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Chapter 11: Can We Talk?

From Noah: Hey

I frowned at my phone. What could he possibly want? It wasn't like he had talked to me much in the past week!

To Noah: What's up? Did you finally realize you had friends other than Thomas and your girlfriend?

I was aware that my response was rude and bitter, and I couldn't help the twinge of satisfaction I felt as I hit send.

From Noah: Sorry, I've been kind of busy lately. You know, trying to convince Tom to have a talk with you that didn't involve you being mad or uncomfortable about him having feelings for you, and all.

To Noah: And making out with your new girlfriend.

I couldn't help it. My allegiance to Amanda was too strong.

From Noah: Jealous?

'Not me' was all I texted back. I only wondered if I had been too obvious once I had already pressed 'send'. Much to my dismay, Noah chose this time to take forever to reply. I spent those eternal and agonizing five minutes biting my nails as I stared at my phone. The three dots signaling Noah was typing kept appearing and then disappearing. I was beginning to panick was preparing myself to type something like 'JK' when he finally answered.

From Noah: Whatever. I just thought I'd warn you that I finally convinced Tom to talk to you and that he's on his way to your place as we speak.

I stared at my phone in disabelief. Had it really taken this long for Noah to type one sentence?

As if on cue, there was a knock on the front door. Seeing as my dad wasn't home and Parker would never open the door even if his life depended on it, I had no choice but to go answer. As expected, Thomas was standing on the front porch. I silently thanked Noah for his last second warning, however long it had taken. Otherwise, I probably would've been standing there like a complete idiot, with my jaw dropped. After a week of complete silence, I'd begun to lose hope on the possibility of maintaining a friendship with Thomas.

"Tom," I breathed, once again cursing my lack of physical endurance. Rushing to the door what all it took for me to lose my breath. "Hi."

"Hey, umm..." He scratched his forehead, a definite sign of nervosity and awkwardness. "Can we talk?"

"If it doesn't involve you ignoring me for a week once said talk is over, then sure," I joked to try and ease the tension a bit (key word: try), but it only seemed to make him feel even more uncomfortable, so I stepped outside and shut the door behind me. I leaned against the brick wall and watched him as he frowned at his shoes, obviously thinking over what he was going to say.

"I'm sorry," he finally blurted out.

"Thomas, it's fi—"

He cut me off. "Don't say it's fine, Chloe. You and I both know it's not." I avoided his gaze, knowing he was right. Avoiding me for a whole week after dropping a bomb like that on me wasn't something I considered okay. "I thought I'd feel better if I just told you how I felt and I didn't stop for even a second to think of how it'd affect you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been so straight-forward about it. Especially right when Logan had finally started to notice you. I also shouldn't have tried to ruin your date."

"You didn't ruin it," I objected. I hated it when people apologized to me; it made me feel bad that I'd made them feel bad... If that made any sense.

"I could've! I mean, I knew you had feelings for him from all those times I'd caught you staring at him, but I think I was just in denial. Then, he came up to me for advice and I realized that maybe you guys could become an actual thing, and that scared me because I didn't know if I'd be able to handle watching you two together. So I thought that if I made him look like a complete idiot, then maybe you wouldn't have feelings for him anymore." He huffed. "But, of course, the idiot turned out to be me, because the guy is smooth as fuck."