Knowing Me, Knowing You

The One Who Loves You Now

The following day, Dante stalked Xander on his way to swim practice. Before he headed into the locker rooms, he chatted with a few of his friends. Dante stood by a trash can, leaning against the wall as he stared at Xander, ready to jump up and grab his arm before he headed inside.

Trevor spotted Dante leaning against the wall, remaining serious. He smirked to himself as he crept behind his boyfriend and whispered in his ear, "What are you doing?"

"Jesus!" he winced. Turning around, he slapped Trevor's shoulder. "Don't fucking scare me like that."

"I couldn't help it. You looked too serious." He noticed Xander and asked, "Are you here for some sort of vengeance for Carter's sake or something?"

"Something like that," he mumbled. Glancing back to Xander, he said, "I found out something that Carter doesn't know, and I want to tell him that he needs to talk to Carter about it before they find out from someone else."

"Is this about him sleeping with Missy?" he deadpanned.

Dante gasped as he swiveled his head towards him. "You knew?"

"About my best friend's sex life? Yeah, I knew. I've known since they first started sleeping together."

As Xander was about to enter the locker room, Trevor called out, "Xander. We need to talk."

Xander turned to the two, smiling quizzically as he approached them. "What's up?"

Trevor patted Dante's back and walked away. "Have fun."

Xander watched Trevor from the corner of his eye until he was out of sight, then faced Dante with a smile. "What's up?"

Trevor folded his hands over the trashcan lid and stated, "While I was doing Jessica's readjustments, she told me you slept with Missy."

Xander quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah, so? That was in the past. It's not like I'm still sleeping with her. We officially called it off before Carter and I became friends."

"Okay, well that's not the real issue here. Carter knows you've dated a lot of people in the past, but this thing with Missy has been a secret, right?"

"Right."

"And I know...yet Carter doesn't."

Xander's eyes slowly widened as his hands dropped to his sides.

"I think that if you two are going to date, Carter should know what happened between you two. After all, you and Missy are friends. For all you know, it could wind up being something bigger than it actually is. Point is, they should know."

Nodding, Xander walked away from Dante, patting his shoulder as he walked past him to the fashion room where Carter was in the middle of sewing the readjustments to his colorful suit. It was a swirl of various shades of purple and blue with a black vest and tie.

The moment he walked in, her head shot up, and her hands lowered as she stood up. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Huh?"

"Well, you're panicking. What happened? I'm here for you."

"No, no. It's nothing like that. Everything's fine. I promise." He placed his hands on her shoulders and nudged her back down to her stool. He pulled up a chair next to her and leaned forward on his knees. "I just need to tell you something important."

"What is it?"

"I slept with Missy."

She gasped.

"Multiple times."

Carter inhaled as she turned towards the sewing machine, unable to look him in the eye. The promise he made to prove to her every day that he wanted to be with her was broken. There was no love behind his actions, not if he was willing to cheat and then claim that everything was fine. Sleeping with Missy was something important, nothing like what she thought their relationship was.

Xander sighed. "It started freshman year. She said she had a crush on me, but I wasn't looking to date anyone. She would keep coming up to me and telling me she liked me, but I always turned her down and said that it would be better if we were just friends. So, we became good friends, and then sophomore year, one thing led to another, and we had sex.

"I thought it was just going to be a one-time thing, but since we enjoyed it, we decided to sleep together again. Essentially, we were friends with benefits. And we really were friends, we made sure to keep things platonic between us. So, whenever she claimed she was beginning to fall for me, I called it off.

"The past couple times, I planned to keep things called off, but she'd eventually get over me, and then we'd just have sex to get rid of swim and cheerleading stress, as well as stress from my parents and hers. It was just the one relationship that I wasn't afraid to be in but also wasn't afraid to lose. I didn't want to lose her as a friend, but I didn't care if we kept sleeping together, and she wouldn't either until she had a crush on me.

"The last time we had sex, she confessed again, and I told her we needed to take a break, and I haven't slept with her since. Honestly, it's because of you. Having you in my life filled up that empty spot in my life where I felt the need to sleep with her in order to make up for that lack of emotional feelings for someone else sort of thing. You and I became friends, and since I had you, the space was filled in a far healthier way.

"I'm not ashamed of sleeping with Missy, but I do feel bad for constantly going back to her despite knowing she would eventually fall for me again and ask to actually date. I knew what I was doing, yet I kept doing it. That part I am ashamed of."

"So...you didn't cheat on me with Missy?"

"What? No!" he exclaimed, grabbing her hand. "I called things off before I heard you playing ABBA in the choir room."

"Okay, word of advice," Carter sassed, "if you're going to tell that you slept with someone before we started dating, please make that very obvious in the beginning. Don't just say, 'I slept with blah blah blah,' because I legit thought you were admitting to cheating on me."

"No, never. I do not cheat. I never slept with Missy while I was dating someone, and I didn't sleep with anyone else if I was with her."

"You've slept with every girl you've dated?"

"No. I really need to be more clear," he groaned.

"Yes. Please work on that." She patted Xander's leg and nodded. "As for the whole...sleeping with Missy thing, it's fine. Thank you for telling me, but you don't have to stress out over it."

"Really? You're not mad?"

"Of course I'm not mad," Carter chuckled. "I'm more mad that you made it seem like you were cheating, but not for actually sleeping with her. I don't give a shit."

"Really?" he skeptically asked.

"Yes, really. There was, like, a rumor that went around that you had some secret underground ring of girls you kept on standby to sleep with."

"What?"

"Yet, I still agreed to go out with you. You had a life before we met. I can't get mad about that. I mean, for fuck's sake, I've slept with three different guys."

Xander blinked. "You have?"

"Yeah. They were all seniors, but I was freshman when I slept with two of them, a sophomore for the other."

"But you said you've never dated anyone."

"Did you and Missy ever date?"

"No."

"Same here. I just had some fun with some guys at a party. We never dated, because they were ashamed to even think about being public with me, but I've had sex. Some people do want to fuck the scary witch girl," she teased in a spooky voice as she wiggled her fingers in front of Xander's face.

He grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles. "I'm not ashamed to be seen in public with you. I never will be. Ever."

"I know. You were holding my hand this morning as you walked me to class," she chuckled as she slipped her hand away. "So you can stop worrying about me freaking out over your history with Missy. I don't care. All that matters is you don't cheat on me, stupid."

"I don't think that's how you pronounce Chiquitita," he whispered with flair as he stood up and kissed her forehead. "I'll see you tomorrow, mi amore."

Carter gagged as Xander walked out of the room with smirk. "Quit being a cheesy son of a bitch!"