The Boy Next Door

Part Twelve: Pizza

Calum and I drove to school together for the next two weeks, ignoring the people looking at us when we're together.

He still sits at the corner; but, unlike before, we now sit close to each other together with our friends.

As much as I wanted to keep him all to myself, I can't shake my friends off of me, so, in the end, they eventually became friends with him too.

And they've been really nice to him; I'm happy that he has a few more friends now at school.

"So," Jade started, snapping out of my thoughts and removing my gaze from  Calum, who was now laughing, probably at a joke that Luke told them. Him and Luke seemed to have rekindled their friendship and had became closer compare to what he told me before. Jade continued, "Are you two dating?"

"What?" I chuckled, opening a bag of chips. It's lunch break. The lads got out off class first as soon as the bell rang, fighting over who will get down to the gate first to pick up the pizza. We placed the order online before lunch break and instructed the delivery guy to leave it at the guard.

"You heard me," she giggled, following me closely behind as we make our way to the lads. "You two seemed to get really close."

"Well, we are neighbours," I pointed out, laughing. Calum looked up and saw us coming. We locked eyes, smiling at each other.

"Mikee! Jade!" Alex called, waving at us. "Hurry! Luke can't take it anymore, he's a hungry penguin."

We giggled and jogged towards them. Jade sat beside Alex, while I sat between Luke and Calum across them.

"Finally!" Luke clapped like a five years old. I rolled my eyes, giggling. We opened the boxes and each took one pizza. Luke fake coughed and held his slice up, "Cheers to more pizza!"

"Cheers!" We said in unison, laughing, as we bumped the tips of our pizzas to one another's. However, Calum held his away from ours.

"Calum! Cheers!" Alex said, noticing it too, as he held his close to Calum's.

"Go away, shoo!" He said, laughing, hiding his pizza to his side away from Alex's. "You're not touching my food."

"I am so touching yours," Alex laughed, standing up to run to Calum's side.

"No," Calum said. His eyes were almost shut from smiling. He moved around to my side, shielding his pizza from Alex, who was laughing while still trying to do a pizza bump.  "You touch your food. No one's touching mine."

His pizza was so close to my mouth and I had an idea to take a bite of it, which I did. Calum was too focused on stopping Alex and haven't realized how close it was to me. I immediately took a bite.

"But I'm biting it," I said, laughing, after taking a big bite of his pizza. Luke and Jade were laughing at us with amused looks on their faces. Calum and Alex stopped and turned to look at us.

"Damn it, it was not blessed by the cheers yet," Alex said, returning to his chair. He and Calum were laughing along.

I grinned at Calum. He booped my nose, smiling at me, before he took a bite of the pizza.

"You guys down for some road trip after our finals?" Luke asked.

"Yup," Alex nodded. "Let's do it!"

"Count me in," Jade said, as she scrolled through her phone.

"Mikee?" Luke called to me, waiting for my answer.

I shrugged. "I'll check if Ashton can take Harry in while we're gone."

"I'm sure my mom won't mind if Ashton is busy," he smiled cheekily and I nodded.  He looked passed me to Calum and said, "how about you, Calum?"

"We can use my car," Calum said. "It can accommodate all of us and the three of us can drive in rotation."