Pushing out of her hug I stare at her. “Your what?”
“Yeah, what?” Kate asks, equally confused.
“Oh it was just a silly idea Steven had.” She shrugs as if that tells us the entire story. We both look at her expectantly, she chuckles at our impatience and continues. “I had just told Steven I noticed some looks between you two here and there. He told me about Benny hitting his car—”
“Ben hit someone’s car?!” Kate gasps.
“It was an accident!” I jump to defend him.
“Yes, yes, he hit the car. Accident, whatever happened.” Emma waves off the details, “Steven told me we should set them up, I knew you would never go for it. So he invited him to dinner in place of paying for the damage, it was the perfect excuse.” She grins at me, “I was afraid we ruined it when the wine hit and I couldn’t shut up. Stupid Merlot.”
“Wow.” I gape at her, shocked at her sneakiness, and the fact that I didn’t catch on. Emma has never been one to be sly or keep a secret, and Steven has never been one to be in cahoots with anything, let alone my love life. The length the two of them went to for me was sweet, and it almost made up for them being the tipsy loud mouths they were.
“Sorry about that by the way,” she says sincerely, interlocking her arm with mine.
“All is forgiven.” I smile.
“So you guys are official now?” Kate asks, bouncing up and down as we head towards the check out line.
“I guess? We haven’t officially labeled it though.” I wheel the cart to the cashier—a student they call Tiny Tim and he is anything but. He is a very large, dark-complected teenager who has a beard almost as good as Malcolm’s. It’s a mystery if he really is seventeen or if he’s just repeated his senior year a few times.
“Hi Tim, how are you?” I ask, setting the groceries on the conveyor belt.
Tim grunts as he scans our groceries and smashes them into plastic sacks. Kate clears her throat and sets two large, reusable sacks near the register, gesturing for him to use those instead of plastic. He grunts again, taking the already packed plastic bags and placing them entirely in the reusables. Kate looks at me visibly irritated, and groans, accepting the bags as Tiny Tim slides them to her without looking up from the scanner.
“You can’t just kiss someone and not expect there to be an official label,” Emma says, perusing the gum selection near the register.
“I know, I just assumed we would talk about it by now.” I grab a large packet of spearmint gum, Benny’s favorite, and toss it with the rest of the groceries.
“What haven’t you?”
“Haven’t had time. And I think I upset him.”
“Impossible, he’s too smitten. You could never do anything wrong,” Kate says at the end of the check out line, reorganizing the groceries to return the plastic bags back to Tiny Tim.
“Oh I’m sure I could,” I say, thinking back to the pitiful look on his face as I pushed his hand away this morning. Shame and guilt hit me down to the bone over being the source of hurt he must have felt. My mind quickly turns to panic and worry that he could be mad at me. “He hasn’t texted me at all today,” I say, urgently. “Garrett Connors saw us in the breakroom, we weren’t doing anything! But we weren’tnotdoing anything either! Nothing crazy happened!”
“What did happen then?” Emma asks.
“He was just being so, ugh, and I was literally a puddle on the floor. I didn’t realize Garrett was there, I was afraid we’d get in trouble or something, I don’t know! I freaked out, I ran away and now he probably hates me.” My voice cracking on the word hate, fear and desperation lingering as I may have let my intrusive thoughts ruin something so wonderful.
“Benny doesn’t hate anyone,” Kate says, comforting me with a side hug and bringing me back to reality. “And he could never ever hate you. Or I’ll disown him.”
“But what if it’s too good to be true?” I whisper, intrusive thoughts taking over again.
“It’s not. You guys are perfect for each other!”
“Just text him. He probably thinks you don’t want to talk to him or he freaked you out or something,” Emma says, loading the repackaged groceries into the cart.
“Or he’s realized he can do better and doesn’t need a girl like me,” I whisper more to myself than them.
Emotionally broken, angry, and cynical.
“Don’t be ridiculous, you are wonderful and any guy would be lucky to have you. Benny included,” Emma pays Tiny Tim and we start to leave the store.
“I don’t know, maybe this is all too much. Maybe I should just leave it at a perfect kiss and not let anything ruin it.”
“What could ruin it?” Kate demands.
