Dear Phil,

9

"Your Phil?" Jace stopped walking and looked at Dan.

Shit! Had Dan mumbled something about Phil while he was admiring him? Dan knew he mumbled.... hopefully he could shrug this one off as nothing.

All of his acting depended on this moment.

"Did I say something?" Dan inquired. He hoped his face wasn't bright red.

"Um, yeah. You said, and I quote: 'my Phil'." Here, Jace smirked. "And now you're bright red, may I add."

Fuck.

Dan looked quickly over at Phil, praying that he hadn't heard the conversation. Luckily for him, Phil and Tesa were still absorbed in their magnas.

Dodged a bullet there, Dan thought.

"For one thing, Jace, I was only thinking of what nickname you might come with for Phil. And my face always gets red when I talk to people, remember?" Buy it, Dan desperately thought.

Jace stared at him. His brown eyes locked right onto Dan's.

Don't look away, don't flinch, don't look away. Dan suppressed a shudder. He had to convince Jace.

Jace shrugged. "Whatever," he said, turning back towards Phil. "Oh, and don't worry about the nickname. I've already picked one out," he approached Phil.

Dan exhaled. Jace clearly knew something was up, but he was more interested in Phil than in pestering Dan about it.

"Hello, phillion." Jace smirked at Phil.

"It's just Phil," Phil told him with a slightly shaky voice.

" 'Just Phil' isn't much better, you know," Jace said teasingly.

Dan felt a rush of white hot anger. Jace shouldn't be messing around with Phil. Phil would fall for him just as Dan had.

And Dan wasn't okay with that.

Jace kept flirting around with Phil's nickname, and Phil would always say "Phil. Just Phil," and that would set Jace off again.

"Really, you can just call me Phil!" Phil said, starting to get annoyed.

"Your name just keeps getting longer! For what its worth, I think phillion suites you perfectly. You do like lions, right?"

Dan inhaled sharply. How...?

Tesa looked up from her book.

"Quit pestering him, Jace. And Phil, Jace calls everyone by their nickname. It's his way of accepting you into the group." She smirked at Jace, but her tone was harsh. "The one we gave him is just as corny."

Jace groaned. "Don't bring that up! I don't look back!"

"Mhm. Caught you looking back at Madeline today though. So much for your plan, Jacer J."

Her voice is so cold.

Dan started snickering. Sian had come up with Jace's nickname. She tried to make it sound like the male version of Jessie J, the pop singer Jace hated.

"You are so dead!" Jace shouted to Tesa. He tackled her from the root she was standing on.

"Glasses!" Tesa shouted, standing up quickly.

Jace paused, letting her take them off and place them a safe distance away.

"You could always try contacts, you know." Jace commented.

"Yeah, but then I wouldn't be able to catch you off guard!" Tesa jumped on him.

They fell to the ground and began wrestling.