Reciprocal Altruism || Snowbarry College AU

Practice Makes Bestest I

Solecism: An ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence; something deviating from the proper, normal, or accepted order.

***

Throughout the entire lecture, Barry's phone continued to vibrate non-stop with messages from Grandma Dawn, who was curious to know more about the lady that had captured her grandson's heart. Once the professor finished the last of her lecture, students began filing out of the classroom, chatting amongst themselves and preparing for their weekend plans. Barry, on the other hand, remained in his seat with his head still on the table as he snored the day away. Luckily, Caitlin, being the good fake-girlfriend she was, nudged Barry and urged him to get up before the next set of students came in for class.

"Mmmh," Barry muttered, pushing away Caitlin's incessant poking. He turned his head away from her to the other side and tried to snuggle further into his crossed arms.

"Barry, your grandma is calling again," she noted, watching his phone vibrate for what felt like the hundredth time in the past hour.

This woke him up. "Grandma?" He reached for his phone and answered.

"Grandma's boy," Caitlin teased causing Barry to respond with a stuck-out tongue.

While the two of them walked outside, Caitlin could not help but overhear the conversation between the grandmother and grandson quite clearly despite the phone not having been put on speaker. Grandma Dawn spoke very loudly, a consequence of old age and the hearing loss that came with it, and Barry spoke just as loud so she could hear him.

"You have a girlfriend, Barry?" Dawn exclaimed. A few students passing by turned their heads at the loud sound coming from his phone causing Barry to duck his head and quickly find a secluded place to have a chat with his relative.

Caitlin followed closely behind. After all, they were talking about her... so she had a right to listen and know what they were discussing.

"Hello to you too, Grandma," was Barry's wry response.

"Don't give me that, young man!"

Caitlin raised her eyebrow and stifled a laugh.

Barry made a face at Caitlin. "Yes, I have a girlfriend. Her name is Caitlin," he finally admitted as he and said girlfriend found a nearby bench to sit at. Barry put the phone on speaker so Caitlin could hear better, though it wasn't really necessary since she could hear Dawn from a mile away.

"Took you long enough!" Dawn said causing Barry to blush a shade of red.

He rubbed at his face to get rid of the sleep lines from his nap during class, before exasperatedly exclaiming, "Grandma!"

"What?" she remarked back. "I'm just saying, it's been too long since you've been in a relationship. I was worried I wasn't gonna live long enough to see my grandkids."

Barry groaned. "Don't say stuff like that."

Dawn huffed. "Well, it's true, young man. Who is this mystery girl you've been hiding from me anyway, hmm? When did you two meet? How did you two meet? What does she do?"

"We met about halfway through the semester," Barry explained.

Truth.

"It was in one of the classes we had together," he continued.

Truth.

"She's a doctor," Barry answered the final question.

Lie.

At Caitlin's raised eyebrows and incredulous look, he continued, "Alright, so she's not an actual doctor. Not yet, at least," Barry nudged Caitlin in the side, "as she always likes to remind me. But she will be soon. So why not start calling her one now? I mean she has the brains, and the will, and she's so witty and fast on her feet. She just has what it takes to be a doctor, you know?"

Caitlin tried to hide her blush and bit her lower lip as she tried to control the smile that was trying to take over her whole face.

"Wow, sweetie, you seem to really love her," Dawn stated. "She must be beautiful."

"Oh she is, but she likes being called smart more than she likes being called pretty, which is fine by me cause she's definitely both." Barry looked at Caitlin while he said this and winked. Caitlin could have sworn her insides just melted right then and there.

She didn't mind being called pretty, especially by Barry, but he was right when he said she liked being called smart more. He knew her so well.

Dawn and Barry continued talking and the conversation steered away from Caitlin as grandmother and grandson caught up on what was going on in their lives at the moment. Barry looked quite content retelling the gripping story of one of his group projects and Dawn recounted her experience with this week's Bingo Night and how Heather was definitely cheating.

Caitlin took out a book and began reading, as Barry took the phone off speaker and lowered the volume, his voice becoming a hushed buzz in the background.

The next action happened easily. Barry stretched his free arm and swung it behind Caitlin's back to grip the bench on her other side. He crossed his right leg on top of the left leg that remained planted on the ground, and leaned back into a more comfortable position, or as comfortable as you could get on a thermoplastic covered metallic blue bench.

Although they weren't sitting painfully close, she imagined they still must have looked like a couple to anyone just passing by.

The whole moment felt strangely normal. Like a normal boyfriend and girlfriend simply being in each other's presence, just being themselves, without even having to talk to each other. To put it simply, it was nice.

As he talked, Caitlin noticed that Barry had become more and more distracted, his engaging conversation with his grandmother becoming an afterthought as he focused on the string of texts that started popping up on his phone.

"Grandma, I gotta go now," Barry said hastily before Dawn was about to begin another story about Heather and how she was definitely sleeping with the pool boy. He withdrew his arm from resting on the bench behind Caitlin and she could not help but miss its hovering presence. Barry used both hands to clutch his phone while he rapidly began replying back to the messages on his device.

The two relatives exchanged goodbyes, but Barry talked as fast as he could and kept tapping his fingers on his bouncing knee in between replying to the messages. Now Caitlin was curious. She wondered what kind of texts Barry could have received to make him so on edge.