Does He like Me?

Chapter Two

   Day One•

        "Okay, so are we gonna stop in St. Louis or drive for twenty-one hours to New York?" Rivington asked, stuffing a Belgium waffle in his mouth. "And by the way, I am not gonna drive today, I'm still tired from the last drive." He was talking with his mouthful. I shuddered. I hated it when people ate with their mouths open, all of those chucked up pieces moving from one side to the other.

        "I'll drive if we go St Louis." Tanton suggested. "But I'm not gonna drive twenty-one hours straight! I'll fall asleep behind the wheel.

        "Whoa, let's go to St. Louis! I'm not gonna get in a car wreck on our way to New York!" Lola abruptly said. 

        "St. Louis it is!" Driggs smiled. He held up his cup as an act of cheers, so we all held up our glasses until we heard them clink, then drank our coffee.

        We were done eating in about ten minutes, but we kept laughing in that same booth that we've been in for about another half hour. I'm pretty sure people started to get annoyed that we've been there forever. Eventually, a waitress had to ask us to leave because other people were waiting to sit down. 

        We headed back up to the room, and piled back into Rivington's van. We drove for about three hours before we had to stop at a gas station to fill up. Lindsay claimed she had to use the bathroom, but she came back with two six packs of Monster energy, she got the new Orange One. I called it the Orange One because I didn't know what the flavor was; I just knew it tasted good. We all finished drinking before we started driving again. 

        Lindsay and I were talking about how Ashley and Tanton's relationship has been going on forever and how they'll probably get married or something. But secretly, I hoped they wouldn't get married. I hoped Tanton would fall in love with me, but he probably loves Ashley too much to dump her for her best friend. Lindsay was talking about how they were gonna have four kids named Aaron, Jay, Zach and Mary. But, thankfully, Adriana interrupted us. "So, what are we gonna do when we get to St. Louis?"

        "What do you mean? We're gonna be staying the night, and then leaving the next morning. That's it. We should be planning for what we're gonna do in New York!" Lindsay squeaked. And when I said squeaked, she legitimately squeaked; like a mouse. 

       Adriana cringed. "Could you be any more high pitched?" Lindsay rolled her eyes and smiled. "Anyway, about St. Louis, it takes about seven hours to get there, and it's nine thirty and we left an hour ago. So we'll be in St. Louis around three thirty." 

        "Since when did you get so good at math?"  I asked her.

        "Ever since my dad made me take an extra math credit!" She groaned. "Why do I have to take another one? I already have all of my credits to graduate except two! And those are the classes I'm taking next year while I'm a senior. I call them, my Fun Credits."

        "Fun Credits?" Lindsay and I asked. 

        "Yeah, the credits I take that aren't that hard. Like, creative arts and stuff like that." Adriana said casually, taking a sip of the water bottle she had brought. "Anyway, what're we gonna do? We could go up in the arch!" 

        "Sure. What else?" 

        "What can we do in St. Louis?" Lindsay asked. We all sat there and thought for a few minutes before Lindsay chimed in, " we could go shopping while the boys go on a bike trail or something."

        "Or we could go shopping for us, and the boys!" Adriana said. She instantly talked everybody into it, but Lindsay, Lola and I didn't have boyfriends to shop for. We felt out of place and awkward, but Lola (out of everybody) always knows how to save us single ladies. "Hey, Adriana, since some of us don't have lovely men in our awesome lives, we'll just go shopping for ourselves."

        "Oh, right. I forgot." She scrunched up her face as a way of saying sorry. She wasn't sorry. She knew I didn't have a boyfriend. We always got along, but there was something in her eyes that told me she really hated me. Maybe I'm being paranoid, maybe I'm just over-reacting, but maybe I wasn't.

        "It's cool, all three of us will find boyfriends by the end of the summer, right guys?" Lola turned her head which made her long, blonde curls bounce with enthusiasm.

        "Definitely!" Lindsay chimed in, she looked up from her phone. "What do you think of him?" She turned her phone towards us, she was on Facebook and it was a picture of, what do you know, Cameron Dallas.

        "Cam?" Adriana asked. She stuck her tongue out in disgust.

        "What? You did not just stick your tongue out at my future husband!" Lindsay hugged her phone as if it was Cameron himself.

        "Whatever. You're gonna have a boyfriend by the end of the summer, right Kylie?" Lola asked, one eyebrow raised.

        "Yeah, for sure." Did I even believe myself? I've only liked one guy in my whole life. Sure, I've had boyfriends, but I wasn't the one that have fallen head-over-heels for I didn't want just any other guy. I wanted Tanton. I needed Tanton. I needed him kissing me like I was the air, and he was suffocating. ••••

        We were eating at some fast food place after we checked in to our hotel. We were sitting in a huge booth. All of the couples were sitting next to each other and Tanton was sitting in front of me. I was in the middle of eating me salad when Tanton's foot was touching my leg. It rose higher and higher. It was at my knee and it was still moving. I didn't show any reaction because I didn't want Ashley to notice. I didn't want her to look under the table and see Tanton flirting with me and not her.

        I kicked his leg and he winced, but didn't look at me. I liked Tanton, I really did. But Ashley was my best friend since fourth grade and we promised that if a guy got between our friendship, we'd tell each other and no matter how much we loved him, we'd dump them like they were old news.

        We went shopping, we swam in the hotel swimming pool and we went to sleep. All of us ready for the fifteen hour drive to the Big Apple.