“You’ll get there,” Morgan replied. “Honestly? Maybe you need to slow down. Stop chasing after guys and letting them come to you.”
Lexi scoffed. “Yeah, because guys just fucking love me,” she replied, continuing her bitterness.
“They should!” I decided to weigh in. “I mean, you’re bubbly, you’re not afraid to be yourself, and…” I turned to Morgan. “I assume it’s okay if I compliment her looks?”
Morgan gave me an ‘Oh, Quinn’ smile. “Of course it is,” she replied. “I mean, we’ve discussed stuff like that already.” She gave me a wink with the eye that was facing the booth, away from the two girls.
My smile faded. What was she saying? We definitely didn’t discuss rules for complimenting her friends. The closest thing to that was… She definitely didn’t mean that.
Her smile slowly faded, noticing mine was gone. Quickly, I turned back towards Lexi and lowered my head towards my food. “You’re, uh, y’know… v-very pretty.”
“Ouch,” Lexi replied flatly. “It sounds like it hurt to force yourself to say that one.”
“I was about to say,” Crystal laughed. “If you’re gonna lie, don’t be, like, obvious about it.”
“I’m still nervous telling people they’re pretty,” I lied coolly. “Still a nerd at heart, I guess. You know how the stereotype is with nerds around girls.”
“I thought you hated the stereotypes,” Crystal noted.
“I hate them because they’re true,” I joked. “Sorry, Lexi. I meant it. You’re really pretty, and you’re, y’know, very… attractive. You’d make any guy happy if they just got to know you, but high school guys are too shallow for that. I call you cute a lot, I’m not just saying that.”
“You’re a sweet guy, Quinn,” Lexi replied. “It fucking sucks that you’re taken.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I replied, turning back and kissing Morgan on the lips like our weird moment didn’t happen. “And hey. Morgan took a chance on me. I wasn’t exactly popular. Who knows, maybe you’d be surprised if you went for a guy outside of your normal friend circle. If he’s cute, go for it. So what if he’s in… choir or something?”
“If he’s in choir, he’s either gay or way too into himself,” Lexi commented.
“Well then don’t go for the choir guys, I guess. I hope you get what I’m saying.”
“Yeah, I do. Thanks, Quinn,” Lexi replied with a slight smile. She was clearly still down in the dumps a little, but that couldn’t be helped. I reached for my burger again, when I felt a vibration in my pocket. I shouldn’t have cared too much, but now that Talyor, Joel, Morgan and I were in a bit of a situation, I made a habit of checking my phone whenever it went off. If Taylor had an update for us, time was of the essence.
It wasn’t from Taylor. It was from Morgan.
I think the only thing that turns me on more than you being assertive is you supporting my friends. I cant wait until were alone ❤
I turned to Morgan and gave her a sheepish, no doubt goofy smile. She smiled back, subtly snaked her hand down to my leg below the table, and sexily squeezed my inner thigh.
***
It was weird, coming home and not needing to account for my actions. Mother was true to her word, actually putting effort into not caring about where I went and when I’d be back. I adhered to her ground rules, but out of nowhere, she just gave me freedom.
“I’m home!” I bellowed, feeling confident. Crystal drove us home and Morgan and I spent the ride back kissing in the backseat. I wasn’t sure how much PDA we could get away with around her friends, but to be fair, I was given a weird first impression of how much they could take when Morgan gave me a handjob in front of Taylor.
“Ah, Quinn,” Mother commented as I practically danced into the kitchen. “You have fun with Morgan?”
“I did!” I answered chipperly. “We went out with her friends and got food.”
Mother stopped and looked at me. “What kind of food?”
“Fast food,” Kevin’s voice rang from the living room. “McDonald’s, correct me if I’m wrong.”
“You weren’t even there, how would you know?” I shouted back.
“I got a nose for this stuff. I can smell you from here,” he laughed.
“Yeah, well, ditto. Take a shower,” I grumbled. I turned back to Mother, ready for it.
“Do you know the kind of food they serve you at a place like McDonald?” she began. By the time she was finished talking, the sun was visibly closer to setting. At the very least Kevin was kind enough to jump in and debunk her points when she mentioned the pink slime. “Besides,” she finished, “you always say the food here is better anyway.”
“I do, and it is!” I acknowledged. “It’s more like… a social contract.”
“A what?”
“A social contract,” I repeated in Mandarin. “If I’m there they want me to eat the food there.”
“Oh,” she said simply. “Seems dumb. They didn’t make the food, some pimply minimum wage-earner did. Peh.” She walked off as if the conversation was over. That was as close as it ever came to understanding with Mother.
With her out of the way, I walked over to the living room couch and sat down. “You’re an asshole,” I began with a grin.
“My day? Oh, you know. This and that,” he replied smugly. I watched him play his video game for a while until my phone vibrated with a text from Lexi. I began talking to her more than him.
I stopped when I heard him chuckling. “You still hold your phone up to your face when you text, like a nerd,” he pointed out.
“I am a nerd,” I countered.
“You certainly took my advice to heart for someone who hated it so much,” he mused, still looking at my phone. “You put yourself out there and now you’ve fully integrated yourself into Taylor’s group.”
“It’s kind of a non-option when you’re dating one of them,” I replied.
He shook his head, partly at me, partly at his character’s untimely demise. “The things you think of as non-optional are things their boyfriends never even consider,” Kevin coolly replied. “It’s why they like you and actually text you and shit.”
“Come on, dude, that’s giving me too much credit, I got lucky,” I said uneasily.
“How many times have you seen Joel hanging out with the group?”
A shiver ran up my spine when I heard that name. I would have liked to have felt the full gravity of his point, but I was too busy thinking of how easily he could beat me up.
Kevin took my silence as acceptance. “There, yeah, see?”
“Are you trying to tease me about being a good boyfriend?” I asked, annoyed.
“Um, no,” he flatly replied. “I’m teasing you because you still hold your face up to your phone when you text, like a dork.” He slapped my phone from behind to prove his point. It instantly hit my face.
“Ow,” I complained. “Let me see how you text then. I’m sure Mr. Popular has soooo many text messages to answer.”
He gestured around. “This is how I text,” he told me. “Keep ’em on their toes. You see this pocket?” He pointed to a bulge in his pocket. “Inside this pocket rests about seventeen messages, all eagerly waiting a response from…”
I waited a bit with half-lowered eyelids. “…You?”
“Bingo. Yours truly. The one and only. Anticipation, Quinn. People wanna talk to me, and I let them know that it’s not gonna be so easy.”
“But… what about if you really want to talk to them too? If Morgan messages me, I want to know what she said and I want to say something back.”
Great story! And..great story telling!