Aleksei & Liam

40. Date

(Liam's PoV)

It had been 4 days since I last spoke to Aleksei, although I had seen him in school, we didn't so much as look at each other.

I had spent the lunch hour with my friends who had noticed my sudden presence and had asked me about Aleksei. I'm pretty sure I didn't have to answer that because they could see for themselves that he had gotten himself a girlfriend and there was nothing I could do about how openly flirty they were.

"You're coming to the pub, yeah?" Lauren asked.

Today was a Wednesday, and we all knew what happened on Wednesdays. It had been my favourite time of the week, watching Aleksei perform and hanging out with the others, I looked forward to it every week but not anymore.

Nope.

Just to avoid today's events I decided I'd say yes to a date with Alex. Alex and I had got talking and quite frankly, I enjoyed it. He was funny, clever and really attractive.

I reminisced about our phone call the previous night...

~
'Is it safe to assume that I can ask you out on a date?' He asked after we had shamelessly spent 2 hours on the phone flirting with each other.

My eyes went wide at his boldness but maybe that's one of the many things that I liked about him.

'Yes.' I breathed into the phone, excited to have someone take an interest in me.

'About time!'

I giggled. I seemed to have moved on pretty quickly.

'How's tomorrow?'

A Wednesday evening? Definitely.

'Perfect.'

'After school, then. I'll pick you up. Wear something classy.'
~

And that's the story of how I had a reason to skip watching the band perform at the pub.

"So Cheryl and I were thinking of bringing a deck of cards so the three of us can keep ourselves entertained."

"Oh, about that..."

Lauren looked at me pointedly.

"I can't make it."

"Why?"

"I've just got something to do?"

"Wow, I mean...okay, I guess."

I wasn't ready to tell her I was seeing someone else, she was my closest friend but I really didn't think Alex and I were that serious to start telling our friends.

"...is this about Aleksei?" She asked in hushed tone.

"No?" I masked my panic when she asked.

"It's just that...I'm pretty sure something's up because you haven't so much as spoken to him since Saturday and you're here with me...during lunch."

"Pfft, nah. It's nothing. We've just got our own live, you know."

She looked at me sceptically but didn't press any further.