cowboy like me

never wanted love, just a fancy car

Regulus Black didn't have crushes. He just didn't. He understood what they were, to an extent, and he's read about them in the silly romance novels that Pandora sometimes leaves around. (He reads them out of curiosity, and definitely not because he doesn't know how to feel that kind of emotion beyond reading about it.)

However, he supposedly had a "crush" right now; Barty and Evan were practically 12 year old girls with how much they badgered him about who he liked. They were never satisfied with his usual answer of none of them, so he decided to just pick one. There was a pretty ginger girl in half of his classes - he was pretty sure she was the grade above him, and top of her year. He knew her name to be Lily, but only because she was a bit of a teacher's pet in chemistry. He actually admired her cleverness, but it wasn't a crush as far as he knew. He had no interest in actually pursuing her at all, but once his friends had heard this fake news, they'd sunk their traitorous teeth into it, and went and mucked everything up.

It was the end of the last period of the day when she approached him, and small slip of paper in her hand and a smile on her lips.

"Hi," she greeted softly. "Would you like to study together sometime? I've seen some of your notes, and they're quite brilliant, and I was sort of hoping you'd be willing to show me how you organize them?"

Regulus stared at her for a moment, taking in her appearance. Her long red hair draped over one shoulder, and her school uniform was pristine. She wore no makeup, but she was still a soft kind of pretty, like that of the flower she was named after.

"Sure," Regulus replied, forcing his voice to sound normal, and not like how he felt - dying inside. "I'd be happy to."

She smiled wider at that, the sides of her eyes crinkling and her dimples showing. "Here's my phone number - text me later so we can set something up, yeah?"

Regulus nodded, taking the paper from her. She waved him a goodbye as she stepped back and turned, catching up to her friends that were waiting by the door giggling. Regulus finished closing his backpack with a sigh, slinging it over his shoulder. He was going to murder Barty and Evan. There was no fucking way that Lily had just randomly wanted to study with him. It was going to end up being a date, and she was going to realize that he was boring and mean. He was fine with that, actually, the more he thought about it. If she ended up hating him, then he wouldn't have to pretend that it hadn't gone well to Barty and Evan to get them off his back.

Regulus boarded the bus back to his parents' house, slipping on his headphones and connecting them to his phone. It was a bit of a drive, but it was the same every day, and he liked that. Assumedly, his older brother was somewhere in the back of the bus; he was part of the group back there that knew everyone and liked being loud.

Regulus was not part of such group. More people knew him than he knew them, because his brother was popular enough that everyone knew his face. Theirs were, unfortunately, quite similar. It was obvious they were related.

He went through a few different things to say to his friends about Lily, and decided to just ask if they'd been the ones to send her.

Barty:
whaaaaaatttttt why would you accuse us of this crime that definitely doesn't seem like something we would do.

Evan:
Yeah it was us
Not sorey tho

Reg:
She gave me her number. What am I supposed to do with it?

Barty:
text her you dumbass
sya smth like "hi this is regulus can we go on a date pretty pretty please" and then she'll say "oh hi regulus!!! yes i'd love to date you because youre rich and pretty!!!"