I don't want to be your friend anymore

42| When the tea is hot...

A few days later......

A back hug brought Jessica out of her thoughts. She was standing next to a vending machine near the restaurant at lunch time, waiting for Nadia, River, David and Payton to come back from the restroom. A peck to her neck, as well as the manly scent that filled her nostrils, let her know the person behind her was her boyfriend.

"I thought I was single again..." she chuckled. She turned around to stand face to face with Eli and frowned when she noticed how his eyes were swollen and had bags under them. "What's wrong?"

"I missed you" he said, bending down to kiss her. He then hugged her really tight.

"I missed you too but what's really wrong?" she asked, her voice muffled by Eli's embrace. He didn't say anything and just hugged her so she pushed him off a little to look up at him. "Talk to me, what's up?"

"I will... just... not right now" he answered.

Jessica's brows knitted together and her lips puckered out. Eli chuckled at his girlfriend's silent plea to tell her what the issue was and rubbed his nose on hers.

"Stop acting cute if you don't want me to go find an empty classroom."

"Oh, so you wanna teach me a private lesson, huh?" she said in a low voice, quirking up a brow and biting her lower lip. Eli smirked, rested his forehead against hers and whispered.

"Only if the main topic is you bending it for me sideways... or sitting on it all the way down..." he decided to play her game and winked. She invisibly blushed and hid her face in the crook of his neck, making him laugh loudly. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Jessica heard chattering, so she looked to her left and saw Nadia, Payton, David and River coming towards them. She noticed how Eli's gaze immediately hardened when he made eye contact with David, who seemed to have shitted in his pants as he suddenly stopped walking. He said something about forgetting a book in his car and ran the opposite way, leaving the remaining 3 students, and Jessica, confused.

He had been avoiding the group for a couple of days after the weekend and Jessica didn't know what to make of it.

Yes, David had started acting suss around her since their last year of high school, which was almost 3 years ago, and she had grown accustomed to it. After their last kiss (yes, they did...), Jessica decided to put an end to whatever it was that she was doing with David. Or to him.

She didn't hate him for kissing her. Back then, she thought that he liked her but he never said or did anything about it. She couldn't even properly remember the situation at his house a couple of weeks after it happened because she had her living situation to take care of, as well as dealing with the loss of her mother, the headstone and grave arrangements, her mother's house to clear off, being bullied and school.

It was a lot, so she never paid David no mind. He just wanted to help, right? She was thankful for him but she didn't need to be doing stuff that could potentially ruin their friendship.

She loved David, though, at a brotherly level.

He had been acting a certain way after her mother's funeral and that's how he kept acting since then: like he wanted to be more than friends with her but... not really.

But, right now, this situation was different. It wasn't just weird, it was concerning.

"What's up with him?" Nadia asked as the remaining 3 friends approached Eli and Jessica.

"Right? He's been kind of jumpy around us since Monday" Payton answered. The look Eli shot David was definitely unsettling but it wasn't the first that week, so Jessica was confused.