Page 34 of Tell Me When It's Over

I want to ask him his story because it seems like it’d be an interesting one, but I don’t. Instead, I climb out of the car and glance down at the phone that has five new messages.

Mia: Garrick is bringing his brother

Kyler: Mia told me your plans tonight

Kyler: If Garrick tries anything, I’ll hurt him

Mia: Chase is cute, Lenny Lou!

Kyler: I have connections. The kind you don’t want to use unless necessary

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumble to myself, face flaming. Chase sidles up beside me as we walk toward the front doors Garrick is already pounding on.

“What?”

Turning the screen off, I ask, “Do you know if the mafia still exists?”

He blinks. Then laughs. “You’re weird, huh?” I freeze at his words, uncertain if I should be offended or flattered. “I think we’re going to be good friends.”

A new text draws my attention down.

Mia: You guys can hang out after dinner while Garrick and I do some work ;)

Is that what this is? I pale. Mia is trying to set me up.

When she opens the door, she grins at the three of us. Ushering us inside, she wraps an arm around mine and whispers, “He’s cute, right?”

I groan again.

The boys both look back at us.

My face turns pink. “Please stop,” I plead under my breath.

“I’m just trying to help a girl out.”

I don’t admit that Chase is cute, which he is, because then Mia will go out of her way to try matching us up. It’s bad enough she’ll head off with Garrick and leave me alone with Chase. He seems nice, but I’ve never been great at one on

one conversations with people I don’t know. Guys especially.

Mia squeezes my arm. “Give it a shot, Len. For me?”

Frowning, I relent. “Fine.”

She pecks my cheek. “You’ll be fine.”

I’m not so sure I believe her.

Turns out, Chase isn’t bad. Unlike his older brother, he’s not a flirt. He’s awkward and a little dorky, which is great because he reminds me of me. I’m also pretty certain he doesn’t know Mia’s intentions or else things may be awkward in a whole different way.

After surviving dinner, which included a lot of banter between Garrick and Mia about babies, Kyler, and everything in between, everyone broke away. There’s a surprise collaboration in the works from them that they’re going to be recording this summer and releasing in the fall. I try acting like I’m not too excited, but I am, and I’m a bad actor, so they know it.

The few hours following the meal leaves me and Chase in the living room watching YouTube videos about hacking. He tells me about being accepted to Boston’s MIT and choosing not to go and how he got started doing independent coding for different software systems.

“It’s not what I wanted to do.” He kicks his feet up on the ottoman and grabs a handful of popcorn Mia brought us. “Remember that group Anonymous? I used to want to be one of them.”

“But they’re so creepy!”

“They do cool shit though.”

---