As A Friend

8: An After Prom Experience

It's half past 3PM and we're all sitting in Montgomery Hall. Jack and West are competing for ten dollars on a Foosball game and Dominic and I are sitting on the floor studying, which is what the other boys are supposed to be doing.

"Can you help me with this English paper?" Dominic inquires as he balances his laptop on his knees.

"No hablo ingles. Lo siento," I reply as I work on memorizing specific dates in history.

"We get it; you speak Spanish." He rolls his eyes at me.

"Si, pero no quiero ayudarte con tu papel," I inform him before wearing a small smirk. "Puta."

"Hey! I know what that word means!" he says, swatting me with a packet of papers. I giggle and dodge his hit. "Nova, come on. Isn't your major English?"

"Isn't your major minding your business? Because it should be." He tilts his head at me and I only grin in response at how funny I am.

"Fine, if you're not going to help me, then I'm forcing you to take a break." I allow him to close my laptop. The guys are grunting and shouting too loud for me to focus anyway.

"Whatever. I don't know how I'm expected to memorize forty five dates by Wednesday anyway." I pick up my phone and smile at the screen when I see that Elias texted me.

"Do you actually like him?" Dominic blurts, which catches me off guard for a second. I look up from my phone and make eye contact. He looks curious as his gaze briefly drops to my phone.

"Who?" I ask and he raises an eyebrow. "Oh, Eli?"

"No the pizza guy," he retorts. "Yes, Eli."

"Well..." It's been a little over two weeks since we were caught on his couch and we've hooked up a total of three more times, except each time was cut short by either our schedules or someone. Dominic is to blame for one of the events; we were in Eli's car and Dominic walked up and knocked on the window, thinking Eli was just sitting in there alone waiting for me. In short, I still haven't experienced a satisfactory hook up with him. This may sound bad but I've only been hanging out with him in hopes that it'll end in me getting some kind of pleasure.

"You should know by now, right? It's been a month. Girls typically know faster than guys." I guess he's not wrong.

"He's cute. He's funny. He doesn't talk much," I list his good traits. "But I wouldn't go as far as to say I like him. I'm trying. He's definitely charming, which is nice, but recently, he's been....on edge, almost."

"I think that's because you've trained him like a dog. Whenever you mention hanging out, he realizes he'll have to perform for you." My mouth drops open at his comment and he offers me a shrug.

"Shut up," I snap with a sharp glare at him.

"Maybe you should try to just hang out with him a bit to see if he chills out," he insists and, following my exasperated sigh, he looks at me in shock. "You waited 18 years to kiss someone and you're telling me you can't go two weeks without touching him?"

"It's just...fun." Does it make me a bad person to find intimacy fun?

"I may be a garbage human being, but I know if you can tell that someone likes you, you shouldn't use them and make them think you like them just so you can get something from them," he comments and I sigh. Look who's trying to give advice- the high school asshole jock. Oh, how the tables have turned.

"I know..." I grind my hands down my thighs.

"Besides, you're going to have to go two weeks without seeing him. Next week is midterms and the week after is Thanksgiving break. Unless little Eli is going to be meeting the family." I roll my eyes at that proposition.