The Great Pretender

21: Tongue Tied

As if waking up cuddled against Seven was not enough, she had no way of avoiding him the entire day. Universally, the morning after was a day where one spent their time hiding in embarrassment from the other person involved. Of course this was not a normal morning after, but it was bad enough. And both of them knew it. The morning had been awkward, neither of them saying anything to each other, though they joked around with the others.

In the kitchen, as they ate the eggs and toast breakfast Pam had prepared, they leaned away from each other. Chester, however, had other ideas. After magically escaping his highchair, he commandeered a spot on Cherish's lap, latching his little arm around her neck. Somehow, he felt that hugging one person was not enough, and so he'd he grabbed a tiny handful of Seven's shirt to pull him closer. With one of Chester's arms wrapped securely around each of their necks, they found themselves squished together. It didn't help at all that Ian, Juss and Allie insisted on cooing about what a cute little family they looked like. Cherish wished she could murder them all.

The drive to school to had been no better. Cherish leaned as far away from Seven as was possible in the car, pressing herself to the passenger side door, with her head leaning out the window.  But then Seven agreed to drive Joana and Liz to school as well, so she found herself jammed between Liz and Seven.

"So, you guys have fun last night?" Liz asked innocently, eyeing both Seven and Cherish covertly.

Cherish nodded, "Saw some old friends."

"Made out with old friends is more like it." It had been the first thing Seven had directed at her all morning, and she glared at him and his self-satisfied smirk.

"Yeah. Cherry, you've got a lot of guys." Blushing at Allie's words, Cherish fiddled with the hem of the short top she was still wearing from the night before.

"Yeah, dressed like a hooker, of course she does," Joana jumped at the opportunity to bring Cherish down.

"Jo!" Liz was shocked, but looked at Cherish's top surreptitiously.

With a smirk, Seven drawled, "Nah, not hooker, stripper... Cherry would be a good stripper name, don't you think?"

Joana snickered in the back seat. Cherish couldn't help the way her jaw dropped. What? This morning he was carefully making sure not to talk too loudly, and had apparently made the effort to get her from the car without waking her. Now he was rudely teasing her, and ganging up with Joana!

Whatever happened to their truce? In the flicker of his eyes down to her, she noticed that his mouth was not set in his rude sneer, but rather in the tilted smile he shared only with his friends. She pretended not to notice it; instead she buttoned the tight fitting black sweater Audrey had given her.

"Dick."

"Aw, come on!" he jibed. "You have the moves for it. Maybe not the body, but I'm sure you could work on that."

She would have laughed, she wanted to laugh, but it was that exact fact that pissed her off. Since when did she laugh when he made fun of her? She made fun back. She tore holes into him the size of small countries, if she could. What the hell was wrong with her? Pulling Liz' textbook from her lap, she thwacked him with it repeatedly.

"Ow! Ow! Abusing the driver! Abusing the driver!"

She spent the rest of the drive being held back by Ian and Liz.

Homeroom had been, at first, a reprieve from the awkwardness as Mr. Hennessy's animated lecture held Cherish's attention for quite some time. Her eyelids eventually started drooping and her head lolled to one side. When Mr. Hennessy, called out a couple of students for "really liking each other", Cherish quickly sat up to find all eyes in the room on her. Of course, she thought, as she glared up at Seven, of course we'd fall asleep on each other!