He can see Blaise and Heather's confused expressions even before he gets out of the car. He hadn't exactly told them he would be bringing Natara along with him, but he had figured it would be fine. They're just going to the beach for a few hours. And it's not like they'd told him he couldn't bring anyone else.
He's halfway to the passenger side door when Natara opens it herself and steps out. She looks she wants to run, and he wants to tell her not to be nervous. He knows Blaise and Heather won't be too bothered. Besides, if they're going to be friends, then she might as well meet his other friends.
She bites her lip, but walks forward with him. Blaise and Heather meet them halfway.
"Hey." Blaise greets Mal with a punch to the arm. "We thought you'd be here fifteen minutes ago.
"Sorry," he says. "We got stuck in traffic. This is Natara, by the way."
"Oh yeah," Heather says. "You're that… uh…." She trails off awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot. She glances at Mal for a second, then back to Natara. "You were valedictorian."
"Just say it," Blaise says with a frown. "She's the super rich nerdy girl."
Natara feels her cheeks warm and starts to stutter. Blaise has her arms crossed now and is staring at her. She remembers being friends with Blaise for a while in elementary school. She doesn't think Blaise ever forgave her for that one year when she hung out with the rich, popular girls. They hadn't really talked much after that.
But Blaise reaches out and whacks her shoulder with an open palm, then grins. "Relax," she says, "I'm just playing." Then she turns abruptly and strides toward the sand. Heather follows half a step behind her. Mal turns to Natara.
"She's not so bad, I promise," he tells her. "She already likes you." Natara nods, but doesn't say anything.
They hang out at the beach for a few hours, walking on the sand and showing off shells and rocks they find. They have an impromptu picnic, doing their best not to get sand in their food. It's mostly uneventful, until Blaise makes a mad dash for the water and Heather and Mal follow, laughing and jumping on each other like puppies. They feed off of each other's energy, hyping themselves up more.
Natara hangs back and watches them, smiling slightly to herself. None of her friends would ever have done anything like it. All of them are much more reserved than that, including her. Especially her. Even now, with three people who are most definitely not the kind of people she typically hangs out with, she's not sure she wants to jump into the fray.
So instead she just watches. Smiles. Nods awkwardly at passersby. All the while the other three continue their antics. She lets it go on for a while, until Blaise sidesteps as Mal tries to tackle her into the water and he comes up spitting sand and saltwater.
She calls out to them and suggests they relax for a while, and judging by the look on her face, Heather was thinking the same thing. Natara watches as she prods Mal and Blaise back up to where she's waiting for them, the two in question still sporting wide grins. Mal attempts to sling an arm around Natara's shoulder, but not only does she think she doesn't know him well enough to permit it, she also doesn't want his sopping wet sleeve anywhere near her clothes. So she ducks away and stifles a laugh when he stumbles.
Later, when he's driving her back to her house, he asks her if she had fun. She thinks.
"Yeah," she says, and it's mostly true.
"Are you sure?" he asks.
She gives him a reassuring smile. "Yeah, I'm sure," she says. "I'm just kind of shy. And awkward. And I used to be friends with Blaise, but we drifted apart."
Mal almost stomps on the brakes as he turns to look at her. "You were?" he asks incredulously. Natara nods. "When?"
"In elementary school. It was a long time ago."
"Damn," he mutters. "If I had known that, I wouldn't have brought you. I guess you owe me a really awkward day."
The concept intrigues her. And the idea comes almost immediately after that.
"Tell you what," she grins at him. "I hung out with you and your friends. Now you have to hang out with me and my friend." She makes a mental note to tell Amy later. But if there's anything that could get Mal the furthest he could possibly be from his comfort zone, it was Amy and her (slight) obsession with anime and cats.
"Deal," he smiles back at her.
He, of course, regrets agreeing as soon as he learns where they're going. He doesn't know what he was expecting, but Comic-Con wasn't one of them. He wasn't prepared for the sheer size of the convention, teeming with booths and artists and people dressed up as their favorite characters. Nor was he prepared to meet Amy Chen while she was wearing a cat costume (cosplay, he was later corrected).
And he definitely wasn't prepared to run into Kai Kalaba in full alien gear, complete with pointed ears, costume, and what looked like body paint.
Natara had promised him an awkward day, and she certainly delivered. He couldn't even be mad about it, given the day they'd spent with Blaise and Heather. So he sucks it up and tries to be a good sport about it.
He trails behind Natara and Amy as they make their way through the convention center. He goes into the panels they are excited about and listens to the people on them speak. Amy, as it turns out, is great at explaining show premises in a way that is both understandable and brief.
And the most surprising thing of the day? He's not totally miserable. In fact, he kind of enjoys certain parts of it. The panels don't hold his attention for long, especially given the fact that he has no idea who the people are. But the rooms are so crowded that he gets to stand close to Natara, so close he can feel the back of her hand brushing against his. And when Amy runs off to get an autograph from her favorite actors, he gets to spend a few minutes alone with Natara, during which she laughs at a comment he makes and loops her arm through his so she can pull him in the direction of one of the booths.
By the time they leave the convention center, though he knows there are certain things he'll never be able to unsee, he doesn't regret the decision to tag along with them. He even thinks that maybe Comic-Con isn't quite as nerdy as he'd believed. Not that he'd ever admit to that.
Or at least, he doesn't plan to, until he visits his mom in the hospital and she asks him how it had been. And she looks so happy that he was hanging out with new friends that he couldn't lie to her. It wasn't that she didn't like Heather and Blaise, but she knew that the three of them were always getting into trouble together. Team Loose Cannon, they were often called. And while he hadn't told her nearly everything about Natara, especially not the fact that he was in love with her, she knew that Mal hanging out with Natara was less likely to end disastrously.
So, he tells her the truth. And if she notices that he wouldn't (or couldn't) stop smiling while he talks about Natara, then she never says a thing.
