A Modern Take on the Classic Love Triangle

It's only one part

"Hey! Jenny!" Jenny turned her gaze away from her math homework to a guy with dark hair and light grey eyes striding towards the table she was seated at. "Do you still need help with your math?"

"Actually, Ethan," she replied, leaning back in her chair. "Tom here offered to help, and since we're in the same math class I thought it would be easier." The boy beside Jenny looked up at Ethan and smiled mischievously, his dark hair bringing out the glint in his brown eyes.

"Yeah," he said, leaning back and resting his arm on the back of her chair. "I heard she needed help and here we are." He grinned as Ethan frowned, an the two stared at each other for a few seconds before Ethan broke eye contact and smiled at Jenny.

"Well," he said, his eyes flitting back to Tom for a second. "Don't forget about that lunch tomorrow!" Tom's smile fell.

"Don't worry!" she told him, smiling brightly. "I'm super excited to try the food at this place." Then she turned back to Tom.

"Can we end the lesson here for now?" she asked. Tom nodded and smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. He could see Ethan looking smug in his peripheral vision. "I'm all mathed out and need to grab some groceries."

"No problem," he answered. "We'll just pick this back up another day." Jenny nodded and began packing her papers back into her binder. Ethan put her pen and ruler back in her pencil case, blocking Tom's reach with his hand.

"See you later!" she said to both of them once all her stuff was packed into her bag. They both watched her leave and made sure she was out of earshot before speaking again.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" asked Ethan, attempting to keep his voice down in the library. Tom gave him a sickly-sweet smile that he reserved just for Ethan.

"I'm helping Jenny with her math." Tom replied with a smile. Ethan glared at him.

"You knew I was planning on tutoring her first."

"Are you saying I started tutoring her in math before you could just to earn brownie points and make you look bad?" he asked with faux innocence. "Because if you are, you would be right." Then he stood up abruptly and put his books away in his bag, an arrogant smirk on his face. Ethan had to resist the urge to yell and instead seethed silently as he watched Tom walk away.

"You win this time," he called. "But you won't win her!" Tom just laughed in response without looking back. Ethan grimaced. He always hated that laugh.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"This is so good!" Ethan smiled as Jenny took another bite of the orange-strawberry cheesecake he had ordered for dessert. "Are you sure you don't want any more?" Ethan shook his head.

"No, I'm full. You can have the rest." Jenny put her hand over her heart and let out a loud breath.

"I'm touched." Then she smiled and stabbed the last piece with her fork, scooping up the last of the whipped cream with it. Ethan turned to look at the flower arrangement on their table, not a huge fan of watching people eat, especially not Jenny. Though she was cute, she hadn't seemed to master the art of not getting food all over her face every time she took a bite. His thoughts wandered to Tom and how jealous he must be right then. He smiled smugly as he pictured Tom's stupid face, how his eyebrows fell when he frowned, how-

"I feel so bad that I ate most of the dessert myself when you offered to pay." Ethan was brought back to the situation at hand when Jenny spoke up. He saw that she had cleaned her face with a napkin and breathed an inner sigh of relief.

"Don't worry about it," he told her, twirling his fork in his right hand. "Consider it a date." Jenny threw her head back in laughter.

"You're so funny!" She stopped laughing after a second. "But," she looked him in the eye. "If this actually was a date I wouldn't expect that classic 'the guy pays for the date' stuff. I find it a bit unfair, too be honest."