Charades And Champagne

34

Three weeks later

        "Come on Miles," Zoe said as she walked forward blindly. "You're going to have to tell me where you're taking me. You know ... eventually."

        She heard him chuckle from behind her. He was currently guiding her along the path on the account of her being blindfolded and not being able to see.

        Yes, blindfolded. Like that was totally normal.

        "Oh yes. Just like all our friends and a significant amount of our school 'eventually' found out about us spending the night together?" he teased. "It was an interesting experience wasn't it?"

        Zoe physically cringed at the memory, though Miles seemed to think it was the most hilarious thing ever.

        Her plan to stay at home forever had failed miserably. Her mom had totally made her go to school the very next day. As had Miles's parents. Zoe had tried to get out of it, but Natalie made it a point to personally drive her there.

        It hadn't ended well. Like at ALL.

        The ambush happened at lunch.

        Zoe had somehow managed to avoid all her friends pretty well till then on the account of Mark thinking she hadn't come to school at all, since he hadn't been the one to drive her there.

        Miles too had somehow managed to stay inconspicuous all day to everyone. Well ... everyone except her obviously. She'd have personally strangled him if he'd decided to avoid her on purpose.

        When lunch came around, the two of them made it to the cafeteria before anyone else, where they ended up sitting together, with barely any space in between them; talking, eating and – every so often – cuddling.

        At least until Tasha, Rick, Aliza and Mark walked in.

        The latter had obviously skipped class again to be there, but it wasn't like anyone noticed.

        What they did notice however, was the way the foursome stopped randomly in the middle of the cafeteria and started ogling at her and Miles, who unfortunately chose that exact same moment to lean down and kiss her.

        Tasha exploded first.

        "Oh. My. GOD!!" she shrieked excitedly, making Zoe wish that someone just happened to have a conveniently loaded tranquilizer gun she could use on Tasha. "I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE YOU GUYS HAD SEX!!" she proceeded to yell, jumping up and down like she didn't already have the attention of every single person in the room. Give or take.

        There was a moment of speechlessness as everyone seemed to digest this new piece of gossip. And though they all had a variety of expressions on their face ranging from surprise to amusement, there was easily only one person who looked totally murderous at the bombshell Tasha had just dropped.

        Zoe heard the screech of a chair being pushed back roughly as Joshua Bell got up and left the cafeteria – abandoning his friends and his food as he strode off furiously like it wouldn't start up too huge of a rumor later.

        Zoe was actually pretty glad to see him go. He'd clearly been released by the cleaning lady that morning and was none too happy about the whole ordeal. He'd been giving her and Miles dirty looks since the moment he'd walked in and spotted them.

        The sound of Joshua banging the door on his way out had snapped Mark, Rick and Aliza back to reality, and together they'd managed shut Tasha up and make her sit down before she could say something even more stupider for everyone to hear.