The Break Up Plan (BoyxBoy)

Step 4

After 2 weeks of constant invasion, Friday night at Colby's house was finally girl-free. At last, the sacred space was void of floral perfumes and scented lip balms. No longer did we have to see princess daisy chosen to race on screen because guys knew that princess peach was always the better choice.

Stephanie and Rin had their explosive fight on Monday but they still hadn't made up!

When I plotted to make them argue, I imagined a dispute maybe twice as serious as the argument I saw over the phone. The type of stuff that would create underlying resentments I could pick at like old wounds. I never thought it would tear them apart and put them on indefinite silent treatment.

It was really too good to be true.

There was no official break up yet–unfortunately–but Rin acted like a single man. He started showing up for my shifts again, loitering in the booth that had missed him over the last few weeks. Three months ago, the booth closest to the counter practically had his name on it. It was nice to have the prodigal son return. And after work, if we weren't doing something with the guys, he was at my place, messing around on my computer or eating my mom's cooking.

It felt like the golden days when we were 12-year-olds who had nothing better to do but bother our best bud. I loved it. Rin would have loved it too if he wasn't moping so often.

Most of the time, he was as overjoyed as I was to play 10 uninterrupted rounds of COD in a row, no need to check his phone or call someone back. But there were moments where he checked his phone anyway. His phone wasn't on silent, no need for me to pull that trick again, so I knew he hadn't gotten any texts calls. But he looked at it anyway.

Like he thought maybe Steph had reached out.

"Just checking notifications," he'd tell me. But that puppy dog look in his eyes didn't come from missing an Instagram live reminder.

Apart from those moments, things weren't so bad. I was optimistic that soon, the plan would be complete. Rin would be single, and finally things would go back to normal.

Step 4 of my plan was quite simple. Us hanging out as much as we did and spending time as the 4 musketeers would remind Rin why friends are so much better than some girlfriend. Tonight was going to be a rarity since Tyler and Colby couldn't come over for a movie marathon. It was relatively easy to get them to agree to a steady schedule of rotating our hangouts between our houses since Rin was basically going through a break up and they were eager to cheer him up.

Still, as his best friend I was confident a good movie night could raise his spirits. The Jason Bourne series was a classic and he'd be so busy trying to recreate the fight scenes with me, there'd be no time for him to remember Stephanie Huarez.

"Elliot," Stephanie sighed at the sight of me, stepping through the school's backdoor. "Hey."

Secretly meeting Stephanie behind the school during Monday's lunch was not on my bingo card. But when she texted me asking if we could talk, I couldn't say no. I'd done a pretty awesome job of pretending to like the fact that she was dating my best friend. Breaking character now would be stupid. That's the only reason why I went.

"Did you know?" she asked gently, tugging harshly at the ends of her sleeves. "Was he telling you guys that he cheated?"

I didn't know how to respond. If the idea of him cheating kept her from making up with him, I had to let her believe it. On the other hand, I wanted to comfort her. She didn't deserve to have her confidence wrecked over a tiny thing that I did. The perfect response evaded me though, and I barely managed to say,