Training Wheels: Boyfriend Edition

3. newsflash

"Oh, yeah, everyone," she said, as Caledon settled into the chair beside her. "Meet Caledon, my boyfriend. Have any of you met him before?"

"Hi," he said to the table at large.

"Your boyfriend?!" Autumn blurted out, her dark brown eyes widening. "Since when did you get a boyfriend?"

"Since yesterday," Michelle said. "By the way, Caledon, this is Autumn."

"Hi," she said distractedly, her gaze still fixed on Michelle.

"And this is Hailey," she said, waving a hand at her black-haired friend.

"Hi," Hailey said as well, barely sparing him a glance.

Sylvie gave Caledon a friendly smile, which he returned. "Yeah, we've met. We have Calculus together."

"Yeah. You're Sylvie, right?" he asked.

"Yup," she said, casting her focus back on Michelle. "Hey, how come you never said anything to me?"

Still gaping, Hailey added, "Yeah! How could you not tell us? And why didn't you tell me when we had homeroom earlier?"

Michelle winced. Mr. Barrett had been in an absolutely foul mood in the morning, and the distraction had caused her to forget all about her new boyfriend.

"It slipped my mind," she said. "But hey, I'm telling you now. It's not like I was keeping it a secret from you guys or anything."

Tucking her golden curls behind her ear, Autumn shook her head. "It's not that. I didn't even know you had someone you liked!"

"Yeah. I didn't even know you were hanging out with him," Sylvie said.

Baffled, Michelle tilted her head and squinted at them. "Uh, I wasn't."

"Oh." For a second, Autumn seemed appeased before her disbelieving expression returned in full force. "Hold on. What do you mean you weren't?"

Why was she getting all these questions?

Michelle had expected her friends to resume whatever they were doing after congratulating her, but they weren't reacting the way she'd thought they would.

She cast a quick glance at Caledon, who was peacefully enjoying his lunch since he wasn't the target of their interrogation. In fact, he'd just about finished his meatloaf.

She wondered if his friends had reacted the same way when he left his table.

"We weren't hanging out," Michelle said, taking care to enunciate each word clearly.

Looking more puzzled than ever, Hailey asked, "You weren't? How did you two get together?"

"We agreed to get together," she said, shrugging. "That's all."

"Huh?" Sylvie blinked.

"Okay," Autumn said. "But who confessed to who?"

"Nobody," Michelle said, only to receive more staring on the part of her friends. "What? Why are you guys looking at me like that?"

"So you weren't spending time with each other, and neither of you confessed first," Sylvie said. "I'm confused."

"I'm confused that you're confused."

A thick silence blanketed the table, where even the guys, excluding Caledon who was glancing around at everyone else, were watching them.

"Let's start over." Autumn braced her forearms on the table and leaned towards her. "How did you start dating?"