Dance With Me (Rich Kids, Book One)

Twenty-three: "You're Amazing"

"No, you."

"Goddamn it, Randy, just hang the fuck up. Save us both some much needed time, will ya? We're not in seventh grade. If you hang up first, I won't break up with you and I won't post on my Snapchat story how broken I am."

"Message received," I concluded and pressed the end call button, chuckling as I turned around to face my idiot of a brother, who just so happened to be giving me the 'You And Your Boyfriends Are Sickening' face. "What? Do you have a boyfriend, huh? And hey, do you have two?"

"Thank God I don't. The entire last part of that call almost made me puke."

"We're not that bad. Have you seen Brent Perry and Harper Martinez recently? Those two were calling each other Smookiebear and Honeysweetiepie and making out smack-dab in the middle of the hallway just a few days ago."

He squinted. "Of course I haven't seen them, I don't go to your school."

"Right. Forgot about that."

"How?"

"Don't question my stupidity."

"Pff, please. I learned that centuries ago."

"Then why did you question me?" I grabbed my glasses and headed to the bathroom to take my contacts out.

"There's a difference between rhetorical and serious. Also, I don't want to go to my room."

"Why?"

"Because I'm still a little weirded out being back here and having you with me makes it less weird," Thomas clarified.

"Stay in here. I don't mind. Hell, you can even sleep in here if you want to. Though, you staying here does mean we're technically hanging out still."

"You sure?"

"Yep." I slumped into my bed and took a sip of my Coke. When I noticed he still looked conflicted, I added, "Really. I could not care less."

"Okay. For your information, since you never told me that you have glasses, I thought you were just touching your eyeballs for no apparent reason when you were taking your contacts out."

"Aw, darn. Didn't think anyone would pass judgement on my secret hobby of feeling my eyes. God, maybe you are dumb."

"I've heard you call Mom and Dad dumb many times, and if I'm dumb too, then you must be as well. Josie is just the lucky one." He wiggled his eyebrows and pulled out a laptop from his bag.

"Hm. Good point. Erase the last twenty seconds of conversation from your memory." I noticed a very long Word document on his laptop screen. "What's that?"

"I have a list of all the places I want to visit one day, and this is every place in detail. For example, I want to see Las Vegas, so I researched the history of it and some of it's most popular tourist spots, along with the backstory of the things I want to see. Like the Bellagio Fountain, obviously, it's one of Vegas' top locations. Along with Fremont Street, the Burlesque Hall of Fame just because it's cool, and the Mob Museum. Oh, and then I also want to see Athens for the architecture. It's so pretty. And I put the link to the research I did on Greek mythology because when I'm reading about Athens my mind wanders to Greece and then Greek mythology, so it's easier to just put the link than exit out of this and go find the paper. And then-"

"Woah, bud. Slow down. I'm listening, but I'm not going to able to pay attention as much as I am now if you're talking a thousand words per minute. Now; tell me about Bali, since I see that on that list of yours you have it highlighted."

Thomas smiled and began listing off the many waterfalls and temples in Bali, and also told me how badly he wanted to go.

As he was talking, I couldn't help but grin. I hadn't seen him so genuinely happy in, well, ever. So, I made it a goal of mine to make sure that he saw Bali and at least two other places on his list by the time he was 25, giving me ten years to ensure it happened.