I'm Scott Malkinson

6- Its a Date

The door chimed a welcome as Scott entered the cafe. Clyde looked up from his table and waved him over, smiling brightly. "Hey Scott," he greeted. "I waited until you got here to order, but I grabbed us a table."

"Thanks Clyde," Scott replied, setting his bag down at the foot of the table. He and Clyde walked over to the counter to order their drinks. There was no line as Tweak Bros wasn't normally too terribly busy. They had a few regulars, mostly the goth kids, but it was nowhere near as busy as the Starbucks across the street.

"Hey guys," Tweek greeted them, twitching as usual. "What can I get for you?"

"I'll have an iced mocha with whipped cream and extra caramel drizzle. Like I want you to load that shit up Tweekers," Clyde told him.

Tweek made a slight face, as if he didn't quite like the nickname Clyde had given him, though it could've just been a normal facial twitch of some kind. It was a bit hard to tell with Tweek.

Craig let out a little snort of laughter. "Careful Clyde, you might end up a diabetic," he warned.

Scott frowned, bothered by Craig's statement. Craig wasn't usually one to pick on Scott, so the shock of hearing him crack a joke at his diabetes hurt extra. "It's not contagious," he told him.

"Dude I know that, I'm talking about his sugar intake. He's gonna fuck up his pancreas if he keeps making it work overtime like that." Craig replied. Scott was a bit relieved to know Craig's statement actually had nothing to do with him and let himself release the tension in his shoulders. He hadn't even realized he'd tensioned them until he undid it.

"Anything else for you Clyde?" Tweek asked.

"Umm..." Clyde paused, taking a minute to look over the bakecase to see what pastries they had today. "A chocolate croissant and whatever Scott wants."

"Oh, you don't have to pay for me," Scott told him, not wanting to feel like a burden. He had money and could pay for himself, so Clyde really didn't need to do that.

"No, I invited you out," Clyde insisted. "Let me get it for you." He smiled at Scott. The way he did it made Scott feel warm and mushy. Was he really that attention starved that someone smiling at him had such a big emotional effect on him? Wow, that was pathetic.

"Okay," Scott conceded, turning to look at Tweek. "Do you have any sugar free flavors?" he asked.

Tweek paused to think for a moment. "We have a sugar free vanilla and a hazelnut," he answered.

"Could I get an iced sugar free vanilla latte with almond milk? Your almond milk is unsweetened right?"

Craig reached into the fridge and pulled out the container. After pausing a moment to carefully examine the label he answered. "Yeah it's unsweetened."

"Anything to eat?" Tweek asked.

Scott looked over the bakecase, knowing that anything inside it definitely contained more sugar than he should be eating right now. He settled on grabbing a cheese stick from the fridge case. "Just this," he said.

Tweek started punching buttons on the cash register. "That'll be $16.35." Clyde pulled out a $20 and told them to keep the change. Scott decided that Clyde's insistence on paying was just because he was a nice guy, not because he cared about him or anything. He found that somewhat disappointing, but also relieving at the same time. Scott had gone so long without any of his classmates paying much attention to him, and he wasn't sure he was ready to suddenly have them start.

"So what topic did you want to do for our history report?" Scott asked once he and Clyde had returned to the table. He opened his string cheese, pulling it apart and placing a strip in his mouth.

"What are the specifications again?" Clyde asked.

Scott pulled the rubric out of his backpack. "The topic has to be a war that America was majorly involved in," he answered. "We can make either a poster or a PowerPoint and we have to explain the impact the war had on the development of the nation."

"We could do Civil?" Clyde suggested. "I'm pretty sure my dad has a few books on it, he's kind of a bit of a history nerd."

Scott nodded. "Okay, Civil War it is then," he agreed.

"Awesome, want to come over to my house to work on it tomorrow?" Clyde asked. "That way we can get a look over the books he has."

"Sure, that's fine," Scott agreed.

"Alright!" Clyde said with a big smile, "it's a date then!" Scott nearly spit out his coffee.