Page 29 of The Boy I Once Loved

Dylan places a tray down in front of me with a sandwich and a can of my favourite – Dandelion and Burdock. He doesn’t even need to ask me what drink I want; he just knows. He sits down beside me, and Connor and Aria sit opposite. Shortly after Caleb and Jack arrive and then our table gets crowded when Lucas, Freya and Katy join us. I sit quietly and listen to them all chat. Dylan grabs my drink and takes a swig, smiling at me. The minute he opens his can of Fanta, I grab it and take a drink. I look up to see Aria watching us both intently.

“What?” Dylan asks her, puzzled. She simply smiles in response and then turns her attention to Connor. Dylan opens his sandwich and pulls out any tomatoes and puts them on to my sandwich, but not before taking any onion off mine and putting it on his.

“This is fascinating,” Aria states, making me look up. She is sitting there with her head resting on her hands, staring at us. Connor chuckles as he tucks into his hot dog.

“What?” I ask.

She waves her finger from me to Dylan. “You drink each other’s drinks. He puts his tomatoes on your sandwich and helps himself to the onion off yours.”

Dylan shrugs, looking disinterested. “She doesn’t like onions. I don’t like tomatoes.”

Aria nods. “Fascinating,” she repeats, continuing to look at us like we are a science experiment. “Are they always like this?” She asks Connor.

“Yep. They always eat each other’s food, share their drinks. It’s creepy,” he says grinning at us both.

Aria bats off his last comment. “It’s not creepy, it’s cute.”

Dylan sniggers. “Whatever.” He pulls a Mars bar out of his pocket and breaks it in half, taking his half and leaving the other half on my tray. I take it and I blush when Aria grins at what she observes.

Freya tuts grabbing my attention. “Chocolate. You know what they say. A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”

Dylan scoffs. “Like Elneeds to worry about her weight.”

“I’ve just dropped down to a six,” she announces. I’m not sure if she is hoping for some kind of applause, so I just shrug and tuck into my half of the Mars bar.

A group of girls walk past our table and they stare at me. They sit down and continue to stare and twitter amongst each other. “What is with everyone today?”

Caleb looks at me puzzled and follows my gaze to where the girls sit staring. He grins. “Oh, that. Well, you are walking around wearing James’ name on your back, I guess they are either in awe of you for bagging our boy here so quick or insanely jealous of you.”

I lean closer to him. “Sorry, what?”

“That training shirt you’re wearing,” he grins, “It has Dylan’s name on the back.”

I twist round to try and see the back of the top, before turning to glare at Dylan. “Seriously?”

He smirks. “You needed a top to wear this morning.”

“You slept at Dylan’s?!” Freya accuses, looking none too happy with the idea.

"She's wearing my boxers too," Dylan tells her, grinning. Aria spurts her drink out, spraying Caleb and me in our faces.

“You’re a fucking arsehole,” I hiss at him and I punch him in the arm.

Dylan grins in response and he ruffles my hair playfully. “Just telling the truth.”

I lean in and glare at him and I reach out and grab his nose between my fingers. “Dick face.”

He tries to bite at my fingers as I squeeze his nose tighter. “Pussy face,” he replies, laughing as he grabs at my nose. We stop when we realise the entire table is silent and is watching us.

Caleb cocks a brow. “Did you really just call her pussy face?”

“You two are weird,” Freya announces with a scowl before she stands, and she flounces off.

“What crawled up her arse?” I ask, perplexed.

"You," Lucas informs me as he chews on a straw, watching Freya’s retreating figure.

“Me?”

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