"So, first of all, I'm sorry," Lexi began as we found our table.
"Ah, so Morgan's talked to you already," I replied with humor, sitting down.
I put the straw in my drink as Lexi pouted at me. "I'm allowed to feel sorry without Morgan telling me anything!" she defended herself.
I put on a faux blank expression. "Oh, so she didn't talk to you?"
She blushed. "Look... I..."
I chuckled. "Apology accepted."
"No, you haven't even heard it yet. That's not fair." She wasn't turning any less pink. "I just thought we had... something happening and I... just wanted to ask if Morgan was..."
"You never thought to ask me?" I asked, my tone not accusatory.
She looked at me with urgency. "I thought we already said everything in the, uh, in the clothes store that one time," she replied earnestly. "You said, 'who knows?' I remember that word for word. 'Who knows.'"
"Yeah, word for word. All two words," I dryly replied. Lexi didn't say anything, mostly because her mouth was full of bubble tea, so I continued. "But that was a hypothetical if I wasn't dating Morgan. And, uh, maybe you've noticed, but I'm still dating her."
Lexi gave me a weird look. "But... she said it was cool. So why...?"
"Lexi, what if I want to be monogamous while I'm dating Morgan? What if I-" I stopped myself.
She caught on anyway. "...You were going to say something about how Taylor nearly screwed things up or something?" she inferred.
"I meant to ask you, how the fuck did you find out about that?"
Lexi laughed nervously. "Yeah, no," she immediately rebutted.
"No, really, I need to know."
"And no really, I can't tell," she responded emphatically. "Just... who gives a shit, you know? Why can't we just go with the flow? No one's angry at each other, no one's-"
"Taylor refuses to hang out with the group if I'm there and Milo and I are still awkward," I contested.
"Whatever. Fuck that. Do you want me or not? Because you're giving me some fucking mixed signals," she barked.
"Calm down," I defensively replied.
"I just don't like how you always have to be right about stuff. Like, isn't what you have nice?"
"It makes me nervous when I don't know why, or if people are hiding stuff from me. Tay- well I guess you know now, but Taylor was the fucking queen of hiding stuff from me. I'm not trying to be right, I'm showing you what happened and how it affected the group when the fallout from that stuff happened. I'm allowed to be nervous if you know but only laugh when I ask how you know."
"I didn't laugh!" she protested.
"Well, I mean, it was like a nervous laugh, but it was a laugh."
"Quinn, I'm not telling you because I know it'll be a shitshow if I tell you and you track down everybody involved. You're kind of a drama magnet, dude."
"I-!" I breathed in and out a few times, and ran my tongue over my teeth. "Okay, whatever," I conceded. "Who cares."
"Right?" she agreed. "Who cares? So can we get back to the, um... y'know... the 'me' thing."
I smirked. Classic Lexi. "So-"
"And, like, again, I'm sorry if I made you feel like a sex toy or something. Like, we don't have to do anything if you don't want it," she quickly added. "But like, you did say you wanted it, and if you didn't, it sounded a lot like you did."
I paused for a bit. "...So, I...." I looked at the ceiling for a bit and moved my mouth around in thought. "I know that... I find you physically attractive. But, I know a big part of me wants Morgan and only Morgan. I just don't know if that's all of me."
"Wow, Quinn, that's deep," Lexi said with big eyes, clearly meaning it.
"I know you have... needs... and that you're kind of jealous you don't have what your friends have. Is that fair to say?"
Lexi immediately opened her mouth like she was going to protest, but just ended up sitting back in her chair. "Yeah," she huffed. "It's fair." She pushed for a bit. "It's just so unfair! Morgan got to have you by going into a GameStop and acting dumb. Taylor got to fuck you with this cute tutor thing! Me, I'm like, a hundred percent honest, and I get this 'oh I dunno' crap."
In classic Lexi style, she practically shouted the part about Taylor fucking me with no regard for who was around. Nervously looking around me, I replied, "Lexi, I do feel for you, but by the time I even could feel you were attractive, I was already with Morgan, and already experiencing headaches from my infidelity."
"You were a Muslim? What?" Lexi asked with confusion.
"Lexi, Jesus Christ!" I nearly shouted in disappointment. "That's really racist! No, 'infidelity' means, like, cheating." Catching her look of confusion, I sighed and kept talking. "You're thinking of an 'infidel,' which is someone who doesn't believe in your religion. So if you heard Muslims, or, y'know, Christains or any other religion, saying 'infidel,' it just means 'you're not like me.'"
"What was the point again?" Lexi asked, possibly not even listening to my response to her choice of words.
"By the time I found you attractive, I was already with Morgan, and thanks somewhat to Taylor, I didn't like fooling around with others. But also, I just... like being just with Morgan. It feels nice for it to just be one person."
She chewed on her straw. "Doesn't seem fair," she finally managed.
"I won't even disagree with you. It probably isn't," I replied evenly. "But you're not the only person involved in this."
"Yeah, yeah," she said bitterly.
"And I'm not the only guy for you," I reasoned further.