This was originally going to be one chapter, but it became really long, and I'm not even sure if I've finished it. So I decided to make it multiple chapters. Enjoy.
"Hey, you want to go to Yotally Togurt after school. They're unveiling a new flavor!" Henry asked his best friend Charlotte as he leaned against the locker next to hers.
"Sorry Henry, I can't." She answered as she pulled out her chemistry book.
"Well why not? You love frozen yogurt."
"While I do love frozen yogurt, I'm busy tonight."
"Oh, I just thought we could swing by before work and get some."
"I'm not coming tonight. I asked Ray earlier this week if I could have the night off."
"Oh. What's going on that you can't come?"
"Why are you being so nosy, Henry?" Charlotte glanced at him and smirked.
"I'm not trying to be nosy. I'm just interested in stuff that goes on in your life."
Charlotte closed her locker and sighed. "If you must know, nosy, someone in my english class asked me to hang out tonight."
"Oh. Well Okay, why didn't you just say that?" Henry pushed off of the locker. "Hope you girls have fun. I'll see you for work tomorrow?"
"Yes, sir. You will." She waved goodbye to her best friend.
"Hey Henry."
"Hey Ray." Henry greeted his boss as he entered the mancave. "Anything going down out there in Swellview?" He asked.
"Nope, pretty quiet. How was school?"
"Eh, it was alright. It's Friday so it is automatically better than the rest of the school days. I aced my math test, but didn't exactly do great on my history presentation."
"Why not? You're a good presenter."
"Yeah, I'm not bad at it, but it was a group project and we couldn't pick our partners so I was stuck with two people who barely wanted to do any work and unfortunately our teacher told us we all had to present a portion. So you can guess how it went."
"Well at least you did well in math." Ray shrugged.
"Yeah." Henry shrugged back. "And then today I asked Charlotte if she wanted to go to Yotally Togurt after school because they are unveiling a new flavor, and she shot me down. She said someone from her English class asked her to hang out tonight."
"Oh yeah. She asked me on Monday if she could have the night off."
Henry sighed. "I was kind of bummed. I was really looking forward to trying that new flavor."
"Well, we could go if you want." Ray suggested.
"Now? Aren't we supposed to be working?" Henry asked.
"Oh come on. There's nothing going on right now. I'll ask Schwoz to keep an eye on things and if we are needed, he'll contact us. We take the gum, watch the time, we should be back in an hour." Ray started to put on his shoes. "Hey Schwoz!"
"What is it?" Schwoz asked as he came into the room. "I am trying to fix this device that you broke last week."
"For the millionth time, I didn't mean to break it. I am sorry." Ray apologized. "Can you keep an eye out for anything unusual so Henry and I can go get some frozen yogurt?"
"Hmm…I suppose so. On one condition."
"What is it Schwoz?"
"Bring me back some frozen yogurt. Birthday cake flavor. With sprinkles. But not the blue sprinkles. I don't like those. Actually I don't really care for the green sprinkles either, but if some of them sneak in there I'm not going to complain about it."
"Um, sure. I suppose we can do that." Henry agreed. "Thanks Schwoz. Come on Ray."
As they walked to the tubes, Ray leaned over to Henry. "I can't believe you agreed to his demands, do you know how hard it's going to be to pick out those blue sprinkles, and some of the green?"
"Gee, this place seems pretty busy." Ray acknowledged.
"Yeah, I guess everyone's excited about new fro-yo"
"Well maybe you should go get a table and I'll get in line for the yogurt, otherwise we may not have a seat. What do you want on yours?"
"M&M's and whipped cream. Thanks Ray."
Henry walked into the seating area. It was extremely busy tonight. Usually you had no problem getting a table, but it seemed like everyone in town was there. He saw someone getting up from a table and marched over. "Hey, are you guys leaving? Mind if I steal the table?"
After wiping some sprinkles off of the top of the table, Henry sat down, pulled out his phone, and waited for Ray to arrive with the yogurt. Looking around the room he saw a few people he knew from school and waved. And then further down the room, he saw her. Charlotte. She was seated alone at a table in the corner. Henry noticed however that there were two yogurt cups on the table, and realized the other one must belong to her friend from English. Perhaps she was in the bathroom.
Henry smiled in the direction of his best friend. She hadn't seen him, probably because of the amount of people in the building. Henry pulled up his phone to text her, but just as he was about to type he saw him. A guy from their school was sitting down next to Charlotte. He belonged to the other yogurt on the table. Was Charlotte on a date? She didn't tell him she had a date. When she said a friend from class asked her to hang out, he assumed it was a girl. He had even said as much to her, and she hadn't corrected him. Did she not want him to know?
"Okay. We've got an M&Ms and whipped cream for you, and brownies and strawberries for me. I know that sounds kind of girlie and all, but I like what I like." Ray sat down and noticed his sidekick wasn't paying any attention to him. "Henry. You alright?"
"Hmm?" Henry looked at his boss. "Yeah. Of course. Thanks Ray." He took the yogurt from Ray and started to eat it, scrolling through his phone.
Ray discreetly looked back behind him at what Henry was looking at before he sat down. He saw Charlotte and some boy on the other side of the room, sitting at a table together and eating their yogurt. They were laughing at something and were sitting a little closer to each other than friends usually do. Ray realized it may have been a date. He turned his head back around to see his friend still immersed in his phone.
"This is some good fro-yo. Good idea Henry."
"Yeah. Pretty good." Henry sighed.
"You were so excited about it earlier. What's wrong?" Ray asked as he took another bite.
"Oh, no. Nothing. Just saw one of those sad animal abuse stories online, that's all. You know how those are." Henry picked up the yogurt again and began eating.
"Oh yeah. They really know how to get you with those." Ray agreed.
The two sat in silence for a few minutes until Ray decided to say something. "So, did you see Charlotte sitting over there? I guess this was where her and her friend were hanging out tonight."
"Hmm?" Henry shrugged. "I didn't really notice."
"Okay. If you say so." Ray finished his yogurt. "I guess I had better get in line to get Schwoz his yogurt before we go. Wish me luck that there aren't too many blue sprinkles to pick out."
"Good luck" Henry called out as Ray left the table. Turning back to his yogurt, he noticed that Charlotte and her 'date' were getting ready to leave. Henry realized that unfortunately he had been forced to choose this table that was right by the exit. There was literally no way to exit without passing this table. He tried as hard as he could to appear busy with his phone. Maybe if he didn't look up, she wouldn't notice he was sitting there.
"Oh, hey, Henry." Charlotte stopped before she exited and acknowledged him.
"Oh, hey. Charlotte. I'm just here with Ray. Getting some frozen yogurt."
"Yeah. Frozen yogurt. It was pretty good huh?"
"Yeah. It was."
"Henry, do you know Kyle?" Charlotte introduced the boy to her best friend.
"I think we had a class together last year, right?" Henry said to the boy.
"That's right. Economics with Mr. Riggs. I remember." Kyle reached his hand out to Henry. "Good to see you again man."
"Yeah." Henry shook the hand that had been extended to him. "You too."
"Well we were just heading out. I'll see you tomorrow Henry." Charlotte reached up to slightly tug on Kyle's arm.
"Bye." Henry watched as they walked out of the frozen yogurt shop. He wondered why she wouldn't have told him about her date. They were best friends, shouldn't she be comfortable talking about this stuff with him. Maybe it was because he was a boy and not a girl. But he talked to her about his girlfriends. So…maybe it wasn't a date.
"Okay. I got the yogurt for Schwoz. Better get it back to the man cave before it melts." Ray approached the table. "I tried to go say hey to Charlotte but she wasn't there. Did she leave already?"
"Yeah. They left." Henry stood up to follow his boss out of the store.
"Did you talk to her?"
"Just as they were leaving, we said hello."
"Well did you find out who that guy was she was with?" Ray asked.
"That's 'Kyle'…"
"Well I don't know who 'Kyle' is, but based on the way you said his name, I'm not sure if I should like him or not." Ray chuckled.
"No. He's not a bad guy or anything. He was in a class of mine last year. I remember him being pretty smart and a nice guy."
"So what's the problem?"
Henry sighed. "It's just a bit weird. Charlotte was on a date. I didn't know about it, and I'm her best friend."
"Maybe it wasn't a date. They could have been out as friends."
"He shook my hand."
"What?" Ray questioned.
"Before they left. Charlotte introduced us, and he shook my hand. If they were just friends, he would have just said 'oh hey man how's it going?', but instead he shook my hand as if to say 'I know you're Charlotte's best friend and I'm trying to make a good impression.'"
"I see."
"So yeah. They're dating."
Ray laughed. "Okay, they've been on one date, I wouldn't call that dating."
"We don't know that this is the first date they've been on. Maybe she's secretly been dating Kyle behind my back." Henry threw his arms out in frustration.
"You make it sound as if she's cheating on you." Ray stopped walking and in turn Henry stopped beside him. "Henry, are you jealous?"
"What? Why would I be jealous?"
Ray shrugged.
Henry put his hands in his pockets. "Something just doesn't feel right about it, is all."
"You mean something not right about Kyle?"
"Not with Kyle. He's fine. I suppose I just never really thought about Charlotte dating. We've been best friends for so long, and I wasn't prepared for this."
Ray took out his key to Junk N Stuff and unlocked the door to the shop. "Are you upset that you have to share her now?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I just don't understand why I feel so upset."
"Sorry you're having a tough night kid."
"Can I go home? I'm not really in the mood to come down to the man cave." Henry asked his boss.
"Yeah kid. I'll ring you if I need you." Ray placed his hand on Henry's shoulder. "And Henry, if you decide that you feel this way because you are in love with Charlotte, that's okay."
Henry's jaw dropped as Ray shut the door in his face. 'In love with Charlotte'. Was that what it was? Did seeing her on a date make him upset because he wanted to be the one on a date with her? Couldn't be right? He was just upset because he used to be the number one guy in her life, and now that spot was being challenged. That's all it was. He had never really thought about he and Charlotte being any more than friends. But whenever he thought about major things in his life, he always pictured sharing them with Charlotte. Maybe he hadn't realized it until now, but he never wanted to lose her. Henry cared about her more than anything in the world. She was the best thing in his life. How could he not have seen it before?
Walking home, Henry took the back way, and made a stop at Charlotte's house. Ringing her doorbell and standing on her front porch, he felt more awkward than ever. Now that he realized that he sort of had feelings for her, things would be different. But he needed to see her.
"Hey Hen." Charlotte said as she opened the door. "What are you doing here?" She leaned against the doorframe.
"I was just walking home from work, and thought I would stop by."
"My house isn't on your way home."
Henry cleared his throat. "I decided to take the long way home. It was a nice night for a walk, and I remembered your parents were out of town so I decided I should come check on you."
"Thanks, that's nice of you, but I'm alright. I have Spock to keep me protected."
"Spock isn't much of a watchdog." Henry laughed. Spock was Charlotte's family dog. He was a 13 year old Papillion who barely weighed 5 pounds. They named him Spock because of the ears. All he ever did was sleep anymore and he could barely nip at people's ankles he was so small. "If you want, I can come in for a while and keep you company."
"I don't really think that's a great idea." Charlotte counteracted.
"Why not? Wouldn't you feel safer having Kid Danger around?"
"I would be a bit quieter on the Kid Danger stuff." Charlotte whispered.
Henry sighed. "Kyle's here isn't he?"
Charlotte nodded her head.
"Char, why would you bring him back to your house? Your parents aren't home." Henry asked.
"Well I'm not going to bring him back here when they are." She chuckled.
"What does that mean? Are you guys like, doing 'stuff'?" Henry groaned.
"Oh my god, no! That's not what I meant. I just mean that my parents aren't exactly the easiest people to introduce a guy to. You know how they are. They want me to focus on school and goals. I could barely get them to agree to let me have a job at Junk N Stuff. I just thought that it would be better if they didn't meet Kyle right away. All we are doing is watching a movie on the couch. That's it." Charlotte folded her arms together. "I can't believe you asked me if we were doing 'stuff'! What kind of girl do you think I am?"
"I didn't mean it to come out that way. I just meant that you guys are in this house alone. No parents to come in the room. I'm a boy, I know how they think. I don't want him to pressure you into anything."
"Henry. This was our first date. At least our first official date outside of talking online. I'm not going to give him my virginity tonight or anything."
"Okay, now we need to stop talking about this." Henry suggested.
"Hey, I listen to you talk about all of the girls you date."
"I know. Thank you for that by the way. Please be careful tonight. You know where to find me if you need me okay?"
"Of course." She reached out to hug her best friend. "Thanks for being so cool about this, Henry."
He hugged her back, adding a bit more pressure to the hug than usual, and sighed. "Of course."
I decided to stop it here for now. Let me know what you think of the start.