The Floral Files

A Small Problem

A tall, gangly young man weaves through a crowd of young people to bestow upon his friends a gift. He pulled six slender bottles out from under his arms and the pocket of his hoodie and set them on the table. "Coke's on me, if someone else gets chips, I think I got groped," he said with a look of mild disgust. Lexi, without raising her gaze from her phone, returned with, "You don't have anything to grope, Josh." he put his hands up in protest. "Listen, I know what I felt, someone definitely grabbed my ass." Amelia, wanting to avoid the argument that would inevitably ensue, stood up and squeezed her way out of the booth.

"I'll get chips, it's no problem, I think our number's up anyways." Josh took his seat on the booth side of the table, across from Lexi. Lexi looked up at him, sneered, and then turned her attention to Amelia. "Why thank you, Amelia, I'm glad someone can make themselves useful." Josh scoffed and retorted back. "Useful?! I just brought the table drinks, and there is no way you'd be passing Russian Lit without me, I am very useful." Kelly, Lexi's good friend, decided to intervene before the little "jabs" became punches or stabs. She inserted her arms between the two and gave both discouraging looks. "Alright alright, come on guys, we're in public." Lexi returned to the article she was reading on her phone, and Josh straightened up in his seat and smoothed back his hair.

Their number was in fact up, and after a brief interlude at the chip bar, Amelia returned with two trays filled with tinfoil wrapped burritos, and plastic mesh bowls of tortilla chips. Adam, another fellow in this merry band, immediately began to give each person their respective burrito.

"Okay, veggie for Amelia, pork for Lexi and Josh - here ya go Lex - beef for...Cory- " "Ayyy, carnitas!" Cory said while unwrapping his meal. "Carnitas means meat, not pork." Lexi fired back. Adam simply rolled his eyes at the two and continued passing out food. "And fish for Kelly and I!" Everyone began unwrapping food, sipping Mexican coke (a delicacy Amelia and Cory introduced to the group), and overall enjoying one another's company. Kelly bit into her burrito and immediately turned to Lexi, putting it near her face. She covered her mouth with one hand, trying to chew and talk at the same time. "You need to put this in your mouth right now, holy shit this burrito is so fucking good!" Lexi put down her own burrito and countered her friend's statement "You're probably just hungry" before taking a bite of Kelly's food. "Oh wow that's really good, Adam, you try it." The burrito made its way to Adam, who agreed that it was one of their better dishes. Adam handed the food back to Kelley. She turned her gaze towards Amelia. "Amelia, do you wanna try?" This minor question made Amelia tense up slightly in her seat, racking her brain for a polite way to decline.

You see Amelia has a touch of OCD, just a small problem, but sharing food was something that was always rather challenging for her. Amelia decided to just say no politely and leave it at that. "Oh, no thank you, but thanks for offering." Kelly's face took on a worrisome look as she retrieved her food from across the table. "Oh, do you have a seafood allergy or something?" She was genuinely concerned, worried that her friend may go into anaphylactic shock by merely being near the fish. Amelia sensed the concern and immediately wanted to relieve Kelly of any fear. "Oh gosh, no, nothing like that. I just don't really like sharing food, but it looks wonderful, I'm sure I'll order it some other time." Kelly's look of concern quickly shifted to one of mischievous curiosity. "Are you afraid of catching whatever Josh has?" She said, her lips curling into a smirk. Amelia began to flush. "No, no I'm not-" Amelia was cut off by Josh who proclaimed. "Hey! I just got tested, I'm totally clean!" "Someone throw a parade" Corey mumbled through a mouth full of food, still clearly upset about his 'lapse of lingy'. Kelley didn't want to lose her grip on the conversation, so she asked again slyly. "Is it my cooties Amelia? Amelia sighed and felt her heart begin to race. She knew that Kelly was doing this on purpose, teasing her just to get a reaction. It was infuriating, and the worst part was that Amelia was certain that it was all in fun, Kelly couldn't have been attracted to Amelia in any way. Or so she thought...

Amelia slumped back into her seat and sighed. "Listen, it's no big deal, but unless I'm literally sharing spit with someone, I don't want to share their food." Kelly developed a devious grin - then before Amelia could even register what was happening - she leaned over the table, grabbed Amelia's jaw, tilted it toward herself, and kissed her. Amelia kept her eyes open at first, too shocked to even kiss back. After a moment, however, she stopped thinking and savored the moment. The pair shared the kiss until a "Whoo!" from Adam, and scattered applause from her friends drew Amelia out of the haze of the moment and cause her to quickly pull away, her face looking positively scarlet. Kelly slowly leaned back into her seat and winked at Amelia.

"Now will you take a bite?"