It's something you grapple with for most of the rest of the day. Being invited out by a girl to hang out with her and her friends? And a girl you've only ever seen in class at that? Why did she seem so interested in having you hang out with her anyway? Was it because you tried to help her out? Is it like Caleb said? Is she an easy girl who sees you as an easy guy to fool around with? And what about the book? She seemed interested in it but now that you think about it that might just have been an excuse. An excuse to do what though?
It's not until lunch when you bring it up that you finally find some kind of firm footing. You bring it up to your friends while eating and it's to your surprise there's only a minimal amount of needling. So you wonder to them if you should hang out with her and you ask them if they know anything about her.
"Dorothy huh?" Carson muses with a laugh. "Yeah she's," he pauses when he catches a sharp glare from Jenny, "a nice girl. Friendly... or so I've heard anyway."
"Yeah, reeeaaal friendly," Keith snorts. "Best part is you ain't even gotta pay her extra to get the friendly benefits."
"What would you know about that?" asks James.
"Man I mean I ain't sayin' I've done anything ya know? But I hear things." Keith's grin grows into a leer. "An' I mean guys can say what they want but she's cute enough an' if I had the chance I'd totally..." However he stops and lets out a sharp yelp when he receives a kick under the table. "The hell was that for Ashton?"
"For being a creep," Jenny says as she makes a face.
"The fuck? You an' her buddies?" Keith asks.
"No," she answers sharply, "but that doesn't mean I want to sit here and listen to your jerkoff fantasies." She turns her attention to you. "If you want my advice, do whatever you want and if you're asking us what to do it's probably because you want to do it in the first place. Right?"
"Well, maybe, I don't really--"
"Don't listen to what some yahoos have to say about anything. If she has a history then so what? It's not like it makes her a bad person or anything no matter how much these clowns want to scare you off."
"Hey, I was the one who told him he was being an idiot for not picking up on the obvious fucking hints," Caleb protests.
But you drown things out mentally until conversation shifts to another topic because Jenny's right. Why bring it up and fret over it so much if you didn't want to do anything? However you still feel some reluctance and you're not sure if it's Dorothy's apparent reputation or just being alone with a girl in general that's making you jittery. So you decide the best course of action is to give her the book as a first step, tell her to look at it and then maybe tomorrow you'll have a clearer picture of what to do.
* * * * *
When the bell for last period sounds you rush out of class and towards the front of the school near the student parking lot and stand around and wait. It's a few minutes of watching the other students filter out and make their way towards their cars before you spot Dorothy. You raise your hand and wave it a bit to catch her attention.
"Hey, you made it!" she greets you cheerily as she grasps you by the arm. "So you wanna head back to my place to look at that book or...?"
"Actually," you say as you take off your backpack and place it on the ground, "I figured I'd just give it to you to look at for today. You know, I don't want to impose or anything."
"Okay, well, I'm still gonna need a ride you know," she says. "No car or anything so I have to grab rides when I can."
You had been getting ready to unzip your backpack but stop to look back up at her. "I thought you were going to hang out with your friends or something?" you ask.
"Yeah I was, wasn't it?" she returns the question and smiles. "So like I'm not saying you have to but we were gonna grab something to eat at Balducci's and like I could really use a ride out there and if you want you can, like, join us for some grub. You know as thanks for the ride or whatever. If you want to of course, no pressure."
Though she says that you feel as if the "invitation" is more of a request and you remember what Caleb said earlier, about the way she was acting this morning. Maybe she really does want to "reward" you for being nice to her in first period. So feeling as if you can't really say no you at least pacify Dorothy by offering her a ride and telling her you'll think about joining them.
* * * * *
You end up at Balducci's with Dorothy as well as Rachel Bell and Audrey Briscoe, two girls you vaguely recognize from your English class. You decide to join them after all though being there with three other girls you find it yourself nervous and self-conscious, unable to find the words to really join in the conversation. Though neither does Rachel it seems as she too seems quieter though both Audrey and Dorothy, in their own ways, make enough conversation to seemingly cover for both of your relative silence.
Which is why you sit there in an uncomfortable silence when the both of them get up together to use the bathroom leaving you alone with Rachel. It's awkward and you're not really sure what to say. She's a girl with a prominent nose though a nice face otherwise and straight chocolate hair that hangs down to her shoulders. She dresses in a manner that's unpretentious, a simple women's t-shirt with some kind of design on it and jeans. She's certainly not bad looking though you flinch when she finally looks up from her phone at you.
"Yes?" she asks in a fairly neutral tone.
"Oh! Sorry I wasn't, uh, trying to stare at you or anything," you say defensively. "I just thought you looked familiar. You have Gladstone fourth period right?"
"Yeah," she answers simply.
"Cool, uh, I don't think I've seen you in my other classes though What do you have?"
She simply shrugs. "CAD-Architecture, AP Physics II, AP Computer Science. Stuff like that. Nothing too exciting I guess."
Nothing too exciting? Hell she basically smokes you. "That's pretty impressive," you say sincerely. "Uh, AP Physics though? When do you have that?"
"Eighth."
"Damn, I have astronomy and that's--PFFT!" you reply. "I've got a few friends who have that class though. You know Caleb, or Carson or James?"
"A little I guess. I see them in class." She studies you for a moment. "What'd you say your name was?"
"Oh, uh, I thought Dorothy introduced me but I'm Will. I, uh, know her from first period."
"I see," she says. "I'm Rachel by the way."
"Right, yeah, I think she said that when I walked in," you state. "Uh so I guess what do you do? When you're not hanging out with Dorothy I mean. You into like programming or something?"
She winces at that. "A little I guess but I don't know," she mutters. "I kind of use my computer to play games more than to hack or whatever."
"Oh! Uh, so what do you play?" you ask.
This gets you started on a conversation, though really you do more talking than she does and her answers tend to be a little terse, on the types of games you both play which turns into talking about other hobbies and you find that there's a surprising amount of overlap by the time Dorothy and Audrey return. You feel a little more comfortable once they do though they still do the majority of the talking. By the time you're ready to go you pull out the book to hand it to Dorothy telling her to take a look at it if she's interested because you were going to unload it anyway.
That causes Audrey to raise an eyebrow. "Hey, you were still looking for something for that project right? Weren't you worried about Walberg bitching to your dad?"
For the first time you see Dorothy's expression drop and she casts a glance at her friend before turning back to you. "Yeah, sure I'll take a look at it," she says and her expression returns to normal as she says it. "If there's something cool with it I'll let you know, 'kay?"
* * * * *
At home that evening your dad surprises you by asking for the book back and is disappointed when you tell him it's gone. You twist the truth a bit with a story about giving it to a girl in first period who needed something for the time capsule project because she'd left her's at home and though he lectures you he seems to be at least mildly approving of you trying to help out someone in a bind.
At school the next day things go through as normal. You tell your friends that nothing really happened with Dorothy (and Keith seems disappointed). In fact you see Dorothy hand something to Walberg and when class lets out she admits to you that she did forget it but didn't want to admit it. She also said her dad gave her a nice scolding so she needs to work on her paper first so no hanging out today. Instead she says she'll tell you when she's free.
Caleb ropes you into helping him stake out Walberg's classroom after school to switch out what he put in but Walberg only leaves once and Dane's presence deters him so he asks you to help him tomorrow.
Nothing much changes on Wednesday until fourth period lets out. To your surprise Rachel approaches as you stand up. You'd exchanged greetings with her yesterday but nothing more. However she looks more relaxed and her expression is brighter. "Hey Will, things going good?" she asks.
"More or less," you state.
"That's good to hear. Hey so Monday, right? I enjoyed talking to you.and I guess, you know, having a day to think about it I was wondering if maybe you'd be interested in hanging out after school," she says. "Just the two of us."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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