Boys of West Denton ✓

chapter twelve

"Saanvi—"

"Sebastian! Seb. Seb. Harris McCammon? C'mon."

"What?" It's almost as if I can feel the beads of sweat beginning to appear on my forehead, a cartoonish representation of my discomfort. I actually don't know what she's going to say to this one.

Her hands are clutching my dark blue comforter. "Stop, stop, no, no, nope."

"What?"

"I cannot believe this!"

"What?"

Inexplicably, she shrugs. "I'm just ... flabbergasted."

If she's flabbergasted now, I don't want to know how she'll react when I tell her that Harrison and I seem to be becoming friends with benefits.

"Can you blame me?" I ask her. "He's hot." I let my head flop back against the mattress, lolling over to the side to look at her. She stares back. Saanvi has these wide almond shaped eyes that always seem to shine, especially when she adds this subtle little smidge of champagne-colored eyeshadow on her inner corner. She's actually really pretty, something I think is easy to forget because she acts like she doesn't think about looking attractive, and she's also too smart for people to know what to do with, so she gets overlooked too often. But, between the two of us, she's definitely the pretty best friend.

"You're simping for fucking Harrison now?" she asks. "I just cannot wrap my brain around this."

"I—"

"Actually, no, no, I take that back. When he ran after you last night, I was surprised, but then he jumped off a fifteen foot cliff for you, no hesitation. Now that's kinda hot. I get it."

That's never not going to be embarrassing to me. "Yeah, no that's ... that's hot."

She gives me a downright bombastic side eye. "Did you guys hook up?"

I groan and sink down to the floor, lying there in a jumbled pile.

Saanvi gasps. She practically soars off the mattress and lands next to me, just to deliver unto me a sharp swat to the arm. "You did! Oh my god, what did you guys do? You, and Harrison? Fuuuuck, Seb, fuuuuuuuck! And you didn't call me immediately after?"

I roll onto my back and cross my arms across my chest. "How do you know we did anything?"

"Shut up! Shut up, you did, and you're being weird, and this is precisely how I know you did hook up with him. You hooked up with Harrison McCammon, you saucy boy!"

I wrinkle my nose. "Ew, let the words 'saucy boy' stay in Capulet's mouth, please."

Saanvi rolls up the sleeves of her burnt orange sweatshirt, then proceeds to playfully whack me once more. "Spill." Whack. "The." Whack. "Tea." Whackwhackwhack.

"Hmmm, I don't kiss and tell."

Her gasp is high-pitched and strangled-sounding. She all but flies backwards. "STOP, you didn't."

"What, make out?" I smile and close my eyes, shifting my arms to behind my head. "Maybe."

"Augh!" She shakes her head emphatically, sending her curly hair flying. "You're acting terribly rakish and roguish, Seb!"

"Maybe."

Saanvi runs her hands through her blown out curtain bangs, then shakes her head again. "I literally cannot believe this. Who knew he had it in him?"

"I know."

"I mean," she continues on, clearly about to go off on a Saanvi Tangent™, "I always figured his balls were too far in Liam Grande's purse for there to be any hope for him. Because, Liam is enough of a prick that I figured it would take one to be friends with one, but I guess he must be more chill than I thought. That's only partly on me though, because they get along too well for Harrison not to speak fluent asshole. But ... you had fun? You like him? Wait, are you dating now?"