~xoxo~

"So what are you doing tomorrow?" Miley asked me over the phone.

"I'm actually not doing anything. What about you?"

"Oh what a coincidence! I'm doing nothing too," she exclaimed with a laugh. I could picture her sitting on a counter somewhere, flipping through some magazine, twirling her hair in that cute way that she does, and cradling her phone in between her shoulder and cheek while talking to me all at the same time.

I chuckled at the thought, because I knew that what I had pictured was exactly what she was doing. "What are you laughing at?" she asked curiously.

I cleared my throat and answered, "Nothing for you to worry about. So back to us both doing nothing tomorrow. What should we do about that?"

"Oh! Let's go surfing. Do you remember that you promised me you would teach me like forever ago? Well now we can kill two birds with one stone. You can keep a promise to me and we can both solve our problem of having nothing to do tomorrow."

"You want me to teach you how to surf? Like…seriously?" I asked incredulously. "I don't think that's a really good idea."

"You promised!"

"I definitely do not remember that at all."

"Well then I think you are suffering from selective memory loss, but don't worry. I can remember for you. Now, are we surfing tomorrow or what?"

I shook my head and sighed dramatically. "Well when you put it that way I don't really have a choice rather than to say yes, do I?"

"That was what I planned for," she replied happily. "Do you have a surfboard for me?"

"Now you're asking me for a surfboard? What more are you going to ask me for Miles?" I exclaimed jokingly. I laughed as she gasped in mock hurt.

"Excuse me? Maybe I'll just ask for more stuff. What about a wetsuit? Can you get me one of those because there is no way I'm getting into the ocean without one."

"Why don't you just go shopping for those things. I know how much you love to shop."

I could feel her rolling her eyes through the phone. "Are you kidding me? I don't know the first thing about surfing so I'd probably end up getting the wrong size. Or a pink surfboard and wetsuit, just to spite you. How would you like surfing with a girl dressed in all pink?" she replied.

I paused at her statement and backtracked a little through the conversation. "Fine, I just happen to have a wetsuit that will fit you and an extra board. Thankfully both of them aren't pink."

"Thank you, Nicky," she said sweetly. "I think we'll have fun tomorrow, as long as I don't die. Wait, I won't die, right? Because that would seriously ruin my day."

"I promise I won't let you die."

She giggled, "Okay, I believe you. I have to go though, Demi and I have stuff to do for the wedding and since I'm taking tomorrow off when it comes to my maid of honor duties, I have to make sure we stay on schedule today."

"It's fine, I have to go too. Selena is coming over, we're going to have dinner here."

"That sounds nice," she said sincerely. "Have fun, eat good food."

"Oh I plan to," I laughed. "Bye Miles."

"Bye Nick," Miley replied before hanging up the phone.

As soon as we hung up with one another I sighed and looked around the room. I realized that I hadn't even planned anything for dinner, I wasn't even completely sure that I had any food to make dinner.

Suddenly, I heard my front door open and footsteps walking across my front hall and into the living room.

"I was driving behind the slowest person on planet Earth, I wanted to scream. You have no idea how happy I was when I finally pulled into your driveway," Selena exclaimed when she finally walked in. She went up to me and kissed me quickly before sitting down on the couch. "So what's for dinner?"

"Yeah…about that, I haven't really decided yet. I was thinking that you could help me whip something up."

"You want me to whip something up for you even though you were the one to invite me over?"

"No, I'm going to help you decide what to make and then I'll make it for you."

She laughed, "Fine. Let's go. Hopefully you actually have food, it seems like every time I come over here your fridge is empty."

"You can blame Joe for that. He just eats through all my stuff."

The two of us walked into my surprisingly clean kitchen and Selena began going through my cupboards and my fridge. "Well, you have pizza…and more pizza…oh, and cup of noodles."

I pretended to think through the choices but then I smiled and pointed to the pepperoni and sausage frozen pizza that was in the freezer. "Let's just have that. The frozen pizza I buy is to die for."

"To die for?" she giggled. "Well if it's really that good then we have to have it."

She handed it to me and then went to set the oven to whatever time that was printed on the box. "So I was thinking we could go looking for apartments tomorrow," she said slowly without looking at me.

"Apartments?" I replied distractedly, I was busy reading the pizza box.

She cleared her throat. "Well, yeah. We've been talking about it a little bit for the past couple of months and we don't have to commit to an apartment, but I think we should start looking now."

I finally looked up and my girlfriend's expectant face. "Wait a minute, you want to move in together?"

"Nick, we've talked about it. We've talked about it a lot."

"Of course we have, I just didn't think you wanted to really think about it this soon."

"That would be why I've been talking about it...I thought you wanted this too?"

"I'm sorry that you felt that way, but come on, we both have our houses and we're both comfortable where we are. Do you really want to change that?"

Selena looked at me in shock. "I can't believe you're even saying this right now. Nick, I want things to change. I want to move forward with you, not stay in the same place that we have been in for the past couple of years."

"Fine, we'll go apartment hunting if that's what you really want. But I can't go tomorrow so you're going to have to wait," I finally said. I was too tired to even argue with her, but I was sure that I wasn't ready to live with her. I wasn't ready to live with any girl for that matter.

"And why can't we?" she asked stubbornly with her arms folded across her chest.

"Tomorrow I'm teaching Miley how to surf. We already made the plans and I can't just cancel on her."

That's when she got angry. And I mean really angry, I really thought that she was going to hit me or something. Selena threw her hands up in the air and took a couple of deep breaths before speaking to me. "You're choosing Miley over me? Are you fucking kidding me? I thought that I finally had you for myself; I thought that I was done sharing you, but I guess not. I'll never be good enough for you, will I?"

"Selena, honey, calm down!" I replied alarmed. "How can you even think that you're not good enough for me? You are so much better than me, Sel. And I'm not choosing Miley over you and I'm sick of you bringing her up in every conversation we have. If you haven't noticed, you bring her up, not me, you."

"You are unbelievable," she said through clenched teeth. Selena took another deep breath and shook her head. "Nick, you still love her, it's so obvious that I can't even believe that you're trying to deny it. Everybody sees it, and I've been trying to look the other way and I've been trying to convince myself that it's just a phase and you're still hyped up over the fact that she's back, but it hasn't stopped yet!"

I rolled my eyes and placed my head in my hands. I just wanted all of this to go away; the fighting and arguing, all of it needed to stop. Selena scoffed, "Are you just going to sit there and ignore me?"

"I'm not trying to ignore you," I finally said. "I'm just trying to figure out a way to work through this with you without yelling."

"Well then maybe I should go, I mean, I don't want you feeling like you're going to yell at me." She grabbed her stuff from around the room and began to walk out.

"Selena, wait!" I called and followed her out to the driveway. "Please don't go. Let's just work this out."

"Are you still seeing Miley tomorrow?"

"If you don't want me to, I won't. I promise. I'll never speak to her again if that's what will make you happy."

She just looked at me and then looked down. Her eyes were trained on her hands as she refused to look at me.

"Selena, please. Please give me another chance."

She finally sighed and looked at me, "I'm not asking you to give Miley up, I know how close you two are and I know that you're best friends, but I'm just asking you to put me first, at least most of the time."

"I can do that, you come first. So tomorrow you and I can look at houses?"

"I feel like that is just going to lead to more fighting and I don't know if I'm up for that."

"Then let's just take a drive. You've been wanting to go to Santa Barbara, right?"

A small smile graced her face as she locked eyes with me. "Yeah, I have been wanting to go there. Are you sure you want to go with me?"

"Of course I do." I wrapped her in a hug and whispered in her ear, "I'd go anywhere with you."

She giggled, "I love you."

"I love you too," I said immediately, almost as if it were habit.

She nodded towards her car, while still wrapped in my hug. "I should still go."

"Are you sure you can't stay for dinner? I promise to make it really good."

"I really need to think over some things, Nick. I promise that it will make our drive tomorrow more enjoyable and tolerable."

"Well if you have to go…I'll pick you up tomorrow around ten?"

"That sounds good…bye Nick," she said quietly before climbing into her car and driving off.

I took in a huge sigh of relief and just stood there for a minute. I couldn't believe that any of that had just happened, let alone I got out with only a few scratches. Before I had any time to even think about it, I ran into my house and grabbed my car keys before getting into my car and pulling out of my driveway.

I went over the speed limit while racing to Joe's house. As soon as I got there, I tore out of my car and ran into his house without knocking. "Joe? Are you home?" I yelled.

He came out from behind a door and looked alarmed. "Nick? What's wrong dude?"

"Selena and I fought over Miley."

Joe just looked at me for a second and then chuckled. "You almost gave me a heart attack just to tell me that?"

"What do you mean 'just to tell you that'?"

"Oh come on, Nick. It's obvious that you love her and when I say 'her', I mean Miley."

I threw my hands up in the air and backtracked to where my mind has been for the past couple of years. "Are you fucking kidding me? You think this too? I don't love Miley; I love Selena. That's the way it is and you just have to accept that."

"First of all, you are the one who just came storming into my house saying that you think you love her and secondly, you're an idiot if you think you don't have any feelings for Miley anymore."

I sighed, "Why does no one believe me?"

"Because you're lying to yourself. I'm not one to go into mushy stuff that only girls can understand but I do know that you'll always feel something for Miley, it's just always going to be there, between the two of you. It's not like it's your fault though, it just happens to be there."

"Well if you're so convinced of this, please enlighten me on what I should do," I said, folding my arms over my chest in defiance.

He shrugged, "I'm not going to lie, you know that I think you and Miley belong together. I don't know why, but you guys just fit. So I can't really tell you what to do because you most likely won't like what I have to say."

"I'm just so tired of all of this. I don't know what to do or what to say…to anyone for that matter."

"Okay, let's just start from the beginning. What happened between you and Sel today that has got you this freaked out?"

"I don't even know man, she wanted to go house hunting or something tomorrow, I don't even know, but I had already made plans with Miley for tomorrow. So when I told Selena, she got pissed because she thought I was choosing Miley over her, which is totally not true, but she took it that way. And it just completely spiraled from there."

Joe chuckled, "You really told her that you weren't going to go house hunting with her so that you could go out with Miley? Smooth Nick, real smooth."

"Hey!" I exclaimed in defense. "I fixed it! Well, I mean I sort of fixed it, but we're hanging out tomorrow."

"You and Miley?"

"No. Selena and I."

"Oh…well then have you told Miley yet?"

"I was getting there eventually…"

"You need to text her now, Nick. You have to choose between the two and you can't go back and forth."

I rolled my eyes, "I definitely have chosen Joe, thanks though for the support."

Joe snorted, "You definitely haven't. I mean, you say you have and for a while I thought that you might have, but then you do stuff like this that just makes me question everything. That's why you need to set things straight right now because it's not fair to either of them."

I sighed and slowly reached for my phone that was in my pocket. "What do I even say to her? She's going to hate me when I cancel."

"Right now you have to choose a side and I think, at least for now, it needs to be Selena."

I nodded and began typing:

Miles, something came up and I can't make our plans tomorrow. Maybe we can reschedule for another day. Sorry.

I hesitated before finally pressing send and closing my phone.

After a while, Joe said, "It is good that you sent it, you know."

"It's funny because it definitely should not be this hard. I should just be able to pick a girl and get over it."

"You always were the sappy one," he laughed. "You might even have Kevin beat."

"Now that's a scary thought."

My phone buzzed a couple minutes after I had sent the text to her. I flipped it open and read:

No problem Nicky. I'm sure we can do it some other day. :)

I groaned and rubbed my temple in annoyance. I wish she would have gotten mad at me or something, but instead she had to be sweet and understanding.

"Now I feel like shit."

Joe chuckled, "No one said love was easy little bro."

~xoxo~

Late update, I know. I made it long though, so hopefully that makes up for it a little bit.

Review?

Oh, baseball season started last week! Let's go Giants! ;)

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