Oh, Dakota

8- Madhouse

“Did he tell you why he’s mad at me?” I wondered curiously, taking a banana from the fruit bowl and beginning to peel it.

He shook his head. “Nope, but I have a pretty good idea.” Owen replied, reaching out to take one of the hockey puck pancakes from the plate.

“I wouldn’t do that.” I said quickly. “Unless you want a chipped tooth or something.”

“I heard that!” My dad called from the living room, but we both just laughed it off and ignored him.

“So, are you going to enlighten me?” I asked him, breaking off a piece of the banana and tossing it into my mouth.

He shrugged, grabbing a packet of strawberry Pop Tarts from the cupboard before we both said goodbye to our dad and then made our way outside to the car. Owen was driving again today. “I don’t think I should.”

“Okay then,” I sighed. It wasn’t really a big deal to me that Todd was mad because I didn’t do anything to him, so he has no reason to be mad at me. And it’s not like we’re friends, he’s my brother’s friend, and I didn’t want to get caught up in some incredibly unnecessary drama with a guy that I hardly ever hang out with. I mean, my theory that he has a thing for me still stands strong, but I was kind of ignoring that because it’d just be so weird, I think, to see Todd like that.

“So, that Braeden guy, how do you know him?” Owen wondered as he drove down the road towards Todd’s house.

“I don’t know him.” I sighed with a mouthful of banana.

“Really?” He scoffed. “You just practically begged Dad to let him on the team because he’s a total stranger?”

“He was lost,” I laughed. “And he was in the wrong gym so I just showed him to practice.”

“Right,” He sighed.

“Why did you say it like that?” I questioned.

“Like what?”

“You drawled out the ‘I’ in right like you don’t believe me.” I accused him.

“Because I don’t believe you.” He admitted. “Don’t chicks like, dig the whole ‘accent’ thing.”

I giggled softly. “That accent is pretty cute.”

“Right, well don’t you have a date with Caleb on Sunday?”

I shook my head at him. “No, it’s not a date, don’t call it that.”

Owen pulled up to Todd’s house with a teasing chuckle. “Yeah, whatever you say.”

“It’s not!” I shrilled. “He asked me if I wanted to go eat or something on Sunday and I didn’t want to be rude and say no.”

“Okay,” He sang in that voice that says ‘I don’t believe you’ and I was pretty sure that he did it on purpose too because I just told him not to do that. “But it’s really weird, you know, you dating someone on the team.”

I scoffed at that just as Todd emerged from his house and started making his way towards the car with a grumpy look on his face. “Okay, one- I’m not dating anybody and two- I know you hooked up with at least one girl on the dance team, so you’re a hypocrite.”

He rolled his eyes at me dramatically. “I did not ‘hook up’ with Monica, we actually dated.”

“You’re still a hypocrite.” I hissed just before Todd opened the back door and slid into the back seat.

“Hey, man.” Owen greeted, driving away from the curb.

Todd nodded in acknowledgment at the greeting but didn’t actually speak, leaving the air inside of the car incredibly awkward.