A/N: i self reflected and realized I've been writing this for 9 years which is silly goose behavior on my part. anyway i started this when i was 13 years old so i made the characters 16 because i thought that was super old back then and i just realized they are in fact children. so from this point forward lets pretend they like at least 18. okay enjoy
To say I slept badly was a giant understatement.
For the first half of the night, I replayed the conversation with Zach over and over in my head. I rewinded everything about a million times, starting from the moment he sat on my bed up to the moment he ducked out the window. The memory of last night was like a movie, only it was one I couldn't figure out no matter how many times I rewatched.
Eventually, after hearing the words "I know, that's the point" echo in my head about 400 times, I rolled over onto my back and slammed a pillow over my face. I felt dumb, out of the loop, and extremely guilty. I really had been kidding when I brought up the government assignment. The last thing I had expected was for Zach Goode of all people to oblige.
But he had. He had finished it for me and then almost immediately after became the most cryptic person on earth.
I groaned out loud. Now he was making me act ridiculous.
I tapped my phone screen and watched the light illuminate a small bubble in my room. The tiny white numbers on my phone informed me that, unfortunately, it was 3:47 am.
I kicked off my covers and crossed to my window. Shoving the blinds to the side, I peeked through the glass. It was cold outside and bits of frost were sticking to the edge of the pane. I pushed the window open, inhaling a deep breath of the cold air that flooded into the room.
"You're so annoying," I grumbled in the direction of the Goode house. His window, directly across from me, was also closed. He never used his blinds-seriously never. Not even when he was annoyingly getting out of the shower with an annoying towel wrapped around his annoying long torso. But now, there they were. Pulled together so close there wasn't even a fraction of his room visible.
I scowled in his direction for a few minutes. After some time, a light flicked on in his room.
I stared at it.
Then I tapped my phone screen.
3:53 am.
Zach's silhouette crossed past the window once and then again. It took me a few moments to realize he was pacing.
I smiled.
Something about knowing that he couldn't fall asleep either made me feel a little bit better.
I closed my window and got back into bed.
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It was Friday before someone finally said something.
Lunch had become a series of gossip, giggling, and googly eyes that were being manned by none other than Tina Walters. She had staked her claim at the very center of the table (my seat) and shifted the dynamic just enough so that Macey, Bex, Liz and I spent most of the time engulfed in our own conversations. Preston, Jonas, and Grant-in true bros before hoes fashion-did their best to remain involved with whatever Zach and Tina were talking about, but every now and then one of them would shoot us a glance that almost always translated to the world, HELP.
It was now, the Friday before the Porter game, that someone finally brought up the conversation that I had been desperately hoping to avoid.
"Cammie," Bex began, spearing her pickle with a toothpick. She ducked out of the way as a fry that one of the boys at our table had thrown whizzed past her head. "What the hell is going on between you and Zach?"
I choked on a cherry tomato. "Hmmm?"
"You and Zach." Bex was repeating it like I was slow. "What's up?"
I shifted my eyes over to where he sat a few seats down. His foot was propped up on the edge of the seat next to him with his arm resting lazily across his knee. His hand was absentmindedly drawing circles on Tina's arm. I looked away again.
"Nothing?" I am a horrible liar.
At this, Macey snapped the lid of Tupperware shut and rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, Cammie," she sighed. Her voice dropped a little. "You could cut the tension between you two with a knife."
Liz leaned in, "Not to mention how strange you two are acting." She turned to our other two friends with wide eyes. "Yesterday I heard them making small talk. Like about the weather and stuff."
Macey blew out a shocked breath.
I felt my face flush. They were right, of course. Ever since Monday, Zach and I had spent as little time alone together as possible. We barely talked, and when we did it was done in such a formal manner, that we probably seemed more like professional colleagues than friends.
It was-to put it lightly-super freaking awkward.
Bex's hazel eyes were glowering at me. She was sending me telepathic threats that were making me viciously uncomfortable. The jig was up, I would have to tell them.
I leaned in, ready to recount all the events from Monday that I hadn't been in the mood to talk about before, and peeked a glance at Zach again.
He was in the same position, still lazily drawing circles on Tina, but his gaze was now fixed on me. We locked eyes for one eternal second before I hastily looked away.
"Um," I cleared my throat trying to buy time. I could feel a blush snaking its way up my neck. "Er, can we maybe talk about this later?"
Macey's ice blue eyes bounced between me and Zach suspiciously. I wanted to know if he was still looking over here but I didn't wanna risk the chance of making eye contact again so I focused on a piece of lettuce instead.
Luckily, it was at this moment that the bell decided to ring for sixth period and I was saved from talking about it any further.
As usual, Josh walked me to class, deposited me at the doorway of Dr. Fibbs' room, and reminded me that he wanted to see me front and center on the sidelines tonight. I laughed, promising him I would be, and then stepped into the biology classroom.
Seeing Zach already seated at his desk instantly made the laughter die in my throat. I replaced my smile with the most stoic expression I could muster and slid into my own desk next to him.
We were playing a game, Zach and me. The game was called Pretend Everything's Normal and Also Act Like Robots At The Same Time.
"Hi Gallagher Girl," he said first. His voice was cheerful but he wasn't looking in my direction.
"Hey Zachary," I chirped. "Excited for your game tonight?"
So far we were tied in this game.
"Thrilled, thanks for asking."
"Any time."
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Liz having a full-blown panic attack over this interaction.
"Will you be at the game, if you don't mind me asking?" Zach was speaking to me but his entire body was facing away from me. He was staring at the front of the classroom with such determination, I had to double-check to make sure he wasn't actually engaged in a staring contest with Dr. Fibbs.
"Yes," I said, staring at a corner of the dry-erase board I decided I wouldn't be looking away from. "I am in fact going to the game tonight."
"Brilliant."
"Lovely."
Dr. Fibbs began the lecture at this point which was great because Liz looked like she was one second away from fainting. When I turned to look at her she was staring at me with an expression that could only be translated into ?!
Yeah, you and me both sister.
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I was sitting on the freezing cold surface of the Roseville stadium bleachers, with shattering teeth and shifty eyes. I glanced from Bex to Macey, Macey to Liz, then back to Bex again just to repeat the cycle.
Three different expressions were reflected back at me.
Macey looked agitated. Bex looked confused. Liz looked excited.
I waited expectantly for one of them to give me some sort of verbal reaction.
Down on the turf, our football team and Porter's were warming up on opposite sides of the field. I watched the players shuffle from side to side and pretended to not see the number 21 on anyone's jersey.
Macey broke the silence.
"That's annoying of him honestly," she huffed. After adjusting her ear warmers, she turned to me. "He's just upset because you're a hot girl and you used your hot girl powers to get him to do your homework."
I sighed and shook my head. "I didn't mean the homework comment seriously, Mace. A week ago if I had suggested to Zach he should do my homework he would've laughed and told me to fuck off. This," I groaned, "was an unforeseen plotline."
Bex was shaking her head, still lost in my words. "What's that mean? The 'I know, that's the problem'? What the bloody hell did he mean by that?"
Now the players were starting to huddle around their coaches. I knew the game was about to start and I couldn't even bother to be excited. We were projected to win-by a lot-and my mind was on other things.
I tossed Bex an exasperated shrug. "Same thing I was wondering."
"It's an annoying comment," Macey grumbled.
"Please, it's so obvious," Liz cried, throwing her hands up in the air with exasperation. She turned her gaze to me with so much force I forgot that she had the same height and build as a fourth-grader, and flinched.
"Enlighten me," I said.
"Cammie, he's into you. Like, into you, into you." Liz leaned over and grabbed my arm. "He's mad at himself because he likes you and you don't see it and he's acting like an idiot to get you to notice."
Her words bounced around in my head. Zach, liking me? The new Mr. Tina Walters? Mr. Absentmindedly-Trace-Circles-on-Her-Arm? Fat chance.
I shut my eyes for a second and pinched the bridge of my nose. I replayed every interaction we ever had in my head and tried to fit this new idea of him liking me into the narrative. Nah, it didn't make sense.
I said this to Liz.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "You're clueless really," she said.
"Maybe Tina doesn't want the pair of you hanging out anymore so he's distancing himself?" Bex offered.
I stared at her in disbelief. "Why on earth would she not want that?"
"Because-" Liz began, but I cut her off.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah because his heart beats for me and only me. He compares me to a summer's day. Yadda, yadda, yadda."
She snarled at me.
On the field, the captains were doing the coin flip. I tried my hardest to not look at Zach but my eyes kept sliding over to him. He was so tall. The way he towered over the referee and the Porter team captain was impossible to ignore.
"For the record, I think Liz is right," Macey informed me, a matter of factly. "I knew he was into you the moment you moved in."
I glared at her. How dare she side with Liz? Was no one on my side?
If they could only see how he was when it was just us. It was nothing like the way Josh acted. That's how I knew he wasn't into me. I wanted to explain this to them but the game had started and everyone's attention was immediately refocused.
The game was painful. Not because we were doing badly (I'm convinced Roseville couldn't lose if they tried), but because we were beating Porter by so much that it wasn't even enjoyable. By the time halftime rolled around, the score was 49-7 and I was so bored I could barely sit in my seat.
The teams shuffled into the respective locker rooms and people slowly began trickling from the bleachers to the concession stands. Liz, Macey, and I stood up to get us all hot chocolates while Bex stayed behind to save our seats.
We weaved our way through the stands and filed in line behind the group of people crowding at the concessions window. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and bounced up and down to keep warm.
"I had no idea Porter would be this bad," I announced as our line began inching forward.
Macey, who had been on her phone the whole first half, glanced up. "Are we winning?"
This comment earned her a disgruntled glare from the man in line ahead of us which Macey returned icily.
"We should win by quite a bit," Liz informed her. She rolled up to her tiptoes to try and read the menu. When she still wasn't able to see, she dropped back down to flat feet with a sigh.
"Yippee," Macey deadpanned, which made me laugh.
We were at the window now, and we each ordered a hot chocolate, asking for an extra one to bring back to Bex. I had just finished stuffing the change back into my jacket pocket when something began blaring from the speakers.
Music was usually playing at halftime, that was part was normal. First, the away team band played, then the home team. Whenever there was some extra free time, the stadium speakers usually played some predetermined hype playlist.
This, however, was different.
"Is that…Frank Sinatra?" Liz asked in disbelief. She was staring at me as if I had the answer.
I shrugged back at her, just as confused. The irony of this situation was not lost on me. Monday, Zach and I had that whole Sinatra thing going on and now it was playing at the game. I wondered for a brief moment if he had done this on purpose. Maybe he had asked the managers to slide this track in as a way to make peace with me. I smiled a little at the thought.
The three of us cut our way back through the crowd and towards our seats. There was lots of commotion on the field and people were starting to stand to get a better look. We paused in our tracks to see what was going on.
The center of the field was void of any marching band or straggling player. The cheerleaders, who usually faced the bleachers and occasionally shook their pom poms to the music, were now facing the opposite direction. I squinted my eyes to see what they were looking at.
Tina Walters was standing on the 50-yard line absolutely beaming. Up above, Sinatra was still blaring.
"Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away."
I slid my eyes away from Tina long enough to study what she was looking at.
My stomach lurched.
Zach was walking from the locker room now, helmet off with his gloves slung loosely through the loops of his pants. It looked like he was mouthing the lyrics to the song even though from here I couldn't tell if he was singing them or just speaking them out loud. In his hands was a giant white poster board and when I read what it said my stomach dropped all the way to my feet.
TINA, FLY AWAY WITH ME TO HOMECOMING?
Even though Gallagher was an all-girls school and we had like one dance a year that quite literally only consisted of the students and faculty, I had watched enough HBO to know what public school dances were like. For example, I knew homecoming was just like a mini version of prom. I knew the dresses were shorter, the theme was more casual, and it came much, much earlier in the year.
What I hadn't known, however, was that the aforementioned 'much earlier date for the start of homecoming festivities at Roseville was the second weekend of October.
I had seen enough cringy video compilations of people getting asked to homecoming dances to also know that people usually asked one another in some bizarre, romantic, and public way.
Personally, I hadn't been expecting to witness one of these events firsthand. I definitely hadn't been expecting it to be between Zach Goode and Tina Walters.
Tina had said yes (of course), my friends had been speechless (of course), and I was annoyed (for some reason).
I couldn't pinpoint exactly why I was so agitated. I mean, it wasn't like I had been expecting to go to homecoming with Zach. God, I would literally rather die. But, the way he had asked her was so outrageously annoying, so outrageously Zach. Sinatra? He had to be messing with me.
Once Tina had lept dramatically into Zach's arms (and the entire bleachers cheered in delight), the game continued as if nothing had happened. We won, unsurprisingly, as per tradition, everyone headed to CiCi's to celebrate.
My interaction with Zach at CiCi's was been limited, but that was nothing compared to how little we spoke at school that next week. Our biology chats had subsided to simple hellos and how are yours, nothing more. I had to admit, I felt sort of bad about it. He had practically been my first friend at Roseville. Now it seemed like we were barely acquaintances.
On top of all that, my friends were dropping like flies. Grant had asked Bex after her soccer practice (used soccer balls to spell HOCO on the field), Macey had said yes to Preston (he got her an engraved watch (?)), and Jonas had used a very intricate scientific experiment (that I did not totally understand) to secure Liz's commitment to the dance.
I couldn't walk two feet in the hall without hearing a girl squeal out a falsetto "yes!" or seeing balloons floating down the hall.
Josh and I had been weaving in and out of proposals every single morning on the way to first period and even after lunch. It was absolutely exhausting. And what was even worse, was the constant fear I was feeling. Every single time I saw an over-the-top proposal, I was absolutely horrified that I would be on the receiving end of it.
And don't get me wrong-I wanted to go with Josh-I just really hoped he would ask me in a less theatrical way.
So far, I had got off scot-free. No giant balloons, no bouquet of roses, not even a cheesy posterboard sign had been thrown in my direction all week. I was actually feeling pretty confident about my ability to avoid an enormous feat of public humiliation. That is, until Thursday.
I wish I could say I hadn't expected it, but that wouldn't fully be true. From the moment I stepped foot into school that morning, I knew something was up. Josh was basically bouncing off the wall with nerves. He could barely sit still and he kept glancing around nervously. I asked him if he was okay probably like 800 times but each time I did he just mumbled something about being nervous for his Spanish exam and changed the subject.
He wasn't acting any less bizarre by the time we were filing into the gym at 11:30 for the girl's volleyball pep rally.
"Josh stop bouncing."
It was the fourth time I had said this in the span of five minutes. Josh had been bouncing on the ball of his feet and checking the time on his watch probably every other second. Bex had rested her hand on his shoulder multiple times in the most polite gesture of "cut it out" she could muster.
Josh sighed and turned slightly red. One more glance at his phone and he mumbled "Sorry, I have to go to the bathroom" before darting off in the opposite direction of the gym bleachers. Grant led the way for our group and slid into the third row of seats.
"He's being so weird today," I said once we sat down. People were filing in all around us and it was so loud I basically had to yell to be heard. "Do you guys know what's going on with him?"
Grant, Jonas, and Preston both shared a look with each other. Then, at almost the exact same time, they faced back towards me and gave a non-convincing shrug.
"Okay, um, weird?" Bex whispered to me.
I nodded, scanning the crowd for Josh. The gym was getting more crowded by the second, and the dimming lights implied that pretty soon the pep rally was about to start.
Down on the linoleum, the cheerleaders were unraveling the mat for their routine. I could see Tina's sky-high ponytail bouncing around the mass of people. Then, refocusing my eyes on literally anything else, they landed on the body of the person directly in front of me.
"Excuse me," Zach was saying.
Our game of Polite Robot had apparently started without me knowing.
I pulled my knees into my chest so that he could slide by in front of me and sit next to the guys. His body brushed against mine on his way past me and both of our bodies tensed in response. I could feel the blush snaking its way up my cheeks.
On the gym floor, the mats had now been completely rolled out. The volleyball players were sitting in chairs lining the gym and our student body president, Ashley Rios, was standing in front of them, mic in hand. After a few moments of waiting (and Ashley impatiently tapping her foot), the gym finally quieted down the soft buzz of whispers.
"Good morning Roseville!" She cheered into the mic. "Who's ready for the volleyball game tonight?" There was a slight whine of feedback for a second but it was drowned down by cheers coming from the student body. Once they quieted down, Ashley went on. "We have a lot of fun stuff planned for today but before we start…"
Suddenly, all the overhead lights in the gym shut off. Bright colored strobe lights started flashing and some pop song began to blare from the speakers. "I think someone here has something they want to ask someone."
I immediately felt sick.
I didn't even need to look down onto the court to know who was about to emerge from the gym doors. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, willing every cell in my face to not turn the brightest shade of red that exists, and when I opened my eyes Josh was standing in the middle of the gym.
He had a bouquet of roses and he was grinning up at me. Behind him, the cheerleaders were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, each holding a different letter to spell out the word HOMECOMING?
My friends were nudging me from either side. I think I heard Macey squeal. Down below, Josh started speaking into the mic he had taken from Ashely. "Cammie Morgan," he was saying. "It'd put a real pep in my step if you'd do me the honor of going to homecoming with me?"
I felt like my mouth was full of dust. I was well aware that everyone in the gym was looking at me. It was the most exposed I had ever felt in my entire life. I don't know how long I sat there staring at Josh dumbly but pretty soon I heard a hiss in my ear.
"Cammie. Stand up!"
Liz was practically throwing her entire body weight into trying to shove me onto my feet. Finally registering what she was saying, I bolted upright.
I had gotten up too fast. Or maybe I was too overwhelmed. Either way, my head was swimming. Looking down at Josh, I was basically seeing double.
"Y-yeah of course," I heard myself say out loud, my voice so high-pitched and nervous I sounded like some sort of cartoon mouse. "I'd love to."
Immediately, the stands erupted into cheers.
I was going to pass out.
My eyes met Mom who was sitting down on the floor next to the volleyball team. She was smiling up at me happily but with a faint look of pity in her eyes. She knew how much I hated attention like this.
Next, before I could help it, I looked over at Zach. He met my gaze, one of his eyebrows slightly raised.
He didn't say anything, which was absolutely infuriating. Instead, he just stared at me, holding my gaze for longer than he had in weeks. Then, after a few seconds, he threw me a tight-lipped smile.
And just like that, I knew the Polite Robot game was here to stay.
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"Oh for the love of God tell me you're not trying to cook tonight."
It was the first thing I said when I stepped into my house later that evening.
It was around 5:30-practice had run long-and not only was I fresh off my public humiliation stint, but I was also hungry, tired, and not at all prepared to deal with Mom's attempt at making decent food.
I dropped my bag at the front door and kicked my shoes off on the way to the kitchen. The whole house smelled like some sort of roast but was surprisingly not covered in smoke. The reason for this revealed itself when I stepped into the kitchen. Kate was the one at the island chopping the vegetables while my mom sat at the kitchen counter far, far away from the food.
"Don't worry, I know she's a hazard in the kitchen," Kate grinned in my direction. She ran a peeler over the skin of a potato and dropped it into a boiling pot. "I'm taking care of it."
I breathed a sigh of relief and joined my mom at one of the high chairs behind the counter. "Glad to hear it, there's only so many times a person can swallow the melted plastic from her cooking utensils. Whatcha doing here?"
Since she had started seeing this new guy (the Frank Sinatra one), Jesse, we had rarely seen her around. If she wasn't working, she was usually on some sort of adventurous date. Mom would never admit it, but I knew she was feeling kind of lonely without her around.
Kate shrugged, crushing some peppers under the blade of a knife. "Just been a while. Didn't want you all to forget about me or anything."
I shook my head. "I have to see your annoying brother every day in school. I consider that an incessant reminder the Goode family exists."
Mom and Kate both laughed. We fell into an easy conversation as Kate bustled around the kitchen, stirring this, chopping that, and before I knew it, the sun was already dipping behind the trees. The clock on the stove informed me that it was well past my time to eat.
My stomach growled and in response, I groaned dramatically. "Is it almost ready? I'm starved."
"You've mentioned that once or twice Cammie," Kate informed me.
"Cause I am!"
Kate chuckled to herself, funneling food from a pot into a serving dish. "How about you run over next door and tell Zach that food's ready?"
I wrinkled my nose at the thought. After the day I had and the whole hoco-asking thing, the last thing I wanted to do was to play the Polite Robot Game across a dinner table. "Do I have to?"
"The longer you wait the longer it'll take us to start eating," Mom said in her Authoritative Voice.
I groaned again, melting off my chair. If I was going to be forced to do something I was at least going to be vocal about it. I grumbled in protest the entire way, not stopping until the front door shut behind me and I was out of earshot.
I stared up at the Goode house which loomed in front of me menacingly. Before, I had always felt welcome just walking right in, but now the thought made me extremely nervous. Things with Zach had just been so weird, and after my spotlight moment at the pep rally today, I felt like it could only get worse.
Sucking in a deep breath for courage, I crossed the yard to his front door and pushed my way inside. The foyer was empty and as I made my way through the kitchen and the living room I saw there was no annoying boy to be seen. "Zach?" I more so groaned than said. The last thing I wanted to do was wander the house looking for him. "Hello?"
When there was no response, I had a mini hissy fit in the hallway. He was annoying even when he wasn't even here. After grumpily swinging my arms a little, I braced myself to go up the stairs. As I got closer to his room, I could hear the faint sound of music. I paused at the doorway, leaning forward just a little so I could press my ear to the door.
I loved this song.
I barely had time to be annoyed at the fact that Zach had good taste in music because the door was suddenly swinging open.
I tumbled into the room, running smack into him.
"Oh hello!" I said cheerily, desperately trying to hide the embarrassment in my voice.
"Hi?" Zach was staring down at me, arms crossed in front of his bare chest. His sweatpants were hanging almost dangerously low on his hips.
"Kate told me to get you for dinner."
"Cool. Why were you listening outside my door?"
"I was trying to hear what song was on. Also, I thought I was being sneaky."
"I literally heard you throw a tantrum downstairs ten seconds ago," Zach informed me. "Not sneakily."
A blush threatened to turn my entire body bright red. I willed it down with my mind. "Okay, well that was just a ploy to see if you could actually hear me slash were choosing to ignore me. And would you look at that, you totally were."
The right side of Zach's mouth almost twitched up into a smile. He forced it back down and looked at me stoically instead. I stared back, trying to level him with my gaze.
The thing about me was that eye contact always made me shifty. The thing about Zach was that he lived for it. If we were having a staring contest he was going to win every single time. I held his gaze as long as I could before I finally had to look away.
Instead, my eyes scanned the room, taking note of all the little changes that had been done since I had been there last.
Some of the trophies had been cleared out of the way, and in their place were polaroids, and mini picture frames of Tina and Zach. The one in the very center was just Tina. On the bed, there were a couple of new throw pillows, even one with a silk pillowcase which I had heard her raving about over lunch.
I looked back over at Zach only to see that he was already looking at me. I couldn't even keep my eyebrows from raising.
He dragged a hand down his face. "Tina's made some changes."
I made my way towards the trophy wall, which mainly just looked like a shrine to Tina. "Mmm, I see that," I said. "It's nice. Very drink-the-punch-y."
Zach snickered and came up behind me to assess the wall himself. "I'm told this interior design style is called Cult Classic."
At this I laughed, glancing over my shoulder to look at him. He was a lot closer to me than before, and if I leaned back just a little we would have been touching.
I didn't, of course, but that was worthy to note.
"Is this a sort of souvenir situation?" I joked, grabbing the center photo of Tina. "Like, could I possibly take this one home with me?"
He threw his head back, laughing. I hadn't heard his laugh in a while, it made me unreasonably happy. "There are tracking devices in the back. She'll know it's left the property."
I grinned up at him, reveling at this moment because it felt just like it used to. He stopped laughing and smiled back down at me in a way that suddenly made me super aware that he was shirtless and we were alone at his house.
I dropped the photo back onto the shelf and clapped my hands together, forcing myself to look away. "Okay, dinner."
Zach's smile slipped off his face and he looked at me with slightly narrowed eyes for a moment. He cocked his head a bit quizically as if he was trying to read my thoughts. "Okay, dinner," he repeated, before turning towards his dresser and pulling a sweatshirt out from a drawer. He slid it on over his head, emerging on the other side with the messiest hair I'd ever seen. He made no effort to fix it.
We walked back down the stairs in silence, the sound of Zach's playlist fading out slowly from the speakers in his room. Not a word was spoken as we crossed to my yard, or stepped into the foyer, but the minute he saw Mom and Kate the boy lit up like a damn firework.
"Wow, it smells amazing!" He proclaimed, pulling Mom into a hug. "You must have cooked this, yeah?"
Mom laughed, blushing bashfully. "Oh stop it," she said, "you know I can't cook to save a life."
Zach waved this comment away with assurances that he absolutely loved the thank you brownies she had sent over after we had moved in, then headed to the kitchen to help bring some of the food over to the table.
I watched him grumpily. His ability to switch from being a silent, cryptic weirdo to being the most personable and charming human being on the planet was absolutely infuriating. He was starting to make me feel like an absolute crazy person.
After glaring for what was probably an inappropriately long amount of time, I finally helped join in to set the table. Kate, Zach, Mom, and I moved in perfect rhythm, maneuvering around one another until the spread on the table was complete. It looked so good I wanted to stick my hands in the roast and start eating right away.
My stomach made a sound similar to GRRRRGUUUUUGRRRRUUUUUUUUUURGUUUUU.
Zach snorted. I glared.
Finally, it was time to start eating. It was delicious, of course, but didn't even make it five minutes into the meal before my own personal hell began.
"So Cammie," Kate started. She sloshed her red wine around in its glass. "Your mom told me you got asked to homecoming today."
The blush on my skin was immediate. I could feel my ears burning as I actively avoided everyone's gaze and stared directly at my plate instead. "Mmhm."
"How was it? Was it everything you expected?" Kate asked.
I had never found meat and potatoes so interesting in my life. I didn't look up as I said, "Yeah, um, it was nice."
"Very understated," Zach added. "Right up her alley."
At this, I looked up, meeting his eyes across the table. His smirk told me that he was referring to our conversation from the other night. The one about understated grand gestures, Frank Sinatra, and ruining his life with my homework assignments.
What the hell was he trying to get at?
"Yep, the only thing that could have been better would have been a public serenade," I challenged back, narrowing my eyes.
He narrowed his back. "Oh yeah? Any particular artists you have in mind?"
"None you'd be good at performing."
Mom and Kate's eyes bounced back and forth between us. It was clear they knew something weird was going on but had no clue what.
"It was sweet," Mom offered in Kate's direction. "The poor boy was so nervous."
"I'm surprised you weren't more nervous for your whole ask-thingy Zach," Kate said, turning towards her brother. "You barely broke a sweat doing it in front of all those people."
"He probably practiced in front of his Tina shrine beforehand," I mumbled, under my breath.
Across the table, Zach burst out laughing. He closed his eyes, shaking his head with defeat.
Cammie-1, Zach-0.
"O-o-okay, absolutely no clue what that means," Kate admitted. She took a sip of her wine and turned toward my mom. "Kids are so weird these days."
Mom blew out a breath, making the bangs around her face ruffle a little. "Tell me about it. I don't remember being so cryptic when I was their age, do you?"
Kate shook her head. "Nope. Just moody, horny, and rebellious."
Immediately, Zach screamed in protest. He threw his fork and knife down onto the plate and slammed his hand over his ears. "Kate!" He yelled, scandalized. "What the hell?"
"Oh grow up, Zach," Kate jabbed her fork in his direction. "Don't be one of those guys who can't handle girls saying they're horny. It's not a good look."
Zach's face was still twisted in disgust. "I have absolutely zero problems with the idea of girls getting horny. Trust me," he assured the table. "I do, however, have about a thousand problems with the thought of my sister being horny."
Kate rolled her eyes. "Well brace yourself buck-o. Who knows where this dinner conversation's gonna go. I haven't even told Rachel about Jesse yet."
Zach's chair flew back as he instantly stood up. "Nope, nope, nope," he reached over and picked his plate up off the table, then leaned across the table and grabbed mine. "Come on. we're going to go eat anywhere else."
I sputtered in disbelief. "I don't want to eat anywhere else. I want to hear about Jesse." But, it was a lost cause, because Zach was already heading up the stairs with my plate in hand. My eyes bounced between Mom and Kate in shock. When they failed to provide me with any feedback I stood from the table, my chair squeaking behind me.
Upstairs, my window was wide open, blinds billowing in the wind. I sighed, closing my eyes for a second to gather myself before climbing through the hole. Zach was pressed up against the chimney with his plate on his lap. Mine was sitting next to him, sloshing dangerously from the slant of the roof.
I dropped down next to him, scooped it up into my lap, and sighed again, this time for dramatic effect. His eyes slid over to me and a soft smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. I truly couldn't tell what he was thinking.
Neither of us spoke for a bit, simply watched the sky turn purple in the autumn evening. He waited until I had shoveled a potato into my mouth to speak.
"So. A pep rally."
I swallowed the potato whole. "A football field."
Zach pushed his empty plate away from him (it was alarming the speed at which men consumed food), then turned on his elbow to look at me, eyes narrowed. "Yours was worse," he insisted.
The way he was looking at me was making my stomach jump so much I was losing my appetite. I also pushed my plate aside and turned to glare at him. "Yours was a conscious choice," I reminded him."I was a victim."
At this, a grin broke across his face. "Victim, hmm?"
Immediately, regret flooded through me. Sure, the way Josh had asked me was by no means how I had wanted to be asked, but that still didn't mean it wasn't a nice gesture. It was sweet, and he was sweet, and surely any other girl would have probably loved that type of attention. I vaguely remember DeeDee mentioning once how she came alive in public settings.
I chose to not acknowledge my own mistake so as to not bring him more joy. Instead, I chose to make him feel worse about his bizarre little serenade.
"I'd take a simple question over a song any day," I snapped. His eyes were dancing with amusement and I realized it was the first time he wasn't glaring at me in a while.
"I wasn't actually singing you know that right?" Zach said. He wrinkled his nose at the thought. "I can't sing, I'm practically tone deaf. I was just mouthing the words."
"Tina was telling people at lunch you have the voice of a young, teen, popstar."
"She has a tendency to exaggerate."
Zach said this very matter of a fact. I didn't really know what to say to this, so I just rolled onto my back and stared back up at the sky. Fluffy, bluish clouds had swarmed in and were accumulating thickly in the sky. It looked like it was going to rain.
A few minutes of surprisingly comfortable silence rolled by. Zach hadn't moved off his side and I could feel him looking at me so it was taking everything I had not to ask him what on earth he was doing. I focused on picking out shapes in the rapidly approaching clouds.
"What are you thinking about?" Zach suddenly asked, his voice thick. His gaze felt like a spotlight on my side profile.
I extended a hand up to the sky and pointed at a particularly bulky-looking cloud. "That cloud looks like Mr. Petropolous eating a hotdog."
He burst out laughing, turning to stare up at the giant cumulus nimbus that scarily resembled the school's eleventh-grade history teacher. "Okay, what about before that?"
"The cloud next to it looks like bone daddy eating your face."
"Gallagher Girl," Zach growled.
His tone was enough to draw my attention back to him. We locked eyes, his searching my face for something. I felt a swell of courage, swallowing my suddenly dry mouth before answering. "I was thinking about the night you committed a felony and broke into my house. And how you got all psychotic at the end and suddenly became the world's most cryptic human to ever set foot on the face of the earth. And then immediately after, started acting like you were mad at me. And how sometimes you go back to how you used to be and it's fun and it feels normal again but then all of a sudden something happens and the Polite Robot game starts up again and it confuses me."
At the end of my declaration, I blew out a breath of relief. I felt nearly a thousand pounds lighter now that I had gotten that off my chest.
Zach, on the other hand, did not. His eyebrows were drawn together and his jaw was working back and forth. Finally, he said, "The Polite Robot game?"
I tried (and failed) to not be annoyed about the fact that he was only acknowledging one extremely minor part of everything I had said. "The Polite Robot game is what we've been playing for the past few weeks," I explained. "We become nice little emotionless zombies who make small talk every time we see each other."
"Emotionless," he repeated.
Suddenly, there was a giant crack of thunder. "Yeah-weird, emotionless, not friendly. Whatever you want to call it," I grumbled. I wanted to add that it hurt, considering he had technically been my first friend in Roseville, but I didn't.
Zach was staring again, and I was pretending not to notice.
The first few giant rain drops began to fall from the sky. He made no move to go inside, so neither did I. I shoved our plates through the window and onto the sill so they wouldn't slide off the roof. The movement brought us that much closer in proximity. We were suddenly in each other's space.
For some reason, my breath was shaky as I leaned through the window to deposit our plates. Maybe it was becasue Zach's eyes were tracking my every movement, and he was making no effort to get out of my way. Maybe it was cause it was cold outside and the rain was making his nose and mouth turn a bright shade of pink. Maybe it was cause he caught me looking at his mouth. Or maybe, just maybe, it was cause I caught him looking at mine.
What the hell was going on?
He looked away, closing his eyes and releasing a long steady exhale from his nose. The rain was starting to pick up.
"Can we just stop the Polite Robot game and be friends again?" I blurted out without thinking. It sort of just slipped out. I hated how small and nervous my voice sounded and I hated that I had to admit to him that I considered him a friend. But I missed him. I wanted to joke around with him, watch movies with him, steal pizza from him. I had no idea why us not being close was driving me so crazy, but it was.
"No." Zach's voice came out hoarse.
Honestly, it was not what I expected and it completely threw me. "What?" I asked dumbly.
"I want to be your friend Gallagher Girl, but I just can't right now," he said, his eyes still closed.
"You can't?" I repeated. Surprise quickly faded into anger and I barked out a short laugh. "Is this cause of Tina? Nothing is going on between us, just tell her th-,"
"I know nothing is going on between us," he interrupted, opening his eyes and sitting up. The rain was absolutely coming down at this point and his hair was sticking to his face. He yanked a hand through it, then turned to face me. My teeth were chattering a bit and he reached out and swiped his thumb across my jaw for a quick, fleeting moment to steady it. "Go inside," he sighed, pulling his hand back. "You're gonna catch a cold."
Then, he climbed off the roof onto the fence without another word, disappearing into the rain in the direction of his house.
A/N: im wrapping this story up soon i think and i may start another one or something but until then please send reviews! they're my. favorite thing ever and fill me with joy
-hashtagfanfiction
