Curfew Under Management

8

This chapter is dedicated to Blair, or commonly known as the author of the bad boy's girl. I just love her sense of humor, and she seems really nice.

Even though the people I dedicate my stories to don't even notice, I still hope they read it anyway.

CHAPTER 8

12:22 AM

I sigh finally getting a glimpse of the time. Since Dexter requested that he be given a little while to think about his first question for me, I manage to spare myself a peek at my wrist watch.

"Why do you always do that?" He suddenly asks.

"Do what?" I cock an eyebrow up.

"That." Dexter's dark brown eyes are directed towards my hands, tied to a pole. "You check the time like every other ten minutes."

"Oh." Both my eyes widen in embarrassment. "You noticed that, huh?" I chuckle.

One of the many bad habits that I suffer is that I constantly develop the tendency to look at my watch like I have an impatient version of a turret. It started somewhere in sophomore year when I got the watch. There isn't anything sentimental about it. I bought it at a charity sale for crying out loud. The truth is I do it when I'm nervous, not that a venture like this would actually fail at making a highschool student one, yet I can't tell Dexter that otherwise he'll just think he has an effect on me, which partly sums up the whole reason for the nerve-wreck.

"I notice a lot of things." He looks at the remotely star-adorned sky, just above the plain sight of city lights and a few cars cruising along the highway.

"Really?" My voice laces of disbelief. Clearly, he took a break at noticing the loop holes in his brilliant sister-rescue. "Like what?" I question.

His eyes trail down to his shoes. "Like you're pretty." My eyes widen, and before I could open my mouth to say anything, he's already on it, ranting about me. "Like really pretty, but not the kind that'd get to endorse commercials or model down a runway. God, you're way better for that. Like I found you pretty as I got to know you. You're funny, practical. You got a couple dance moves too--" He snickers."--you're a natural, a sassy black drag queen trapped inside a sixteen-year-old's body sometimes,--"I break into cheeky grin deciding to let him go on with his flattering compliments."--but most of all, you're a good friend."

My genuinely curved smile disappears.

A stony grimace takes its place at the phrase I would like to clarify if I heard it right.

A good friend?

He thinks I'm a good friend? Does a friend normally drag his good friend into a local pub and three simultaineous parties holding her hand like a parent, protecting her from getting caked by her nemesis, puts her arms around him along their death-defying motorcycle drive to Manhattan, tells her she's 'really' pretty on top of a tall-ass building where all the stars and city lights present seem to magically shine only for them, and not feel anything outside platonicism at all?

He's got to be shitting me.

"I didn't see that one coming." This situation even makes 'awkward' an understatement.

He gives me an embarrassed chuckle. "Well, it's not called twenty-one questions if we're not going to be extremely honest."

"You know what?" My face resembles to the emptiest expression anyone this side of Manhattan could suffice at this very moment.

Me and him? We aren't a match heaven would ever choose to make. I'm an occasionally out-spoken junior who just happens to be siblings with his sister's boyfriend. He's got a laundry list of issues, and is a few months away from graduation. After which, I'll never get to see him again. Just because we spent the longest five hours of our lives together, doesn't mean he'll be able to feel what I feel. It doesn't mean I'll be of any interest to him as he is of me.