The Thing About Flip Flops

Chapter Seven: Sexy Cheese Pulls and Eloquent Dogs

For some reason, I don't tell Henry, Natalia, and Jenna about the conversation with Jack. Probably because I'm preoccupied trying to make them promise they won't be weird in front of Chris.

I mean they know him casually and everything but they still don't really know him, you know? Well Henry does but he's kind of a lost cause anyway.

A few minutes into the lunch period, none other than Chris himself slides into the empty seat between me and Natalia where we had set our bags, carrying two grilled cheese sandwiches on a paper plate. I quickly pull my bag off the chair so he has a place to sit and Nat, following my example does the same thing and says a shy "Hello" to my boyfriend.

"Ew. Get that gross grilled cheese from me," I laugh, making him stick out his tongue at me teasingly. At least we are able to be comfortably resuming our old playful banter from before we broke up, that must count as a step in the right direction.

I know for a fact that the cafeteria makes their grilled cheese with that plastic neon orange American cheese. Call me picky or whatever, but that stuff is mysterious. Don't get me wrong, I love grilled cheese, but what's wrong with using plain cheddar?

A few minutes later, everyone is chatting normally with Chris as if they've been best friends for years. I guess that's the good thing about my group of friends; it feels natural to hang out with these people.

I did mention to them earlier that they should try to pretend the break-up never happened and not to have any resentment on my behalf. I make a mental note to thank them for listening to me and saving me the embarrassment of an awkward conversation.

I try to focus on my mozzarella sticks. That cheese pull... damn. It was sexy.

See, you can never go wrong with mozzarella. Mozzarella cheese is perfect because yeah it's kind of boring, but it goes well with anything. And there are so many kinds of mozzarella, like the fresh kind that you get in Italian restaurants or those ones that come in red wax, or like... those cheese sticks with the strings that you have to pull, or melted mozzarella on pizza, or obviously fried mozzarella sticks...

God I love mozzarella cheese.

I snap out of my mental cheese rant when Nat says, "Aud, what was the homework for AP History?"

"I- um yeah Ms. Mozzarella- shit I mean Ms. Martina- um, she was talking about a research paper about..." I try to save myself from utter embarrassment, but Chris looks at me weirdly with a slight shake of his head.

"Ms. Mozzarella? You're cute Audrey," Chris whispers under his breath to me, making my face flush as I mumble to him that I'm not cute, I'm just mentally a mozzarella cheese guru who seems to have accidentally slipped up.

Speaking of slip-ups, whoever invented blue cheese was a slip up to society because... what the actual fuck. Like I can eat blue cheese flavoured snacks and stuff but the actual stuff is so gross. Who even eats blue cheese? Ew.

"Audrey!" Everyone says at once. I turn to them, my mouth full of cheese.

"W-what?" I choke out, coughing on my food.

I mentally hear Lin-Manuel Miranda sing, My dog speaks more eloquently. I forcefully will the mini Alexander Hamilton inside my head to shut up. Huh, I wonder what an eloquent dog would say. It would probably demand to have some of my mozzarella sticks. You can't have any of my mozzarella sticks, you dumb talking dog!

"If now's not a good time, I can always leave..." A deep, amused and vaguely familiar voice says from beside the table and I look up to see none other than Jack Golden standing above me in all his glory, holding his lunch tray.