Fine Line

chapter eighteen

She Wants You

"Any plans for tonight?" Kat whispered to me whilst we sat through our last class of the week: Maths.

Jaden still hadn't shown up at school, but I had seen him twice this week. Neither time was he drunk, which surprised me the most. And he was in a good mood. Kat still didn't really know anything about us, I didn't want her to know. It felt thrilling to know it's something for me and Jaden - it's our thing.

I had been in trouble for skipping detention, but considering that it was Jaden who got me out, I was basically let off the hook if you didn't count the fact that I had a whole lecture about my choice of friends, and who is good for me and who isn't.

They hadn't rang my mother, though, and I wasn't sure if I was happy or disappointed by that.

"No," I replied. "What have you got in mind?" If I knew my best friend, and I wasn't so sure that I did anymore, it would be a party or the club where she would be planning our night. But she hasn't been to the club even though it had reopened, and she never wanted to go to any parties - not that there were any at the moment.

"I just feel like we haven't spent any time together recently."

"What do you have in mind?"

"That Bella Italia restaurant in town?

"Is there something you would like to add?" the teacher asked in his slow, boring voice, clearly as fed up with the week as the rest of us were.

"No, do carry on," I replied. He rolled his eyes in a very unprofessional way and went back to writing on the whiteboard.

"So...?" Kat drawled out when she turned back to face me.

"You want to go out for a meal?"

"Yes."

"Okay." I shrugged in agreement. It was Friday, why not do it? Besides, it wasn't like my parents would have anything planned for the three of us tonight.

By the time class had ended, Kat and I had a whole page of paper, front and back, of plans for our evening out. We had been caught again, threatened with detention if we didn't shut up. "It's Friday afternoon, I don't want to be here any more than you do, so make this easier on all of us."

Austin wasn't coming because he had extra sport on a Friday after school, and neither of us really like anyone else, so we rushed to the bus stop around the corner from the school gates as soon as the final bell rang. We pushed through the swarm of people in the corridor, hand in hand so as not to lose each other.

"You know," Kat said when we took our seats on the bus, "my dad and Lauren want you to come round for tea next week, said that they have missed seeing you and what not."

"That'd be great," I replied. Lauren was Kat's stepmom, and she was the kindest person to ever exist. She was so sweet to everyone I didn't think it was possible for someone to be that kind until I met her.

Kat messaged her father as soon as we got off the bus to tell him about our conversation of coming over, and then read out every message since then of what he had said to me as we made our way around the food court in order to get to Bella Italia, as she had requested.

What she hadn't yet asked was anything to do with how I have recently spent my time. Or, more specifically, Jaden.

A young woman waited for us at the door, she could have only been a couple years older than us. She looked at the two of us, pulling a slight face of disgust at one of us before asking, "Booking?"

"Oh, no, we haven't booked anything," I told her. From the look on her face, I was scared that she was going to send us away.

"What kind of table would you like?"