Bad Luck with Love

Chapter 22: You've Got A Friend In Me

“I know you said you needed time to think,” Chad said, “But I’ve got an idea.”

“What?” I asked, eyeing him warily. It was only Wednesday morning and I was already exhausted.

“How about this Friday night you and I go out,” he said, holding up one hand to silence me when I started to protest, “We’ll go to this coffee shop; it’s out of town so we won’t see anybody from school there,” he assured me. “That way you can see if you really do like me and want to date me."

“What? Like a trial date? Satisfaction guaranteed, but if not I get a refund?” I teased.

“Well, I wasn’t planning on letting you pay for anything so I could hardly refund you,” he said, making a face at me.

I chewed my lip for a moment, thinking it over. Maybe Chad’s idea wasn’t so bad.

“So…if it doesn’t work it we can pretend it never happened?” I asked carefully.

“Yup.”

“No strings attached?” I clarified.

“Nope,” he said, popping the ‘p’. “So is that a yes?”

I hesitated a moment, “Yes,” I said slowly. Maybe a trial date would help me pick between Jake and Chad. I sincerely hoped it would. That would definitely solve a lot of problems.

When I got home, I texted Sabrina to tell her I probably wasn’t going to be able to make it to Java’s on Friday night.

I said ‘probably’ because I might chicken out on my trial date with Chad and go off with Sabrina instead, if I turned out to be too cowardly.

She texted back about two seconds later, practically begging me to come. I told her I’d let her know and she left it at that.

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Chad came over a few times to my house during the rest of the week and we watched movies, mostly my favorite Disney movies though. Jake came over a few times as well, so that was pretty awkward. Especially when Chad and I had been watching Beauty and the Beast and we were arguing about which was better, action movies or Disney movies. For some reason, Chad loathed watching Disney movies. Which was the exact reason why I made him watch a bunch of them. He especially hated it when I sang along to every song.

Obviously, he had issues. Jake never told me off for singing along or when I made him watch Disney movies. Heck, he had even enjoyed a few of them and laughed when I totally failed at singing.

But the awkward part about Beauty and the Beast was that the second time we had watched that movie, Jake and I had been kissing during the better part of it. So when Jake came downstairs with Tyler and stopped in the living room to stare at the TV, then look at me, I just wanted to crawl under the couch and never ever come out.

********

“What’s the name of the coffee shop again?” I asked Chad nervously as we took a familiar road. It was Friday night and we were heading out on our trial date.

“Java’s,” Chad replied shrugging, “It sounded like a cool place.”

“Oh yeah, I heard it too,” I said, trying not to show my panic. Jake was singing tonight! What if he saw me with Chad? Shit, shit, shit! What the hell was I supposed to do now?

We pulled into the parking lot of Java’s and as we headed inside I felt my stomach twist uncomfortably. There was no way that this was going to turn out well.