I Still Need ✓

7. I'm disgusting and I don't give a fuck

"Oh my God!" Eve suddenly exclaimed. What perfect timing...

She pushed her phone in my face and squealed, "Look who replied to my tweet!"

"No way," I gasped, taking hold of her phone to stare at the words a world-famous actor gave as a reply to Eve's tweet. Let me repeat that. A world-famous actor.

"What do I respond?!" she squeaked

"I don't know! You're the one with millions of fans! You should know what to say."

She shrieked something unintelligible and proceeded to type and delete a dozen messages. Riley had no idea what was going on, so she shook her head and asked me, "So uh... mind telling me about your not-boyfriend? Or, I don't know, something."

"Pffft, well... where to start?"

In the middle of my conversation with Riley, my grandmother showed up and took out a chair to put it next to our couch. Why she wanted to join us, I didn't know, but I didn't expect it to be because she wanted to compliment me on my new haircut. She probably only came to tell Riley that I was going to hell for my sexual preference.

"Hello, my dear," she said and Riley's eyes shot to me, thinking my grandmother was talking to me, but she kept staring at Riley, waiting for an answer. I shrugged and the girl turned back to my grandmother to say, "Uh... hi, Edna."

"What are you kids talking about? Are you getting to know each other?"

Oh, I now knew what she was asking. She was hoping we were getting to know each other in a boy-meets-girl-and-falls-in-love way, a.k.a. flirting with each other. Yuk.

"Yeah, Hugo was just telling me about his—"

I cleared my throat and jabbed my elbow in her side, to which she gave me a pair of wide, confused eyes. "O-oh, I mean his uh..."

And then Eve decided to ruin it. "His boyfriend."

I didn't even get to yell at Eve before my grandmother got mad. I think she actually gagged a little before she spat, "You now even got yourself a boy to do those sinful things with? Why don't you go out with a lovely girl like Riley?"

"Because—no offense, Riley—she's not even a little bit attractive to me," I explained calmly and the girl in question shrugged indifferently.

"It's unnatural, Hugo."

"No, it isn't, Grandma, and frankly, I don't care about your opinion."

She stood up from her chair with a scowl on her face and muttered, "You disgust me."

Before she could get very far, my mom was suddenly beside her, her hand on her shoulder. She gave her mother a fake smile, "Shut the fuck up before you create a scene, Mom."

I stared at my mom in awe. Did she just swear at and disrespect her own mother for me? Wow, she'd grown balls since the last time she saw her.

"Sheila," Grandma sighed. "This is your son."

"Yes, exactly. He's perfect the way he is."

"Even if he is a bit annoying sometimes," Eve mumbled, making me roll my eyes, but then she suddenly grabbed the side of my head and pulled me down to look at her phone again. "Hugo, look, he replied again!"

"Who?" asked Mom.

"Oh, an actor," Eve answered with a dismissive wave, as if it was nothing. Our mother merely shook her head in confusion, because to be fair, Eve was freaking out literally only three seconds earlier. Mom stuck out her hand and pulled my up from the couch. "Come on, Hugo. Let's go. You coming, too, Eve?"