Behind Her Smile

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven: Cereal Killer

Poke.

Ro groans and buries his head into the pillow.

Poke. Poke. Poke.

“Stop poking me or I swear I’ll kill you in your sleep.” Ro growls in his sleep.

Undeterred, Dex whispers. “Ro. I need help.”

Ro is up in an instant, all traces of sleep gone when he hears the serious tone in Dex’s voice. He examines Dex, down to her sad expression to the realization she is still in her pajamas. With a very short pajama shorts attatched. “What is it? What happened? Are you in trouble? Hurt?” He questions not giving her time to answer.

“Ro…” Dex trails off biting her lip.
“Yes?”

“I need…”

She trails off and Ro wants to throttle her for keeping him in suspense. “Dex, spit it out!”

Suddenly her frown turns into a big grin as she whips out a bowl from behind her back. Ro blinks at it, not getting it. Dex explains, “I need some milk for my cereal, but I looked in your fridge, but you only have almond milk and I don’t like my cereal dry.” She whines with a pout.

Ro jaw litterally drops open as he evaluates if she is serious. When he sees she is he growls and lunges for her, probably to strangle her for giving him such a scare, but the little weasel darts out of harm’s way. Dex giggles as she holds up his car keys off his desk. “Okay okay. I see now is a bad time, I’ll leave you to get dressed and I’ll pick you up in let’s say thirty minutes? Oh your face is turning real red right now, I’ll take my leave now.” Dex scurries out the door before Ro can even think to get out of bed.

Which he has to right now if he was going to make it to morning lecture. He groans, cursing Dex for disturbing his sleep.

True to her word, she knocks at exactly 7:00 A.M. with an empty bowl in her hand. With a grumble, Ro takes it and places in his dirty dishes. He didn’t bother asking how she got into his apartment because she knew she wouldn’t give him a straight answer. She give him an answer that is entirely ridiculous, like ‘I can walk through walls or I climbed down the chimney.’

He didn’t have a chimney.

.................

Dex tugs Ro’s graded paper out of his hands, “How did you manage to get a 92?”

Mimicking her tone, Ro looks over her shoulder easily and retorts, “How could you get a 70?” At her glare, Ro smirks, “The merits of studying. You’re lucky it was a practice test or your B minus would’ve sunk to a C.”

“I do study.” Dex utters defensively.

Ro raises his eyebrows to her. “Using the textbook as a footstool does not count, you actually have to open it.”

“What’s the point of studying when there is much more interesting substitutes, like Bill Nye and the Magic School bus.” She defends crossing her arms.

“Bill Nye is made for ages twelve and below.”

“And? What’s your point?”

Ro rolls his eyes. “Are you sure you’re twenty?”

“Yup.” Dex says popping the P. “I have my driver’s license to prove it.”

“I’m not convinced.” Dex gasps in mock offense and slaps his arm. Ro laughs. “Speaking of driver’s license, when are you going to use it to drive your car? You’re always trying an excuse to drive my car and steal my keys.”

Dex stays quiet because she knows it is true and she couldnt think of an explanation of why it is so. She just liked to spend time with her best friend, it is simple as that.

“Now where is your spirit of saving the planet? Carpooling is one step to be green. Less expelling gas and whatnot.” Ro huffs by her deflecting, but before he could continue, Dex suddenly stops walking. “Speaking of studying, I just remembered I have to go to the library to-“

“No.” Ro interrupts because he already knows where she is going to go with this. “You’ve already took two bathroom breaks, a water break, said hi to three teachers, and took thirty minutes to eat a plum, just so you can ‘accidently’ miss detention. You are already going to get a tongue lashing from Ms. Whalen for being late, so let’s not let it get any worse.”

Dex pouts. “I don’t want to go. The drama kids hate me after what I did to them last year. They banned me from ever attending any of their performances after that, so imagine how they are going to react now that I am their lead. I’ll be surprised if they don’t push me off the stage as well.”

“Hey!” Ro grabs both her shoulders in his hand and Dex’s head shoots up in surprise. “Don’t talk like that. Where is my strong, confident, best friend?” When Dex just continues to stare at him, Ro looks around as if searching for something. “I was sure she was right here…” He trails off and Dex giggles and he smiles back. “There she is.”

“Ok, I get it.” Dex rolls her eyes, but that couldn’t hide the pinkening of her cheeks. “I’m being stupid right? If any of them even look at me the wrong way, I’ll show them whose boss.”

Ro loses his smile. “Dex, promise me you won’t be arrested while I’m gone.”

Dex snorts loudly. “I’m kidding, Ro. Don’t be such a worrywart.”

Still those words didn’t erase any of his worries, but he decides to give her the benefit of the doubt. “I always worry about you.” His voice is soft when he says it and Dex sobers as she notices how serious he is.

She laughs it off. “How chivalrous of you.”

Ro laughs as well, but it is obviously forced and leaves an awkward note for the both of them. “Okay. Well I have got to go to the football field to complete my detention duty before Coach chews my head off. Bye Dex.” He turns around cursing himself for making things so uncomfortable.

Before he could fully leave, two arms wraps around his torso. Ro freezes as he registers Dex hugging him from behind. Her citrusy scent tickles his senses as he has the urge to hug her back. To encase her in his arms. Her voice, suddenly shy, speaks up, “Can you stay with me?”

“Dex…”

“Please?!” Her chocolate brown eyes begging him to accept. She knows he can’t ever say no to those eyes and she is using it to her full advantage. He tries to say no, but when he opens his mouth an entirely different word comes out.

“Fine.”

Then his brain caught up with him and he groans. The football coach is so going to kill him for this, but the idea didn’t seem nearly as bad when Dex smiles at him. A sweet, genuine smile that his insides turning to mush. And when she took his hands to lead him the rest of the way to the drama classroom all thoughts of punishments and detention flew from his mind. “Great! They don’t know you, so you will go first and soften them up for me.”

What? Ro sighs. “So I do you a favor and you send me into the lion pit. How nice.”

Dex shrugs as she pulls Ro along. The roles had reversed. “I have to get some use of this friendship.”

“If I am your friend, then I would hate to see how you treat your enemies.” Ro deadpans.

“Ooooh! We’re here.” Before Ro knew it, he is being pushed from behind into the double doors and is fallen face first into the carpet.

Great.

12/25/17