"You sure about this?" Evan asked, hand tightly gripping the strap of his bag. It was the next day in school and somehow, I had managed to convince Evan to join my group at lunch. I mean, I was sure the library was fascinating and all, but friends are better, right? At that moment, we were standing in the hallway leading to the cafeteria, not a single student in sight.
"It's going to be fine," I said, giving him a reassuring pat on the back. "It's just lunch with my friends."
"But what if they don't like me?" he asked.
"Really? I think that's the least of your problems right now." That was true of course because knowing my friends, just the fact that Evan was sitting with us would transform them into matchmakers. They would, no doubt, be going to lengths to ask Evan questions all the while shooting me knowing smirks.
"Meaning?" he asked, wary of the answer I was going to give. Well, he deserved to know what exactly he was walking into, right? Besides, if we were going to keep up with this charade, he needed to know everything so as to not get caught off guard, lest he react in some way that exposes him.
"Okay, so this was before all this happened mind you, so you can't really get mad at me," I said, motioning my hand between the two of us.
"Mad? What did you do Brad?" he asked, eyes going wide.
"It's nothing extremely bad...but they kind of know I have a major crush on you," I said.
"What?" he exclaimed, looking about as panicked as could be.
"Calm down, they don't know about what happened between us, so it shouldn't be too awkward," I tried, obviously leaving out the part that Tim knew.
"Easy for you to say, you're not the one going to sit with a bunch of strangers giving you weird looks all lunch."
"Well, they'll definitely be giving me weird looks too, just saying," I countered, but Evan just rolled his eyes at me. "Besides, they're not strangers."
"They are to me. What if they figure out what happened between us?"
"Would that really be such a bad thing?" I said, giving him a forlorn expression.
"I'm just...not ready for that yet," he said, giving me a sad look in return. It was then that I realized how big a jerk I was being. This was new to him, and trying to push him out of the closet wasn't helping. Being president of the GSA made me doing that all the more unforgivable.
"No, I'm sorry. You're right, you need to deal with this at your own pace."
"I just need time." I nodded at him, knowing all too well that I was wrong to try and force him out of the closet.
"I know. I'm sorry. You don't have to sit with us if you don't feel comfortable doing that," I said.
Evan looked at me for a while, his eyes searching mine for answers to the questions that were obviously plaguing his mind. He sighed, dropping his head in the process. "I'll sit with you guys," he muttered, just barely audible.
"What?" I asked, not really sure if I had heard him right."
"I'll sit with you," he repeated, louder this time. I couldn't even help the smile that crept onto my face.
"You really don't have to if you don't want," I said, giving him one last chance to retract his statement.
"As long as you're there, I guess I can deal," he said and I gave him the 'aww' expression.
"For that, I'll try to make sure the guys are less obnoxious."
"You know you can't do that."
"I know, but it made you feel better that I said it, right?" I said, giving him a cheeky smile, transforming into a grin when I saw his own lips curling up at the sides. "C'mon, it'll seem weird if we take too long," I said, walking towards the cafeteria.
"Wait," Evan said, grabbing onto my elbow. I turned to face him, seeing him dart his eyes down one side of the hallway to the other. When he deemed the coast clear, he quickly placed a kiss on my lips. I was shocked because I hadn't expected Evan to do something as risky as kissing me in public, especially when he was so worried about sitting with my friends just because they knew of my crush on him only seconds before.
When he pulled away, I gave him a sideways smile. "What was that for?"
"Just wanted to," he said, walking in the direction of the cafeteria. I shook my head, smiling at his sweetness before running to catch up with him. I didn't acknowledge him, though, just matching his steps next to him.
Walking into the cafeteria with Evan, cliché dictates that every pair of eyes fell on us, watching the peculiar pair enter the lunch room together for the very first time. In reality, it was a lot less climactic. The chatter of students didn't stop, no one even really noticing that we had entered, most of them already deep in conversation with their friends.
Darting my eyes over to my table, I noticed that even the occupants of it were oblivious to my entrance. "See, no one even notices us," I said, turning to Evan.
"For now," he stated, pulling me to get our food.
Once we both had our trays of food, today a weird meatloaf kind of thing, we walked to my group of peers still talking amicably to one another. It was only when I was a couple of yards away did Melissa finally catch sight of me.
I smiled at her, but her eyes were focused on the boy walking just behind me, immediately nudging Mitch with her elbow. In the middle of a conversation, he gave an annoyed expression before brushing her hand away. This didn't deter Melissa, though, continuing poking Mitch in the side with her elbow.
"What?!" he shouted, agitation reaching a point where he couldn't ignore his sister anymore. Melissa didn't say anything, her eyes never leaving the pair of us still approaching. This brought the attention of everyone at the table to us, Brian and Sam even turning in their seats to look.
Even I could feel the pressure of their stunned expressions, I could only imagine what Evan was feeling. "Hey guys," I greeted. "Mind if Evan joins us?"
There was a second of silence from everyone, staring at me as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing or hearing. I didn't get why they were so shocked, though, seeing that they knew I had gone to a party with Evan. I mean, if I could go to a party with him, I sure as hell could have lunch with him, right?
