TANGLED PLANS

19

The next time I get as nervous as I was when having to make eye contact with Max is at lunch. I take a seat at the table Maria and Keilly have been inviting me to, and as soon as I do, I find Justin already looking at me. He gives me a wave, and I can't help but smile at him. It was nice to have someone like you for a change. I liked Justin enough to feel nervous when sitting in front of him.

He doesn't have a conversation with me until the end of lunchtime. "Hey, Daisy," he calls out, gathering my attention, and I turn to him with a smile. Once I'm looking at him and manage to make eye contact, he says, "So, um, when are you free this week?"

I could tell the truth and say it whenever because my schedule was free all the time. I didn't want to sound like a loser, though, so I settled with, "I'm free Thursday afternoon." That would give me enough time to get myself ready for the date.

He gives me a big smile and says, "Great! We can go get ice cream right after school." I nod, and he looks at me like there is something else he wants to say. He is looking at me nervously, and it makes me nervous as well. But I need to move past my nerves, so I say, "Did you want to say anything else?"

Justin flips his hair back off of his forehead and says, "Um, where's that guy you were hanging out with the other day?"

"My brother?" I ask, trying to keep the shock off my face. He shakes his head, and something automatically clicks in my mind. "Oh, Max."

"Right," Justin says with a smile and makes a face that says, Why didn't I remember the most popular guy in this school's name? I shake my head at putting his expression like that, and he continues, "So is he going to be there?"

"On the date?" I ask incredulously, and Justin only nods. Oh, he was super serious. I raise an eyebrow just slightly, and he says, "I just thought he accompanied you with all of these events."

"Why do you say that?" I ask with shock in my voice, and I am not even trying to feign anything right now. Justin leans forward and says, "Well, I thought he was maybe someone who had been appointed to look out for you."

"Well," I say, and then stop short. Did Justin think we needed someone else to join us on our date? Did he think that we weren't ready to hang out on our own yet? Justin reads my mind and says, "I think it might be good for us to go on a double date."

"Okay?" I say slowly, and he gives me a pointed look. Oh, the bells were finally ringing in my head. "I don't know if Max would be okay with going on a date," I say softly. Much less with us. Justin stands up because the bell rings and says, "He has a girlfriend. Ask him if he wants to go on a double date with us." He leaves before I can even make sense of what just happened.

What did happen? I'm so confused. But now I needed to worry about finding Max and telling him to come on a date with me because Justin hadn't asked—not really. It seemed that he at least wanted me to let Max know. I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose.

It seemed that whenever I made the slightest progress toward getting rid of Max, he was coming right back.

🌼

I'm a total loser.

Forget being kind to yourself; this is the truth. It was the day before the date, and I hadn't even asked Max about the date that he was coming with me on. Yes, I had told Justin that Max had been okay with wanting to go out on a double date with us. I'm a horrible liar, and then a coward at that. I have been skirting around Max for the last few days.

Whenever he would speak to me, I would feel myself wanting to ask the question but then ending up just staring at him. He had called me out on it yesterday, and I swear I had never blushed that hard in my life before. I avoided him the whole day today. I needed to tell him about the date. I needed to tell him today.