Lucas ✔️

Nineteen

"What did you do this weekend?" Cole asked suspiciously quickly as I hopped into his car. Janie was silent in the front, but I could almost feel her own curiosity rolling off her.

"Not much," I said honestly. "Went grocery shopping and ran into Shax."

It was true, apart from calling Janie on Sunday like I had promised, I hadn't done much else. My entire weekend was spent eating Milky Ways in bed and sleeping.

"Don't lie!" Janie said, turning in her chair quickly. "We saw you! On a date!"

I spluttered and looked at her with wide eyes.

"What date?" I scoffed. "Please."

"Who was the red head, then?" Cole asked with a grin, looking at me through the rear-view mirror.

"Memphis?" I breathed out with a chuckle. "He's just some guy I ran into the other day. He's new to town and is being home-schooled, so he wanted to hang out with someone his age."

"So, it was a date!" Janie said with narrowed eyes before she sent Cole a nod of agreement that their assumption had been correct.

"If you call grocery shopping a date, then sure," I commented offhandedly. "For the record, I don't."

"It looked like a date," Cole said in a sing-song tone, and Janie nodded in agreement, laughing at him.

"Wait..." I said, leaning forward and grasping their chairs so my head stuck into the front half of the car. "What were you two doing together?"

Janie and Cole quickly shut up and a red tinge rose on both of their faces. Satisfied I had put them in their place for the time being I settled back into my chair, sending an evil grin to Cole's embarrassed gaze through the mirror.

"Nothing, really," Janie said after a moment of awkward hesitation. "Just shopping."

"You know what? I'm going to leave it at that, but we all know I really was just shopping and you two weren't just shopping," I said condescendingly, but with a hint of sarcasm.

I couldn't care less if they had been on a date together. In fact, I would prefer it had been a date over them simply catching up as friends. Because, if they caught up as friends and didn't invite me along, that would mean I had been purposely excluded, and I didn't like the idea of that. A date suits me just fine. Maybe Cole had finally made a move, seeing as Shax was moving in quickly.

"Okay, I know I said I was going to leave it..." I muttered, leaning between the chairs again. "But who asked who?"

Coles face turned a bright shade of beetroot and Janie had an uncomfortably large smile crossing her face, which meant my assumption had been correct. Shax must have been threatening Cole's precarious position too much, so he had to make a move or risk losing her.

I let out a loud laugh and sat back again, looking out the window at the passing cookie-cutter houses. Hopefully their date had gone well, as I really wasn't sure how I would be able to deal with an awkward break in our friendship trio. Or whose side I would choose. The fact they were both in the car together today made me think everything had gone just fine.

We pulled into school and Cole parked the car quickly, although the entire drive they had both been sending each other awkwardly short glances. I let out a deep sigh and jumped out quickly.

"You two, talk this shit out. I want it back to normal at lunch or all subsequent dates are cancelled!" I declared, sending them both warning gazes before I shut the door and trudged into school on my own, sending a quick glance behind me to make sure they were both staying in the car.