Lie Until You Laugh

9- Shopping

“So Brian,” Mason pipes as we walk with our bags hanging on our wrists towards the food court. It’s Saturday in LA, so the mall is really busy, but we manage to not get lost in the crowd and stick together, which is good because I’d probably get swallowed by somebody if I wasn’t with Stella and Mason. “He didn’t want to come shopping with us, which is reasonable, but he’s hanging out with Andrew and Liam today.”

“I don’t know who those people are,” I inform her. I recognize the name Andrew as the guy that Stella was looking for last night at the bonfire to set me up with, so I don’t think I like wherever this is going.

“They’re Brian’s friends. He says that if he hung out with me and Stella all the time, he’d be gay by now,” Mason laughs. “Anyway, they’re in the D Building class, so that’s why you haven’t met them. Brian just texted me though, and he said that Andrew thinks that you’re cute.”

She seems to be looking at me, but I’m sure that she’s actually looking at Stella. “Me?” I wonder just for clarification.

“Yes, you!” Mason giggles, nudging my shoulder with her own. “He saw you at the party last night and said that you’re cute. That’s all I know right now but I’ll squeeze more out of Brian later.”

“That’s perfect,” Stella insists with a grin. “I knew you two can have a thing. I’ll introduce you two when we get back to the school tonight.”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary,” I admit softly, trying not to upset them or anything. I don’t know why I think that might upset them, I just think that it’s possible.

“Why not?” Stella wonders. “You’re beautiful, Andrew’s beautiful. And he’s pretty nice too and you’re super cool. I think you’ll like him.”

“It’s just guys in general,” I tell her. “They make me nervous.”

“Have you ever had a boyfriend?” Mason wonders.

I shake my head. “My dad is really against letting me date. I mean, I kissed a guy once but that didn’t end well,” Because I got pushed down the stairs after that guy kissed me, but I obviously don’t elaborate that far. Getting pushed down a set of steep stairs is a bit of an encouragement not to talk to boys at all.

“That sucks,” Stella nods. “Well, your dad isn’t here, so you can talk to Andrew.”

“Unless you don’t want to,” Mason adds as we get to the food court finally- this mall is incredibly huge and I don’t know how they know their way around it so well. I guess they’ve been going here since freshman year, but it still seems more complex to learn even in three years. “Because we’re not going to force you to do something that you don’t want to do, Stell,” She says that last part more to Stella than to me to tell her to stop being too pushy.

“Right,” Stella agrees with her friend. “If you don’t want to, we’ll respect that.”

“Thanks,” I sigh.

Stella and Mason order lunch at the mall’s food court but I just get a soda. I don’t want to waste my money on food when I can get free food back at the school. I’m hungry now, but we’ll be back soon so I can wait.

“But you’ll have to meet him anyway,” Stella adds while eating her Asian salad. “Just because when we get back, we’re going to go hang out with Brian and they’re with him so even if you don’t want to hook up with Andrew, you’ll still meet him.”

“I can live with that,” I assure her.

After they finish eating their lunches, we get Dip N’ Dots from the kiosk and then we decide to go back to the school considering we are pretty tired from walking around the huge mall and we just want to go back to the school and just lazy around for the rest of the day.