should be.”

Glancing down at the small gap between us, I noted his hand laying on the weathered cloth of the bus seat. Carefully placing my hand down, I hooked my pinky finger around his. His eyes darted down to where our fingers were joined, then back up to me.

We rode like that for the rest of the way.

Back at school when I got to my room, Aspen, Arie, and Che were already there.

“So Aspen says you have some super secret project you need help with,” Arie said. He was holding a glittery notebook with kittens printed on it and a pen with a fuzzy pom-pom on the end. “As you may or may not know, I am an amazing project coordinator.”

“Uh, well it was kind of supposed to be a secret,” I reiterated. “Meaning I didn’t want a lot of people to know about it.”

“Why so secretive?” Aspen wondered.

“I just don’t want Madd… Ox to find out about it,” I said. “It’s a surprise for him.”

“Oh, just call him what you want to call him. No one is fooled by you guys, anyway. Everyone knows you guys are all lovey-dovey and doing it all the time,” Aspen said dryly.

“We’re not doing it all the time,” I argued. “We only did it once.” The words tumbled out before I could consider that Maddy probably wouldn’t want me announcing that to everyone. Oops, again.

Arie’s eyes widened, and he glanced over to Che. They exchanged alook. One of those looks that only couples exchange, because they’d probably already had a conversation about us.

“Wait, how come you only did it once?” Arie asked. “Didn’t you like it?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “But it was just last night, so…”

“Wait, you guys just fucked for the first time last night?”

“Can we stay on topic please?” I asked. “As long as no one mentions any of this to him, and we can keep it a surprise, then you can be the project manager, okay?” I said, glancing over to Arie, who nodded eagerly.

“My lips are totally sealed,” he promised, before glancing over to Che.

“Oh, mine too,” he said, smiling sweetly. He looked particularly angelic today, with the fringe of his bangs peppered with colorful clips in various shapes.

“And me,” Aspen said quickly, waving a hand dismissively and impatiently. “Hurry up and tell us what the secret is, or we’re going back to talking about you getting your rocks off.”

“Okay, okay,” I agreed, only because I knew Maddy would kill me if I gave away too many details about that. I sighed heavily when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket again, for the 10th time that day, at least. Pulling it out, I decided to completely silence it. I liked knowing when I got a text or notification, but it wasn’t worth the aggravation of being reminded of her all the time.

“What’s up?” Aspen asked, noting my sour expression. “You getting hounded by debt collectors or something?”

I scoffed. “No. Just my ex.”

“Wait, your mean ex?” Arie asked curiously, furrowing his brows. “Haven’t you guys been broken up for, like, months?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what her deal is,” I admitted. “She’s been blowing my phone up ever since I stopped responding to her.”

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