“Did I make you uncomfortable?” Morgan asked, looking at me.
“Huh?” I whipped my head around to face her. “Oh. No. Um, I…” I looked around us. “Something happened, but I can’t just say it in a crowd like this.”
She nodded. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
She pulled me up by my hand and off we went. The kitchen was… was the term ‘open concept?’ It wasn’t a lot more private than the living room we were just in, since we could clearly see it from the kitchen, but if we kept our voices low it would do, since no one else was there.
Morgan started pouring herself a glass of water. “Water’s on, go ahead and talk,” she whispered.
I nodded. “Earlier, I was talking to Milo. He’s fed up with what he thinks he knows. He doesn’t like what you, Taylor, and I are doing. He threatened to tell Joel if we don’t tell him.”
The water started overflowing from the cup. “…What?!” Morgan blurted, giving me a sharp look.
I gave her a nervous nod. She grunted. “Why the fuck does he always have to…” She swiped her cup from the sink, and started looking for Milo. I shut off the water and followed her.
She walked with purpose, so I didn’t catch up to her before she found Milo. “Yo. I need a sec with you,” Morgan informed him, breaking up his conversation with some girl. He seemed pretty rattled that Morgan would interrupt like that, but accepted the situation and walked off with her.
“Someone stole your girl,” some beefy guy built like a tank teased me.
“She’ll be back,” I replied, thinking I was stating a fact, but the tank guy just politely laughed like I made a quip.
“How’d you snag that one, anyway?” he pressed on. “Ben’s been trying like all year, and the best he did was finger her after a game. And she never called him back after that.”
“Fuck off,” some other guy who had a body like Crash Bandicoot sneered from behind him.
I was too busy trying to get that visual out of my head to respond for the next few seconds. “Um, I wouldn’t say I snagged her,” I replied. “We just happened to develop feelings for each other, I guess.”
Tank guy just stared at me for a few seconds, then rolled his eyes and went back to his group. I guess somehow I said something wrong. Even though I was practically dead center in the room, crowds formed around me. It was sweet of Morgan to invite me here, but it was painfully clear how unlike the others I was. If only I had Kevin’s schmoozing ability, I may have at least talked to a few people and got the ball rolling or something.
After a few minutes, Morgan re-emerged, though Milo wasn’t in sight. She was clearly pissed. Upon seeing someone I could actually talk to, I briskly walked up to her.
“Hey,” I began. “What did he say?”
“He said he’s a fucking asshole,” Morgan grumpily replied, uncharacteristically mad. Even in a crisis she usually had a calm demeanor to her; this was the first time I saw her this upset. “I need another drink. And we’re going soon.”
“Is there anything I need to kn-”
“Quinn, if you could not, I’d really appreciate that,” she told me, only bothering to stop walking as she spoke to me, continuing to walk away after. Did I do something wrong? Was she mad at Milo, or at me?
Or both…?
***
Morgan didn’t calm down until she got home. I felt a responsibility as her boyfriend to be there and help her calm down, though I let her (and Doug, since he asked) know that I unquestionably had to be home tonight. Even with Mother’s speech, I didn’t want to bite the hand that fed me.
Luckily, with Morgan, myself, and teenage hormones, calming someone down is easy. It just meant a prolonged session of making out. Even so, it was clear that Morgan was wound tight.
“Y’know, we could have just had a nice fucking time,” she complained as I kept kissing her neck. “I don’t even just mean at the party. We were stopping, so I don’t get what it even helps to threaten to tell him now.”
I stopped kissing. “Well, Milo was threatening to tell Joel because he doesn’t think we’re actually stopping,” I pointed out.
“Don’t make me pissed at the guy that’s kissing my neck,” Morgan half-joked, half-threatened. “We’ll have to stop and then no one will be kissing my neck.”
I cracked a smile. “What a tragedy.”
“Right?” Morgan’s smile copied my own. “Milo just likes to control stuff. He gets so sure that his version of events is, like, what is definitely going on, and he doesn’t like to sit back and wait for shit to get real.”
“Can I ask what happened in your conversation that made you so upset?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “He gave me the same ultimatum. He told me to tell Joel or he would.” She looked to the ground and shook her head. “I don’t get it. I was here when Taylor tried to… you know. Do that thing with you. I saw how you reacted.”
My cheeks burned crimson.
“That was clear as day. It’s as good as done. I…” She stopped mid-sentence, and looked at me. “Wait, no. I’m dumb. You’re right here. I’m presuming a lot of things about you while you’re right here. I need to leave this up to you.” She looked at me expectantly.
“That was a lot,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, sorry,” she conceded.
“I… do want to cut things off with Taylor,” I admitted. “But I need to be aware of myself. I’m bad at telling her no when she wants me. You saw us when you were there, but when she and I are alone…” I stopped, realizing I was about to tell my girlfriend how attractive her friend was.
“She’s persuasive, and clearly hot. Tears are out, Quinn, remember?” she reminded me.
It was still weird, but okay. “Right,” I conceded. “Well, yeah, that’s it. Every time I’m alone, or with you, or even all three of us are together, it’s easy to tell her no, or it seems easy, at least. But when she and I are alone… she kind of corners me.”
Morgan sighed. “Yeah, that sounds like Taylor,” she admitted.
“And it’s definitely naive to just say, ‘oh, well then, I’ll just never hang out with just Taylor again.’ That will definitely happen at least once more.”
“If you don’t want it to, it doesn’t have to,” Morgan simply said. “Remember, we’re really close. I can make sure I’m always there when you’re hanging out with Taylor if you need a lifeline.”
I smiled at her. “I thought you said the tears were out.”
“Well, number one, it’s clearly a you thing at this point. If you don’t want to do anything with her, but can’t resist her, it sounds like I’m doing you a favor,” she reasoned. “Number two, it’s becoming too complicated. I’m allowed to change my mind. Number three, uh, please don’t use my own ‘tears are out’ thing as a gotcha. It doesn’t feel good.”
“Okay, sorry,” I admitted, and leaned forward and kissed her.
“I can offer you this lifeline, but at the end of the day, this is a choice you’re going to have to make for yourself,” she softly added.
“I know,” I admitted. “I’m going to make an effort. It’s just so complicated with the Milo telling Joel thing.”
“I’ll handle that part,” Morgan confidently added. “I can probably get him to back down, especially since this stuff sounds like it’s over anyways. Milo is just trying to invent drama. He won’t go through with it, I’ll make sure of it. I have around eighteen hours after all.” We shared a laugh. “Once he sees he’s making things worse if he does it, not better, he’ll stop. I know how Milo works.”