Diseased [Frerard] [Petekey]

Chapter 12

Gerard-

Mikey and I went to the food court on the next floor of the tall building he worked in and stood in line at some random place I didn't pay attention to. I sat on my phone for half a minute before someone tapped my shoulder.

I looked up to find Frank smiling at me. My face lit up when I saw his smile and I suddenly stopped worrying about Mikey. The throb in my heart just... stopped.

"Hi", I smiled.

I felt like a first grader who was just discovering what a crush was. Maybe it was because I was out of Mikey's apartment and interacting with people, but occasionally this bubble would burst and I'd suddenly get really excited to see Frank.

I definitely didn't like him though. I'm not gay I think.

Not that I have anything against it, but I am fully heterosexual. Nope, no dicks in my ass today. 

"Hey, why'd you abandon me?" he joked.

"Sorry, I got lost", I got embarrassed at that.

He giggled a little bit.

"I still do that occasionally", he informed me.

It was mine and Mikey's turn in line next, but he just went up and ordered for me as I made small talk with Frank. Mikey dragged us out of the line while our food was being prepared so they could take the next order. 

"I'm going to run to Subway or something, I'll find you at a table?" Frank asked.

"Yeah, of course", I smiled.

Frank walked away and my eyes lingered a little too long on his butt. I jerked them away and noticed that Mikey was paying for our food.

He handed me a cardboard cup filled with Dr. Pepper and he sipped at his own drink.

"Looks like someone has a crush", he said as a matter of factly.

"What?" I said defensively, whipping my head towards him. "No, no, I'm hella straight".

Mikey just kept sipping smugly at his stupid drink with that stupid piercing look that read "We know that's a lie".

I rolled my eyes as he grabbed our tray of food and we chose a table. It only had two chairs though.

"Hey, what about Frank?" I asked.

He dropped a foil wrapped something on the table with a bag of chips.

"I knew you had a crush. I'll leave you guys alone for a while and talk to my boss about something. Just have Frank show you my cubicle when you're done, okay Crush Boy?" Mikey taunted.

He walked away. I rolled my eyes once again and unwrapped whatever he got me. He knew me so well. It was grilled cheese and it was my literal favorite. I smiled widely at the beautiful work of art. This was something that needed to be posted on the internet.

But I'm not about that, so I took a huge bite out of the corner and I loved every second of it. I wanted to bang my head on a wall because it was so damn good. Frank approached my table, smiling.

"Where's Mikey?" he asked.

"I don't know, he said he needed to talk to your guys's boss?" I wondered. "What's his obsession with talking to him, he acts weird".

Frank giggled as if he knew something I didn't know.

"What?" I asked defensively.

"Nothing", he shook his head.

I argued with him to tell me what he was hiding but he refused to budge. He just smirked as he ate his sandwich full of nothing but cold vegetables. I assumed he was a vegetarian, so I didn't even ask. When I finally decided that it wasn't worth it to try and get out one of his secrets, we began the small talk that we had a couple of hours before.

As his lunchtime neared an end, we dumped our food and began going back downstairs in the awkward elevator. 

"I need to get your number dude, you seem really chill", he smiled.

Was he hitting on me?

"Yeah absolutely", I gave him my number.

He texted me saying it was him and put his phone away.

"I'll show you to Mikey's cubicle", he said as we left the elevator. 

With ease he navigated me to his cubicle. Mikey wasn't even there, so Frank took me under his wing. I would not hear the end of this when we go home. 

"Have you ever played dots and boxes?" he asked.

"No, what's it about?" I asked.

He pulled out a sheet of graphing paper and got two different colored pens, handing me one. 

"Well", he grabbed my hand.

Bold move. 

"You basically just put a dot in each box with your pen. Every 'square' is made up of two grid boxes. The last person to finish a 'square', claims that 'square'. The person with the most wins the game", he said as he guided my hands on the paper to mark lines showing what a 'square' was and stuff like that.

"Sounds easy enough", I nodded.

"It is, you wanna go first?" he asked.

"Sure", I smiled.

We played a vigorous and competitive game. He seemed to not try to fill in the boxes for the victory. Maybe he had some weird technique that would smash me in the end? Who knew. I hoped not. It turned out that he didn't. I won with a ratio of 3 squares to 1 square for him.

"Wow", I laughed. "Good game".

His brow furrowed.

"Yeah," he said weakly. "Do you want to go back with Mikey now?" 

"Yeah, I still feel bad for distracting you from your work", I shrugged.

"Don't, it was really fun. I'll text you later, okay?" he asked hopefully.

"Of course", I smiled. 

I handed him the sheet of graph paper but he shook his head.

"Keep it until later, okay?" he asked.

"Will do", I was confused but didn't convey it as he escorted me to Mikey's cubicle.

He was back by then. 

From then on it was waiting for Mikey to get off.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock droned on until it finally came time to leave.