The Amazing Spider-Man 3

Chapter 21

Almost as soon as the last customer of the day stepped out the door to leave, Liz spoke up.

"So?"

M.J. shot a glance at her best friend.

"This has been eating at you all day, hasn't it?" M.J. questioned.

"M.J, he came to the store to see you to thank you for a second time just because," Liz explained. "People don't do stuff like that normally."

"You don't know Peter," M.J. countered, "he'd apologize for not laughing hard enough at a joke if he got the sense that you were expecting more."

"Then why are you smiling so much as we talk about him?" Liz asked, an almost mischievous smile of her own adorning her face. Her best friend was only proving once more how annoyingly adept at seeing through her she was, even if Mary Jane felt that what she'd said about Peter Parker was one hundred percent correct.

"We did have a nice time," M.J. admitted. "Oh, and by the way, you do realize you didn't get any points for subtlety earlier, right?"

"What?" Liz protested, holding up her hands, "I was making it up on the fly! You know I can't improvise to save my life!"

"Clearly," M.J. concurred.

The two ladies moved to the back room to do some inventory.

"Anyway," Liz continued, "do you think you two are making progress?"

M.J. thought about it for a moment.

"I think so," she said. "It was weird, he stopped me as we were about to leave, and I could tell he wanted to say something, but he decided not to say whatever it was. All he did say was that it could wait."

"Any idea what it could be?" Liz asked.

"Not really," M.J. replied. "I've been thinking about it all day, and of course, part of me HOPES it's something in particular, but I have no way of knowing until he says it... if he does."

"What do you mean 'if he does?'" Liz questioned, giving a pensive look.

"It's hard to explain," M.J. said as they worked through their inventory. "When he first got my attention, he had a positive look on his face, but when he hesitated, I could see his expression fall a little. He still had a smile, but it looked more... melancholy."

"Did you guys talk about something particularly sensitive?" Liz asked. "Like, maybe something he could've wanted to elaborate on more but didn't know how yet?"

"I don't think so," M.J. answered, moving one box to the side and beginning to look through another. "He actually asked me who the store was named after, so I told him about my mom and how she was into fashion and was pretty much the whole inspiration behind what we do here."

"Wow," Liz said, pausing her typing on her iPad to give M.J. a look. "That's very personal of you. Then again, he does know about your dad, so I guess that would actually be easier to talk about."

"Peter was actually really sweet about it," M.J. added, "he said that he thought she'd be proud of me for where I am today."

"Aww, that's sweet," Liz said.

"Yeah, it was," M.J. agreed. "Everything about lunch seemed to go really well, which is why I'm not sure why he felt he couldn't tell me something."

"Maybe he was going to ask you out properly or something and he just got nervous," Liz suggested as she moved onto another assortment of clothes.

"That's what I'd like to think, and maybe you're right," M.J. replied, also moving to another section. "It just feels like there is more to it for some reason."