The Next Chapter

Chapter 42

Emery's POV

Chicken Parmesan, Caprese Salad, Tomato Soup, Spaghetti Carbonara, Meatballs with salsa, Lasanga and so much more! How do people ever choose what to eat? It's impossible. 

"Have the ladies decided yet?" The waiter asks. He looks pretty young, around our age I'd guess. Brown eyes and brown curly hair. Clearly Italian based on the accent too. "H-have you?"

Oh God! Why am I staring? Stop it! 

  "Yes, I'm sorry." I laugh and look away. "I'll have the Spaghetti Carbonara, thank you." He smiles at me and takes the menu.  He takes Andrea's and Ally's orders too and then heads to the kitchen.

"Emery!" Ally yells. "You were totally staring!" 

"I was not!" Lie...

Ally and Andrea look at eat other and laugh. "Sure."

"Someone doesn't look happy." Andrea suddenly says.

"Jake?" I ask in a low voice, she nods. "Was he looking?" My back is towards him so I can't see him, Andrea is sitting opposite to me so she can see him clearly. 

"Was? He's still looking at you- No. Now he's looking at the waiter. He does not look happy." I want to turn around so badly. But no, I can't. 

I start eating the bread on the table to get my mind off of things. And dear God did that work. How does someone bake something so magnificent? It's just bread but it's like a whole other thing. I drink some water too and about 20 minutes later my bladder is about to explode.

"Excuse me." I say and get up. 

"You okay?" Ally asks.

"Yeah, just have to use the bathroom." I smile and walk away. I look around for a while but can't find the bathroom so I ask some waitress and she points me to the right of the restaurant. I thank her and walk over there. Once I'm in I'm pretty shocked. It's so classy. Clean and smells good. You don't find a lot of those places in New York City. 

When I'm done I wash my hands and open the door to return to my table when someone grabs me by my arm and drags me into the men's room. "Let go!" I yell.

"What was that?" Someone yells and when I look up I see him. 

"Jake, what the hell? You can't just drag me wherever you want." I place my hands on my hips.

"What was that?" He asks again.

"What was what?"

"That over there." He points outside. "With the waiter." Is he kidding?

"What? I'm not allowed to look at other guys?"

"No-"

"Excuse me?! I can and will do whatever I want." I'm angry too now. Who does he think he is? "We're not together remember?"

"Yes. I remember. But that does not give you the right to just go around and-"

"And what? Look at other guys? Breathe the same air as them? Live on the same planet as them? It's a little hard to just ignore every guy on the planet, Jake."

"That's not what I said. You just can't go and flirt with anyone."

"Flirt? Flirt?! I barely spoke to the guy!" I yell.

"Well, two can play that game!" He yells back.

"What game?! There is no game!"

 "This-" He waves his hand between me and him. "-this is over right?"

"Yes." That didn't come out as steadily as I'd like.

"Good. Then ask him out and I'll ask the waitress out." 

"What?! Why?"

"To prove that it's over." I can't deal with him right now.

"Fine." I say and storm out of there. When I'm back at my table the food has arrived. "Do you know where the waiter is?" I ask Andrea and Ally. They point towards a table that he's cleaning. The range from Jake is on fire within me so I walk over there and put a smile on my face.

"Excuse me?" I say and tap on his shoulder. He turns around and his eyes meet mine instantly. "Hi, I'm Emery." 

"Nice to meet you, I'm Antonio." He smiles.

"This may be a little weird... But I'm going to hand you my phone, can you just tap on it a few times to make it look like I got your number?" This is kind of awkward.

"D-Do you want my number?" He looks so confused. 

"No, we just have to make it look like you gave your number." I hand him the phone.

"Okay..." He starts tapping the screen and then gives it back. I thank him and walk away, walking past Jake's table on my way back but not looking at him. I can still feel his eyes burn on me.

I take my seat and explain everything to the girls. They seemed a little lost when I got back. We let go of it and eat up pretty quickly, we were all very hungry and it took them quite some time to cook the food. Although I can't blame them, we're like 30+ people in here who ordered at the same time. It was delicious though.

"Looks like Jake's got company." Andrea says and nods over to where he's standing. With the waitress...  They're laughing and now he's handing her his phone? What the hell? He actually did it? It's really over then...

"Let's go." I say and stand up. "I'll tell the teacher that we're leaving." I say and walk away.  

When we're out of the restaurant we decide to do some sightseeing. (Mostly to get my mind off of Jake and the waitress) We walk all over New York and see all the sights, we take a bunch of pictures and before we know it it's 20 minutes to our curfew.

"We should head back. Mr. McPelt won't be happy if we're late." Ally says and Andrea and I agree. The bus wouldn't be here for another 10 minutes so we decide to walk instead. We'll probably be back at the hotel just in time. 

And just as I thought, we're here just in time. Mr. McPelt is nowhere to be seen in the lobby so I assume he's checking in on other students. The elevator ride up is pretty silent, we're all so tired after the day we had. We walked to so many different places, my feet are killing me. The doors to the elevator open up and the first thing I see is him. 

I forgot that we live opposite each other...

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Thoughts?