My One and Only Rival

Chapter 23

FRIDAY

I sat in the front row of my history class

A desk next to mine was empty

I haven't seen Ares once today and I started to wonder if he's okay or if our date for today is still on

I glanced up to my teacher

His back was turned to me as he was writing down the main points regarding the new topic on the whiteboard

I got ahold of my phone before looking down to it and turning it over so that the screen of it was now facing me

I unlocked it and with no further delaying decided to text Ares

It took me a second to decide on how to start the message before typing it down

ME: "hey, I haven't seen you at all today, is everything fine?"

I watched the word 'deliverd' for a while and since it hasn't changed, I turned off my phone

The worry inside me only grew

My mind immediately started forming the worst case scenarios

'what if something is wrong with his grandma?'

'what if something happened to him on the way to school'

'what if he's avoiding me?'

They progressively started getting worse but before I got the chance to start any kind of a mini panic attack, my phone lit up

FRECKLASS: "everything's perfect :)"

I made something close to a grimace before texting him back

ME: "then how come you're not in school?"

FRECKLASS: "I took a day off"

ME: "what for?"

FRECKLASS: "I had to take care of some things"

ME: "things more important than school?"

FRECKLASS: "not all of us are obsessed with perfect attendance mi corazón"

"yeah, because you can afford it, smartass" I mumbled to myself

ME: "it's your rest day so at least make sure you get some of that"

FRECKLASS: "yes ma'am"

If he had to take care of some things than it might take him longer than expected so I got curious

Will it interfere with our date?

Instead of worrying over it, I just straight forward texted him my question

ME: "is the date still on?"

I cursed myself a little for sounding so desperate but I needed to know

Just a second later Ares's reply was already displaying on my phone screen

FRECKLASS: "wouldn't cancel it for the world"

I was about to turn off my phone again when I remembered that I still haven't asked him what to wear

Yesterday was so crazy with the Zach encounter and Ares's practice that I simply forgot to

ME: "where are we going anyway?"

FRECKLASS: "I can only tell you that you'll like it"

ME: "at least give me a clue, I need to dress appropriately to the environment"

FRECKLASS: "wear anything you'd like to"

ME: "you sure?"

FRECKLASS: "positive. You'll take my breath away no matter what you'll be wearing anyway"