Chapter 20

Zayn and I were in French class and there was 5 minutes left in the period before school would be over. I had to admit, I was a little excited. Today would be the first time that I would be over at Carson’s since we almost kissed.

“So” Zayn turned to me and asked, “what are we doing after school?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “What, you don’t want to spend some alone time with your girlfriend?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “It doesn’t matter that to me that me and Kylie are now dating, we aren’t just going to leave you out of things. Sure, sometimes there’ll be times when we want some time on our own, but you’re still our best friend; we aren’t going to ditch you just to be by ourselves” he said in a serious (yet at the same time teasing) tone of voice.

“Aww” I said slapping his cheek lightly two times, “that’s really sweet Zayn”

“Yea, yea, whatever” he said rolling his eyes. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

“Well, you’re in luck” I reply.

“Why?” he asked raising his eyebrow sceptically.

“Well you get to spend the night with your girlfriend because I’m busy all night” I replied shrugging.

"Oh really? What, quality time with your mom of something?” he asked.

“Nope” I replied.

“Then what?” he asked, putting his stuff in his bag because the bell would ring in less than a minute.

I sighed. I didn’t really want to tell anyone that I was hanging out with Carson, but I guess him and Kylie would have figured it out eventually. “I’m going to Carson’s to help him with his homework and he’s making me dinner”.

Zayn chuckled. “OH, so you have a date and you didn’t want anyone to know about it”.

I turned around quickly and looked right at him. “What are you talking about? I hang out with him all the time” I said. “It’s not a date” I stated slowly to make sure he clearly understood.

“But you want it to be” he pointed out teasingly.

I rolled my eyes. “I regret telling you that I liked him, and just because I like him, doesn’t mean he likes me back”

“Right, you keep telling yourself that” Zayn replied.

“You know he doesn’t do girlfriends Zayn, so why are you pushing this” I asked him curiously.

“Maybe, if he found the right girl, which right now would be you by the way” he pointed out, “he would actually accept the fact that he could be happy with a girlfriend”

I shook my head as the bell rang and we got up walking out of class. “Even if that did happen, it wouldn’t happen for a while, so don’t hold your breath” I said walking towards my locker.

“Okay, okay. Well I have to go meet up with Kylie. I’ll tell her you won’t be coming out with us tonight and I’ll probably talk to you tomorrow” he said giving me a quick hug. “See you” he said, hurrying down the hallway and waving a hand above his head.  

I opened my locker and put all my books away. I was lucky and didn’t get any homework tonight so I wouldn’t be worrying about it after going home from Carson’s.

I took my phone out of my pocket and sent a text to my mom: Don’t wait up, I’ll be at Carson’s for dinner

I sent it and placed my phone in my bag, shutting my locker and heading out to meet Carson in the parking lot.

Carson was leaning up against his truck and one word described him; HOT! His legs were crossed over one another, his head was thrown back towards the sky with his eyes closed and his arms were crossed across his chest. It looked sexy as hell.

I walked over there quietly deciding to scare him. When I was right in front of him, I poked my finger into his side where I knew he was slightly ticklish and he jumped.

He also lost his balance falling to the pavement and I cracked up. “Hahaha, oh my god that was hilarious” I said through my laughing.

Carson playfully glared up at me. “Ha. Ha.” he said in a monotone voice. “I’m going to get you back for that” he said getting up and wiping the dirt off his pants.

I rolled my eyes. “Sure you will” I replied, before walking around the truck and hopping into the passenger seat.

Carson got in the driver’s side of his truck and pulled out of the parking lot.

"Wait, how did Jaxon get to work?” I asked Carson as he was cruising to the road towards our houses.

“He said his boss was picking him up on the way home from his lunch break so I didn’t need to drive him” Carson said looking my way for a second before putting his attention back to the road.

I nodded. I was playing with my fingers because of the slightly awkward atmosphere that was surrounding us right now when something unexpected happened; Carson grabbed my left hand and held it in his right.

I was surprised and looked towards him only to see him glancing at me nervously. I smiled slightly at him and squeezed his hand to let him know that it was okay. A smile lit up his face and he focused back on the road.

I turned to look out the window and saw all the stores and homes we were passing. All I could think about was my hand and how it was currently attached to Carson’s. I was really happy at the moment and my mood was itching to last.

Carson pulled into his driveway five minutes later and let go of my hand as we got out of the car.

“My parents are coming home in about two hours so we can either hang out till then or you could edit my English essay now” Carson said as we walked into his house and dropped our bags at the door.

“I’ll check out your essay now if you show me to your computer” I replied following him up the stairs and to his room.

He stopped at his door and rubbed the back of his neck. “So, umm, it’s a bit messy in here. I hope you don’t mind” he said before turning the knob and throwing his door open.

I looked around and it wasn’t even that messy. There were a couple of clothes thrown all over the floor and his bed wasn’t made. I could still see the floor and his desk was neat with his laptop sitting in the middle. “This isn’t even that messy Carson, its normal” I said heading over to sit at his desk.

“Can you open up the file?” I asked.

I opened his laptop and laughed when I saw his background. It was a picture of Carson, Jaxon and I from the summer. We had just finished a water balloon fight so we were all drenched. Jaxon was tickling me while I was trying to hide behind Carson. All of us were laughing and it was a definite Kodak moment. “Love the picture” I said when he was scrolling through his recent documents clicking on one labelled The Pros and Cons of Love at First Sight.

“It’s one of my favourites” Carson replied smiling at me as the document loaded on the screen. “My mom must have taken it because I found it on her camera a couple of days ago after you deleted those pictures”

“I like it too” I replied smiling at him.

The essay popped up and I skimmed through it really quickly seeing that it was 3 pages long double-spaced. “What did this essay have to be about again?” I asked him, scrolling back up to the top of the essay.

“We are reading Romeo and Juliet and we had to describe the fact that they basically fell in love the first time they saw each other. Then we have to list the pros and cons of their situation but also try and relate it to our times and our personal experiences” he said. “You can read through and fix anything you want while I go start on dinner. Come downstairs when you’re done”

"Okay” I said nodding as he turned around and walked out of the room and downstairs.

I read through his essay and it was really good. There were a couple mistakes and run on sentences that I Fixed but it was really good. The only thing I didn’t understand was why he didn’t relate anything to his personal life; he said that it was part of the assignment.

I saved the file and closed his laptop before walking downstairs into the kitchen.

Carson turned around from stirring a pan of what looked like fried vegetables. “Hey, are you done already?”

“Yup” I answered sitting down across the counter from him.

“How was it then?”

“It was actually really good, a few mistakes, but really good” I said and he nodded. “But why didn’t you put a personal reference in there?” I asked and I noticed him stiffen up slightly before turning towards me.

“I didn’t really have anything to write so I left it. She said it would help but it wasn’t a requirement so I figured I’d leave it out” he replied shrugging his shoulders.

“Oh” I said before looking over his shoulder. “What’s cooking?”

He smiled. “I found it online. It’s vegetable stir-fry over linguine with pesto sauce. It looked good and sounded good so I’m making it for us, my parents can make their own food.

“Sounds good, and smells delicious” I said.

For the next half hour I was either watching Carson in the kitchen cooking the food or I was helping him with the food. By the time he finished, it looked delicious, smelled delectable and I couldn’t wait to eat.

Carson served two plates and placed them on the table in the dining room.

“Why aren’t we eating on the counter like we normally do?” I asked as I sat down across from Carson and the table.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like cleaning the counter, and my parents will clean the table once they’re done eating”.

I nodded. “Okay” I said,

I picked up my fork, swirling a couple of noodles around and onto it and took a bite. “Mmm… this is delicious Carson. You are seriously a good cook”

He finished swallowing his food before answering. “Thanks, I’ve been cooking forever so it’s not that big of a deal anymore”.

“It is too me. You’re always cooking dinner when I come over here and it’s really sweet” I said, sending Carson a smile across the table and continued eating.

After dinner, we washed the plates, pans and utensils that we had used for dinner and put them into the dishwasher before heading to the living room to watch some television.

There living room was huge. It had a fireplace to the side, flat screen television and a bunch of pictures hanging around. There were three places to sit, a chair in front of the fireplace, a recliner in front of the TV and a three person couch, also in front of the TV.

I sat down in the middle of the couch, grabbing the remote from the coffee table and turning on the television.

Carson sat down a bit away from me, at the right side of the couch and placed his feet up on the coffee table.

I flicked through the channels until I came to ‘The Big Bang Theory and stopped there. “This good?” I asked Carson nodding towards the TV.

He nodded. “Just one more thing” he replied.

Before I could even ask what he meant, he threw his arm over my shoulder and dragged me so that I was lying against his side. When I looked up curiously at him he smiled down at me. A bright blush made its way onto my cheeks as I smiled back at him and turned me attention back to the TV.

We had just finished the second episode of the show when Carson leaned slightly forward and used the remote to turn off the television.

He shook his hand through his hair and turned to look at me. “Lexi, we need to talk”.

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