Dead End ↳ Jake Fitzgerald

↳ seven

seven - The Friend Exercises

''I'm sorry..'' With a candle light in one hand, Aria Foster turns to find Jake Fitzgerald holding an exact replica of the candle light in his grasp and a small smile tugging at both corners of his lips. ''For violating your attachment with Nina. That wasn't very cool.''

She narrows her eyes and pursed her lips. ''Why the sudden change of heart?''

''Since we're scene partners for Mr. Branson's class,'' He objects. Of course, he was only contacting her for class. There would be no other reason as to why he'd want to talk to her outside of school. He raised a brow at her and asks in a small voice, ''So.. am I forgiven?''

She quirked a small smirk. ''Scene partners, remember?''

Her knees practically grew weak at his ear to ear grin. How can you stay mad at that?

''Good,'' He bops his head. ''Good, now we can move on to the next step.''

She furrows her brows. ''Next step?''

''On our friend exercises,'' He clarifies as if it was obvious.

As much as she wanted to burst with joy, Aria couldn't help but pop her own bubble by questioning, ''I thought these exercises were for us to be comfortable around each other in sake of the project?''

''I know. But calling them comfy exercises defies the whole purpose.''

She raised a brow from her furrowed one and couldn't help but giggle softly at his purpose. ''Okay,'' She nods her head, smiling. ''Okay. So, what's the next step?''

''Give me your number.''

Her features completely blanked. ''What?''

He suppressed his smile, longing it into a smirk while repeating. ''Give me your number. We can have regular conversations, let each other know when to meet up so we can practice for our scenes-''

She scrunched her lips to the side and folds her arms across her chest. ''Branson said he's holding off the project till next week.''

''Well, what can I say?'' He pressed a hand against his chest. ''I'm a perfectionist.''

'Or, maybe he wants to spend time with me,' Aria Foster thinks to herself. She couldn't help but think these flirtatious and high hopeful thoughts. It came in so naturally.

''Fine,'' She nods. ''Pass me your phone.''

She couldn't help the heated shade of rose coloring her cheeks as she continued the almost dangerous eye contact Jake Fitzgerald maintained with her as he digs in his pocket for his phone. He passes it to her after unlocking it and swiping through to his contacts.

Once she saved her number in his listings, she hands him back his device and nearly cried when he retrieved his phone from her grasped, his hand grazing hers before she had completely let go.

She swallows deeply. ''I-uh-I should probably go. But, I'm sorry about your friends. Riley didn't deserve this.''

He scoffs a smirk, noticing she never mentioned her condolences for Nina Patterson, as she walked off to where Audrey stood.

×××

''Since when does she have friends to text?'' Noah questions his Bi-Curious side kick that nuzzled her head to rest on his leg while she laid on the couch that next day in the comic book store. She sat cross cross on the ground by the couch and had dreamy smile drawn on her lips while pressing her thumbs vastly against the screen of her phone.