Crash And Burn

2. Double Dates

“Annie!”

I looked around, trying to find whoever was calling me.

Oh, come on.

“Over here!”

I finally saw Elle bounding over to me, practically pulsing with excitement. It had been a long time since I’d seen my best friend this excited about something – her eyes, the exact same shade of brown as her hair, were brightly lit, and her cheeks were rosy and stretched out into a wide smile.

I turned to her grudgingly, unable to comprehend how she had such an incredible amount of energy when it was still so ridiculously early. “What?”

“Somebody’s cranky.”

“No.” I sighed. “Sorry. Just really tired.”

“Any particular reason? Was spending the entire weekend with James so exhausting? Goodness.”

“Hey!” I protested. “You’re the one that spent the entire weekend getting cozy with your boyfriend. And don’t even try to deny it, because we barely even talked this weekend, and James said that Ben’s been the same way.”

She just giggled, her cheeks turning a shade darker. “Anyways, that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

I raised my eyebrows. “About you finally spending so much time with Ben?”

“No, stupid.” She rolled my eyes at me. “But it does have to do with Ben. And you. And James. Anyways, because you told me that you guys were official now, we thought that the best thing to do would be to go on a double date. Ben’s going to talk to James, and we wanted to try to set it up for some time this week. Agreed?”

"A double date?" I laughed. "That sounds so…couple-like."

"Well, you guys are a couple, aren't you?" Elle rolled her eyes. "It works."

I scoffed. "Something like that."

Elle frowned. "What do you mean, something like that? I thought you told me you guys were officially going out?"

"Technically, I said we may or may not be officially going out. To be honest, I don't exactly know where we stand relationship-wise."

I grimaced as I recalled my word choice - I could see where Elle had gotten the idea that James and I were officially dating. A couple of days back, when I had realized that maybe I liked him as more than just a random hook up, I'd decided to confront him about it. I knew that if I didn't set things straight with him from the beginning, I'd only end up getting hurt later. If he said he wasn't interested in anything but a random "friends-with-benefits" sort of situation, I would've quickly moved on to another guy to help myself forget about him without actually falling for him.

To my surprise, he'd said that he didn't see me as just his "hook-up buddy" as well, and although we hadn't exactly talked about our relationship, we'd come to the agreement that we would continue seeing each other like we'd done up until now – casually, and with very few strings attached.

"So...you don't know whether you're officially dating or not?" Her eyebrows were furrowed incredulously.

"James doesn't do relationships." I said, Pete's words from last night running through my mind. "It's okay, though, because I don't do relationships either. Sure, it might be a little confusing, but I'm fine with where our relationship stands for now." It worried me a little more than I was letting on, but I was sure that I was fine with the way James and I worked.

Elle frowned, looking as though she wanted to protest but realizing it'd be useless. "As long as you know what you're doing. But I don't get it – where does this leave us for the double date? Because if you don't want to do it it's totally fine, I just need to let Ben know so he doesn't talk to James."