Page 13 of One Little Problem
Luke nodded. “Good idea, babe.” Way to be supportive. He looked at my plate. “You gonna donate that pizza?”
I eyed him knowingly. “Donate it to you?”
Exaggerated realization played across his face, like that thought had just occurred to him as I said it. “I am pretty hungry,” he admitted, putting on his best innocent face. Not sure how well it worked, but I’m pretty sure all higher brain function ground to a halt whenever he showed me the dimples, which he was doing, so I was a goner.
I slid my plate towards him and he took the pizza off it. “You’re lucky your cute,” I told him.
He smiled. “So are you.”
“I’d argue but I can’t.” Our shoulders brushed against each other companionably, occasionally nudging playfully as we smiled at each other. I liked having a group of people to sit with at lunch but sometimes it would have been okay if it was just Luke and me.
“You can have my food now,” Zach offered to Luke. “That put me off eating.” See, there he goes proving my point.
“We have a game today, choke it down,” Luke ordered.
Zach raised an eyebrow. “Are you that romantic with your boyfriend?” Zing. He may be insulting us but that was still a good one.
Lydia made a retching noise. “Okay, I’m not interested in baseball or disgusting couple-y banter.”
“Sure about that, sweetie pie?” Alicia said next to her. There were no more productions for the rest of the year, so her hair was a particularly vivid red now that theater was done for the semester.
Lydia’s mouth looked like it wanted to do what it usually would in a situation like this, sneer, but her brain was confused since it was Alicia she wanted to sneer at and that didn’t compute. “Wow,” she marveled. “This is the first time you’ve said something that repulsed me.”
“Isn’t repulsed a strong word?” her girlfriend questioned.
“Really? How did that feel to you?”
Alicia sighed. “Unnatural and weird.”
“Wow,” Lydia smirked. “Really two things we should excel at.” They both dressed in black all the time though Alicia’s personality wasn’t as dour, but she had to have a shriveled black heart inside her somewhere to go with Lydia’s.
“Don’t look now,” Alicia said, smiling. “We’re bantering too.”
“I’m okay with it now,” Lydia decided.
Alicia had shoulder length red hair while in contrast Lydia had long, wavy black locks. Everything about Lydia was dark and black: her hair, her clothes, her soul. Everything but her pale skin and red lipstick. Alicia and Lydia were pretty cute, I guess. They just better not get any bright ideas about trying to out-cute Luke and me. We would destroy them. In the name of love. Like! Ah!
This conversation had gotten away from me. That usually happened at lunchtime. My thoughts had also gotten away from me. That usually happened at all the time.
“Luke and I need to break up,” I said.
The chatter stopped instantly. Everyone stared at me. I nodded. “Yeah, I thought that would work.”
Luke had his unhappy face on. “I didn’t love that.”
“Aww, I love that you didn’t love that,” I cooed.
The sweetness in my tone didn’t appease him. “There should be a limit to how much you can torture me in a day.” His eyes narrowed but he didn’t have the furrow to his brow that appeared when he was mad or trying to process deep thoughts, so I didn’t have to worry.
“Yeah, why would I ever agree to that?” I wondered. I wouldn’t, not even to save the world. Well… maybe to save the world. But I wouldn’t be happy about it. I’d be known as Ryan the Reluctant Hero. Hey, that wasn’t too bad. Maybe I should ask people to start calling me that.
“What did you want to say?” Lydia asked, getting us back on track.
I looked at Luke. “Just that we should break up.”
“I care about this more than world hunger,” Zach decided.
“We wouldn’t really break up! But we should tell our parents we did.” Lying! Just like they did it in the old days. If it worked for them, it could work for us too.
