He gasped. "How do you know about that?!" For a moment I was confused, since he was the one who had told me the story. But then I recalled that he had been extremely drunk at the time and probably remembered very little of it, if at all.
"Answer my question," I said curtly.
"I didn't date anyone," he grunted.
"And why was that?"
"Because I didn't want to!" he said. "And some girls tried to get me to date them in that time, but I didn't want to."
"Why?" I persisted.
"I didn't wanna get hurt again!" he said angrily. "And I didn't want to unintentionally hurt her, you know?" He broke off, and I knew he had realized the point I was trying to make. "Oh."
"Exactly," I said wearily.
"Oh," he repeated. "So you don't want to date her because you're actually not interested in dating her. And if you started dating her it would be with the knowledge that you're for sure going to end it."
"Ding ding ding! We have a winner!" I said in a tone of mock cheerfulness. "I don't think she's interested in dating me in the first place. But even if she was, I don't want to."
"All of this, and you still won't take my help with Carrie?! Why, man?!" he demanded.
I burst out laughing. "No offence at all, but it took me three months to make sure things fell into place for you and Cam. How long would you guess it's gonna take you to do something like that for me and Carrie?"
"But it's different with you!"
Now I was genuinely confused. "There's almost no similarities!" I said. "In your case, Cam had liked you for ages and she knew it. You liked her but you weren't fully sure or able to admit your feelings to yourself!"
"But Carrie-"
"Carrie is not interested in me like that, I don't know if she ever has been!" I interrupted, starting to get a little angry.
"You don't know for sure, though," he said wisely.
"I think I have a decent enough guess," I muttered.
"Listen to me, just think about it, okay?" he said. "My offer, I mean. I know I'm not the greatest at this relationship stuff, but if you want my help at any point, just tell me. I'll do what I can. And I'm sure Quinn will help too."
I interrupted, horrified. "Not Quinn!" He had shown me enough of his methods during our evenings at the bar over the last few months, and they weren't at all to my taste. "I will take your help, though, if you have any useful tips along the way," I added as an afterthought.
"Great!" he exclaimed. "Well, enjoy your dinner with Steph, we can play some FIFA after that, maybe, since my new Xbox will be set up by then."
"Oh, yeah! That'll be good!" I was about to hang up, but then stopped. "Hey wait, why did you call? We just talked a few minutes ago at your place, did you need something?"
"Oh, no," he said. "I was just calling to say thanks again, and to give you my offer again, to help you out. But that already kinda got done anyway, so yeah."
I smiled. "Thanks, man. I'll see you around."
* * *
Dinner with Steph went quite well. As I expected, we spent the whole time catching up on everything new that happened over the last few years, and recalling memorable occurrences from when we were in the same class in third and fourth grade. We sat there, eating and talking for over an hour, after which she had to leave as she had excused herself from her family's Christmas dinner for the last two hours to have sushi with me. I felt quite guilty upon finding this out, but she assured me there was no problem, as this was about the third or fourth Christmas dinner her family had had during the holidays. After she had left, I got in my car and messaged Brandon to let him know I would be free to play some video games online soon. It had been less than ten seconds since the message was sent, though, when my phone rang.
Chapter 59: The Season to be Jolly
Start from the beginning
