When I went to Brandon's house around noon the next day, as I had always done so far on Wednesdays this semester, I arrived braced for the barrage of questions that I knew he had been holding back ever since he saw me leave with Carrie for lunch yesterday. As I expected, he looked positively ready to explode with questions when I strolled into his office; just to amuse myself, however, I acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and connected my Xbox controller to his console, turning on the TV before flopping down onto his couch. "Hey, wait! Cease! Desist!" he protested, once he realized I wasn't bringing up the subject myself.
I raised an inquiring eyebrow, inwardly battling a desire to laugh. "What?"
"What do you mean 'what'?!" he exclaimed. "Are we gonna talk about that yesterday?"
Again, I fought back a grin, quite enjoying this. "Talk about what?" I said innocently.
"For fucking fuck's sake, you fuck," he howled, his voice rising to an agitated squeak, "I see you leave with the girl of your dreams for lunch and you aren't telling me any details?! Do you know how much I've been dying to ask what happened?"
Finally I allowed myself a grin, as I nodded in answer to his last question. "Of course I know," I chortled. "That's why these past couple of minutes have been so much fun!"
He shook his head and made a motion as if he were pretending to strangle me, which only made me grin more broadly. "Well?" he demanded.
"Well, what?" I replied, thoroughly enjoying this conversation.
"I swear to God!" he said exasperatedly as I burst out laughing. "Why are you making this such hard work? Tell me the details! What happened after you two left?"
"We went to Swiss Chalet, and had lunch," I answered, still chuckling. "What the hell do you think happens when you take someone to lunch?"
"Was it secluded?" he asked eagerly.
"It was, actually," I said. "I was surprised to be honest, that place is usually pretty busy."
"Good!" he grinned. "That means you two must have talked a lot."
"She did, I mainly stammered and stuttered," I said, recalling how much of yesterday's conversation with Carrie had gone. Brandon started laughing so hard, he fell out of the chair on which he had been sitting.
"Are you joking?" he gasped between laughs.
"Not one bit," I said ruefully. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I love just listening to her talk, doesn't matter what it's about. So I had a great time, aside from wondering how much of an ass I made of myself." Even I smiled reluctantly as I watched Brandon continue rolling on the ground.
"Anything else you did embarrassing?" he said, tears of laughter in his eyes.
"I couldn't stop staring at her," I mumbled. He started chortling again and I frowned with worry. "I'm serious!" I said insistently. "Like remember that time when you saw me and her at the mall? That day I was able to stop myself from staring at her, but yesterday? I just couldn't keep myself from looking at her. The entire time!" I waited patiently for him to stop laughing.
"You think she noticed?" he said at last.
"I'm positive," I said firmly. "There's no way she didn't."
"Did it feel at all like she wanted to cut the lunch short?" he asked.
"Cut the lunch short?" I asked. "I don't think so, it didn't feel like that. We were there for over an hour."
