“I think I’ll just leave you two alone then. Nice seeing you Tate. Melinda, happy birthday,” he stated getting up to leave.
“Why the big rush? Oh…us,” Tate said with a devious smile. “No you’ve got it all wrong. Mel’s my best friend but we’re just friends.”
“I don’t think so,” Brent said looking towards Mel who was giving him a bored stiff look.
“She’s purposely trying to put you off,” Tate told him as he got up from the booth and took the check. “She’s a brilliant manipulator when she wants.”
“Really?” Brent asked as she got up to go as well.
“Yeah,” Tate agreed moving over to kiss her cheek. “Stay Mel, after all you’ve got a whole week off from your internship and hey, the night’s still young.”
“Tate! You brought me here remember,” she called out after him.
“Brent will give you a ride home, right Brent?”
“Yeah sure,” he said looking towards the now sitting and annoyed Mel.
“I swear that’s the last time he gets steak from me,” she muttered watching him get on his bike. He gave her a wave, and she flipped him her middle finger.
“Wow, I’ve never had a girl so unwilling to even sit with me,” Brent commented seeing her gesture.
A light blush stole up her neck, she hated being caught acting childish. “Sorry, I just don’t know why you want to be here…with me. There are hundreds of other girls out there who would be willing to do anything you ask them to really.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m here. You’re not the typical high school girl. You’ve turned down every guy in school, you don’t come to the games, don’t come to the parties, you’re there one minute and gone the next.”
“How much?” she asked folding her arms across her chest as something in his words and tone hit a chord deep inside her that said run—far and fast away from this jerk.
“What?”
“How much is the bet? The first one who gets me to what? Go out with them? Kiss them, sleep with them…how much do they get?”
“Jesus you’re suspicious…there is no bet,” Brent said looking mildly offended, but she still didn’t buy it. It was way too fishy for him to just suddenly appear asking her out on a date when they’d never spoken a single word before that to one another.
“Then prove it. If you really want to go out with me then you’ll figure out the right way to ask. Until then, enjoy the rest of the pie,” she stated getting up again and taking her jacket. She slipped her arms inside answering her phone when it rang.
“Hey Ry…sorry…no it’s true. Yeah, thanks,” she said hanging up after he’d told her good luck and that they’d miss her. Apparently, it was all over the office that she’d quit, and it wasn’t even ten o’clock, on a Saturday no less.
Mel walked home enjoying the breeze and hurried through her homework before snuggling down into the couch, waiting for Tate to show up despite him ditching her earlier. He did just before midnight armed with her favorite junk food and a marathon worth of movies.
“So, how’d it go?”
“I left about five minutes after you did.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust him. Until this week, he’d never spoken to me and now he wants to go out? There’s something else going on with him.”
“Okay, I’ll back off. Just promise me something.”
“What?” she asked as they turned the first movie on and she curled up beside him.
“When you do finally let someone in, don’t pretend you don’t care. I know your mom leaving killed you but not everyone is going to, Mel.”
“Come on Tate, it’s what, two months into our junior year? We’ve got until May and then he’s gone. He’ll head off to college and that’ll be the end of it anyway. So why bother?”
“Because you might just learn to have some fun, Mel…that’s why.”
“I love you Tate and trust me I have fun. Every single day when I’m changing from a sixteen, seventeen now I guess, year old teenager into a twenty something career girl. You have no idea how entertaining it is to do that.”
