Third Time's a Charm ✓

twelve

THURSDAY. 03. MARCH. 2022.

GABBY WAS LOOKING at Finn like she wanted to kill him— and I didn't blame her.

"I'm just saying," he shrugged, opening his arms out a little and smiling, his voice a pitch, a note higher than usual, airy and concise. "If he likes you so much then don't you think he would've called?"

"He was busy!" She hissed, her palms slamming down onto the table with a muffled thud as she leaned over the surface towards him, her dark eyes gleaming bright with teetering rage.

There was always something intimidating about girls fueled by indignation, especially when their gazes were slicing you in half from across a table in the school library.

"Yeah, asshole," Quinn chimed, faintly freckled and tanned arms folded and her green eyes narrowed. "You think you know everything but you don't. You don't know anything about Gabby or her boy toy."

"Yeah," Gabby added through gritted teeth, scanning him up and down, her eyes quick and vicious. "You don't know anything about me or my boy toy."

He wasn't fazed. If anything, he was amused. He was leaning back against his chair, one elbow resting on the top of it and his closed fist resting against his temple. He was using his other hand to drum slowly onto the table, his pale eyes glinting and his lips almost— not quite— smiling. He could've been the devil.

"Alright," he shrugged. It was a kind of casual that could get past Quinn and Gabby but not past me; I'd seen performances like these too many times. It was getting easier to tell what the lines sounded like. "I don't know anything about anything, right? Other than the fact he took Robin Lindsay out for dinner last night."

"That's nothing," Gabby insisted hastily, shaking her head, her sleek black hair framing her soft, dark face and falling over her gentle shoulders. Her arched brows were drawn into a tight frown, the movement of her throat too noticeable. "Robin Lindsay is a friend of his. Friends getting dinner isn't suspicious, Finn."

"Oh, so you knew about dinner?" Finn asked with his staged nonchalance. In his eyes, that same teasing gleam. He wasn't even looking at me— in fact, his gaze on the girls hadn't faltered once— but he was still making me nervous.

"Well, no," she replied slowly, withdrawing and tilting her head away from him, "but he doesn't need to tell me everything."

"But he doesn't even tell you his plans?" He asked, the corners of his lips tugging downwards skeptically. "Seems like something probably worth talking about."

"If it was worth talking about then he would've told her," Quinn snapped, still glaring at Finn while she brushed her nimble fingers through her straight, bronze tinted hair.

"Don't get snappy, Quinn," he warned, only half playful. "I'm looking out for her."

"You're looking out for her?" She echoed, cocking a brow and glancing over him.

"Obviously," he replied swiftly, like her accusatory tone had offended him. "If I was speaking to someone that I really liked and they were going out for an expensive dinner alone with a close guy friend who covered the bill and gave them his jacket and one of my friends knew about it then I'd want them to tell me." He turned his head to look at me, the flicker of a smile and the glints of joy. Now I wanted to kill him, too. I knew what he was going to say next and I didn't want to hear it. "What do you think, Brooks?"