DYSFUNCTIONAL • [ D. BOSTICK ]

| 14. | formalities and details

N O R A

-

"Nora," I heard from my right. I looked up and saw Ezra gesturing me over.

"Yes?" I asked, putting the box I was holding down and walked over to him. He also started walking, I had to follow him to another aisle.

"What's that?" He says in a teasing tone, pointing to my neck. My face flushed as he smirked, I moved my hair so it was in front of my shoulders.

"I don't know what your talking about." I say innocently, leaving him and going back to where I was. "Oh come on, what's his or her name?" He asked, prying me, and I scoff.

"They shall remain nameless." I smirked at him. He rolled his eyes and leaned against the door to the frozen foods. I had the door next to it opened, the box I was unpacking holding it there.

"Please? Ever since Mariam left there hasn't been any decent drama around here." He says and I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Who the hell is Mariam?" He scoffed.

"Total drama queen, slept with most of the male employees while she was here and pounced." He explained and I grimaced, eyeing him up and down.

"By your tone I assume you were one of them?" I asked, placing the newer items in the behind the ones that were already out.

"Depends." He says carefully. "On what?" I ask.

"On who gave you that hickey." He says, I didn't have to look at him in order to see his sly grin. I shook my head at him, "You totally banged her, probably more than once." I confirm.

My spidey bullshit senses, as Devon called it, were tingling.

"That isn't true, my friend." He says and I snort.

"You're lying." I say as I pick up the empty box and cold it back down. I closed the display door and looked at him.

My gaze was on him for a while before he visably got uncomfortable and looked away.

"How the fuck do you do that?" He whines, following me as I walked to the back of the store. "I'm psychic, clearly." I joke.

He sighed, grabbing a box along with me. "So? No gory details? No, so this bitch or lemme tell you about this hoe or anything like that?" I look at him expectantly.

He was fairly tall, then again, I was fairly short. He had several inches and maybe even a whole foot on me, it was unfair. He clenched and unclenched his jaw, it was something I noticed he did periodically for no reason.

"No, nothing like that." He finally says. "I don't know, she seemed cool at first, and then we uh-" He cleared his throat and gave me a sheepish look. I raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to continue after I set another box down, this time in a warmer aisle.

"I was completely shit-faced, I honestly had no idea I even had a taste for women but it continued some and then she stopped it. She moved on to Jared and so on." He says, shrugging. I could tell he still felt some type of way towards it, although I didn't question it further.

"Alright, your turn." He suddenly says as he put a can down. I furrowed my eyebrows and then sighed after realizing what he had meant.

"He's not important." I say softly before setting a few cans down as well.

"So it's a dude, at least I know that much." He says with a soft smile, continuing to stock items.

"Boys are annoying." I point out and he hums. "I both agree and disagree on that." He claims and I look at him as if telling him to explain further.

"Well, most guys are laid back but you meet or screw a gay guy, he's not afraid to be all needy and annoying like a lot of women are, no offense." He says and I shrug. "Believe me, none taken. I've had my fair share of chicks, I know what you mean." I say.

He nods, "Exactly. Like, yes, boys are annoying especially if you're just getting involved but it's mostly purely because you like them and overanalyze every little thing they say or do." I couldn't help but agree on what he said I sighed softly.

"How do you know him?" He asked. He was done stacking his items, meanwhile I had to reach for my life since there wasn't any stools or step ladders anywhere.

He noticed this and came over to help me unpack my box, stacking only the items that were at the top while I stacked the rest.

"We're friends, I guess." I mutter. I didn't want to outwardly mention Devon since I had already, and I also knew Ezra would basically feed off of that information for the rest of our natural lives.

"You guess you're friends?" He says, not buying just that. I scoffed, "I mean, we are, but we also made out so I don't where that leaves us."

"Do you like him?" He asks, looking at me. He kept his gaze on me and his eyebrows raised until I shrugged, "I don't know, Ezra. It-It's weird." I say.

"Like, we're so close to the point where it feels like nothing has changed, you know? But clearly, something has especially since he's been acting weird around me." I shrug, somehow confiding in Ezra. Although while he loved hear gossip, I knew he'd rather have it all to himself. He was a trustworthy friend, he had yet to let me down so naturally, I told him my problems.

"Like, I'm going to ignore you until we sit and have a talk about this weird or, nothing's changed weird?"

"The second one?"

He sighed at my answer, rolling his eyes slightly. "I can't help you with your boy issues if you won't let me, Nora."

"I never asked you to." I defend.

"Yeah, well obviously you've never had to deal with boys until recently so excuse me for trying to help a girl out considering I'm a boy who has also dated a few boys."

I groaned. "I just want to go home." I whine and he laughs softly. His teeth were perfect and white, I couldn't help but marvel at them for a moment. Then again, Ezra was just beautiful all around.

He had a strong jawline with stubble over it, perfect full lips, soft eyes, and tan skin. I, personally, was jealous of how nice his dark curly hair was and his thick eyelashes. Even his name was fucking ethereal, none of it was fair.

"I'd drive you but neither of our shifts are over and not to mention you drove yourself." He explains and I laughed softly.

"I don't see any reasoning behind all these formalities and details, Ezra."

-

nora and ezra are like my brotp ok so naturally I wrote a chapter including just them.

also, I think I mentioned before that ezra was basically ezra miller.