When I talked to Zoe she seemed to catch on. I hadn't talked to Marcus since the other night, but tonight he, Zoe, and I were going out for dinner. I, again, hoped Zoe wouldn't say anything or embarrass me. She really had me on edge. You know how it feels when you've got a secret you've told only one person, but your secret is so involved in general conversation it's hard not to bring it up? Well...yeah. Me completely. Zoe knew my secret, and since we're all just so close she would want to talk about it (because she'd been talking to me about it a lot lately), but she won't be able to of course. There was no way Marcus was finding out tonight. Embarrassing!
I got to the restaurant, and to my surprise I was the only one there. Marcus was late for everything, but Zoe was usually always prompt. I picked up my phone to check the time when I got a tap on the shoulder. It was Marcus. I almost fell over, my cheeks were very hot, and I was completely speechless.
"Hey, man," Marcus broke the (beginning of an) awkward silence.
"H-hey, what's up? I didn't see you when I came in!" I responded nervously.
"Oh," he laughed, "I was in the bathroom."
"Hey, guys," Zoe chimed in at the right time. There definitely would have been some awkward silence had she not walked in then. What was I supposed to say, you know? I wish I could have joined you? I wish I could have watched? No, no, no. All wrong.
A waitress led us to our table. I sat next to Marcus and Zoe sat across from us. I liked sitting beside Marcus. I liked the physical contact, although there wasn't much. I guess when you really like somebody you just want to be near them a lot, and I definitely wanted to be closer to Marcus, so this seating arrangement was just right.
We got through our small talk when Marcus went in for the kill.
"Zoe, who's Sofia?"
She almost fucking choked on her mashed potatoes. How does one even choke on a mashed potato?
"Oh...Uh...Well, we've been friends forever, you know? She was at my birthday party," she was a good liar, I'll admit that. It was quite admirable really.
"Oh, okay. She messaged me the other night, said she was your friend. I thought I would have remembered, but I can't. I mean... There was well over 50 people there, but still. Oh well... I just wanted to make sure she wasn't a mentalcase."
"No, she's good people." I interrupted.
"Oh, you know her too, Alf?" he asked.
"Yeah, we hit it off at Zoe's that night."
"I didn't know that! You were with me the whole time, bud. I was probably too drunk to remember. Do you want me to lay off?" Oh my god, no. That's not what I meant. Now he thinks that's my girl. Of course not!
"Oh, no. I meant we hit it off as friends," I said shyly. I'm gay! Of course I didn't like her. Hell, she wasn't even real.
"I guess I'll keep talking to her but I don't know anything about her. She seems cool though, so yeah," he ended that conversation.
Marcus and Zoe continued talking about her birthday party. I just sat there thinking... Wow, that was lucky. That conversation could have gone incredibly badly! The really, really good news was that I'd be able to talk to Marcus again!
Maybe tonight I'd message him again...
