Just As Planned

Mira: Not A Date

Mira knew this wasn't a date.

Being invited to play pool with Anna and her friends was even less of a date than being invited to an art showing with Anna and her friends. At least Anna had invited her to go to the art showing alone and her friends had just been there. This time Mira was invited as an add-on to an existing outing.

Still Mira decided to dress up a bit. She put on a black T-shirt and a pair of black skinny jeans. She did her hair in two French braids. She put on some grey shimmery eyeliner and red lipgloss.

And if Anna wasn't interested in her, maybe the cute blonde guy she had been waiting outside the classroom with would be.

She made sure she got to the pool hall a bit late so she wouldn't have to hang around by herself waiting for them.

The pool hall was large, with big windows, a small lounge, and several pool tables with seating and tables around them.

Anna and her friends were at a table at the back of the hall. Anna was sitting on a sofa with the cute blonde while two people were playing a game. The blonde seemed to be really into Anna. Mira had had low expectations for the evening, but not so low as to expect that both of the people she was interested in would be interested in each other.

Anna waved when she saw Mira. "Hey! You made it!" she said, standing up. "I thought I was going to have to go looking for you."

"The subway was delayed," Mira lied, sitting down at the far end of the sofa, away from the blonde.

"The subway is the worst," Anna said, sitting down in the middle of the sofa. "But you're here now and that's what counts."

Anna looked good. She had braided a few strands at the front of her hair so that they fell into her face in a cool, interesting way, and she was wearing a blue-and-orange flannel top with dark blue jeans. Mira wished Anna didn't look that good.

"Let me introduce you to everyone," Anna said. "The two playing pool are Ken and Peter. Peter is in the plain black hoodie and Ken is in the black hoodie with the Spiderman logo."

Ken and Peter waved. Mira waved back.

"And this here, on the sofa next to me is Adam. Say hi to Mira, Adam."

Adam leaned over, smiled, and waved. "Hi Mira! I'm Adam."

Mira smiled and waved back. "Hi Adam! I'm Mira."

"Do you want a drink?" Anna asked Mira. "I was about to go get everyone drinks."

Mira couldn't believe this was happening again. "Maybe a Sprite? Or a 7up if they don't have Sprite?"

"No problem!" Anna said, getting up to go. "I'll be right back."

Peter looked around after Anna left. "Did Anna go get drinks?" he asked Adam.

"Yeah," Adam said.

"Fuck. She didn't even ask me what I wanted!"

"You told her before that you wanted another Heineken," Ken said.

"Oh right," Peter said. "But she still should have asked. Maybe I changed my mind."

"She also didn't ask me if I wanted to go get the drinks," Adam said.

"Yeah, I don't think that was an oversight," Ken said. "We don't need to get banned from this place too."

"Daria's not working there anymore!" Adam exclaimed. "We can go back there now."

"I still don't want a repeat of that," Ken said, waving a pool cue at Adam. "I like this place."

"Can I ask why you were banned from...wherever it was you were banned?" Mira asked, trying to be social and fit in.