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Chapter 7- Food and Friends
They sit in a comfortable but shy silence before Claire decides she should say something. "Maybe we should actually have lunch before, y'know, it's over?", she says while motioning to the brown paper bag sitting at her feet.
John conveys his agreement by nodding. He gets up and turns around, offering Claire a hand. She smiles slightly and quickly gathers her things before taking the offered hand.
When pair pause when they reach the cafeteria and Claire looks up at John unsurely. He senses her need for reassurance and rubs his thumb across the hand that rests in his, providing a verbal comfort shortly after.
"Come on, who cares what they think anyway? Life's too short…", he says confidently.
"You know what? You're right. Let's go", says Claire, following John into the cafeteria.
However, as soon as she sets foot in the door she realises that she isn't quite as carefree as she thought she would be. John spots the rest of the breakfast club sitting at a table towards the back and he pulls Claire along towards them.
Andrew sits with his arm wrapped around Allison on one side of the table. Allison lets out a hearty laugh and her whole body shakes with the force of it. At the end of the table sits Brian, eating his soup quite happily and laughing along with the couple. Brian looks up and greets Claire and John as they approach the table.
"Hey guys, um how are you?" he asks cheerily.
"Alright", says John sliding into a seat across from Andrew.
"Good", replies Claire as she does the same, seating herself opposite Allison.
The group sit in an awkward silence, none of them sure of what to say. Claire opens up the brown paper bag before her and then glances to her right to discover that John has no lunch with him, 'no real surprise there' she thinks. She pulls the cling film off the ham sandwich and turns to John offering him a half. "Here, have something to eat." John looks reluctant to accept it from her, trying to maintain his bad-guy appearance, and shakes his head while replying "Nope, don't want it Princess." Claire merely continues to hold out the sandwich to him while giving him this look like 'you know you want it, so take it already'. He gives in and takes it while muttering at Claire, "Fine, if you insist". Allison and Andy share a knowing smile. Claire is the only one that can tame John and they know it.
Claire tells Allison how nice she looks and the girls chat about nothing in particular for some time before the Brian excuses himself to go the bathroom. The girls are brought out of their conversation and back into reality and notice the boredom on the boys' faces.
"Claire and I were just saying that we should all get together after school on Friday, go to someone's house and just hang out, y'know, have fun…", Allison trails off looking at the others for their response.
"Sure", replies Andrew, "that'll be cool."
Bender's response comes as a half-assed shrug and Claire giggles, "I guess that means yes!" she asks him. He smirks and says, "Why yes, I'd love to spend Friday evening with you fine people." They all laugh at this and Claire smacks John in the arm playfully. "Oh Princess, how you wound me!", he exclaims dramatically holding his arm. This causes more laughing and they are still chuckling when the bell rings for the end of lunch.
"Alright, I have Geography so I'll see you later Ally", says Andrew heading out of the cafeteria.
"What do you have Claire?" questions Allison.
Claire pauses momentarily, thinking, before replying "Spanish".
"Me too, wanna walk together?" offers Allison.
Claire nods and Allison motions that she will wait outside the cafeteria for her. Claire looks up at John and asks him what he has now.
"Uh…I have shop now with Brian", he answers, "So I'll maybe, uh, see you later…"
Claire nods and Bender moves forward to place a swift kiss on her cheek. He pulls back and sheepishly runs a hand through his hair before walking away.
Allison meets Claire at the exit of the cafeteria and grins knowingly. "You two are adorable", she says, causing Claire to blush a deep red. The two of them head off to class talking about how everything has changed so much since Saturday.
-:- Kinda short, but sweet.
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---Musicalwonder.