Falling to Flying

Chapter Six- Frozen Fingers and Butterflies

“Okay,” Mel sat down the travel mug of coffee I brought home to bribe her with. “You not only had a conversation with Neil, but then agreed to…go to the game?” the disbelief in her voice was extremely present.

I nodded and tried to seem nonchalant about the whole situation, I mean, it’s not a big deal.

“This is a big deal,” muttered Mel before taking a sip of her coffee. “And you agreed willingly?” she asked with suspicious eyes.

I nodded once again.

“Are you sure? He didn’t, like, threaten you…?” she leaned forward dropping her voice to a whisper, “or plant a bug on you so he would know if you tried getting help to escape his evil plan?”

Her expression was completely serious.

I rolled my eyes in response before saying, “No Mel, he did not plant a bug on me nor did he threaten me in any way. I just, said yes to his invite.”

“You just “said yes”?” her left brow raised in question.

“Yup.”

“Really? Just like that? You just,” she held up her hands to make quotation marks with her fingers, “said yes?”

“I panicked, okay!?” I finally caved and covered my face with my hands.

“Mmmhmmm,” her lips turned into a knowing smirk before elegantly sipping her coffee like an evil master mind.

“He was just—like, his cologne—I mean, Mel, have you seen his eyes?” my voice grew desperate in trying to find an explanation into why I agreed to sit in the dirty overcrowded student section for the game tonight.

“Holy water sprayed on Satan, do you like this Neil guy?”

I felt my mouth go dry and the sudden urge to completely melt into the floor.

“What?” I sputtered.

“Oh my god,” she leaned forward again, her green eyes growing wide.

“Wait, no. No no no, Melissa,” I narrowed my eyes at the wheels churning in her head. I could practically hear the thoughts forming. “Stop it right now. Don’t even thi—Melissa! I can see ideas forming right now! Stop it!” she only grinned in reply. I gulped and tried to act cool, like my best friend seeing right through my bullshit wasn’t scary. Nope. Not unsettling.

“So this,” she held up her to-go mug, “was payment for me to tag along?”

I bit my lip and nodded.

“I see,” she took a drink and scrunched up her face in disgust after a moment. “Well, I remember specifically asking for a while chocolate macchiato, not a caramel latte.” I glared at her before biting my tongue to refrain the sarcastic response that wanted to make an appearance, and instead plastered a fake smile on my face.

“I guess this will do,” she grinned so wide it became scarily similar to Cheshire the cat from Alice in Wonderland.

Oh god.

***

The amount of bodies crammed into one area was scary. The fact that this many people wanted to be practically on top of each other while screaming their voice raw was totally and completely unnerving. Why am I doing this again?

Oh yeah. Neil has pretty eyes.

“I still can’t believe you actually said yes to a football game!” Mel yelled right next to my ear so I could make out what she was saying.