The Art of Being a Gentleman

CHAPTER THIRTY

"Honestly, Grace, it was probably the most embarrassing moment of my life."

Her giggling didn't stop him from cringing, but it did make him feel a little bit better about the whole thing. "Well, what did you eat that day? Because that's important. What color was the spew? Were there chunks? Did it--"

"Okay, that's great. I'm gonna throw up again. Thanks so much."

Even on the other end of the line, David could practically see the grin on his sister's face. "What does it even matter, you know? You said it yourself, there was no connection between you two. So who cares if you threw up on her, it's not like you're marrying the girl."

"I think it's just common courtesy to feel bad about emptying the contents of your stomach on another human being. As a general rule."

"Yeah, that's fair."

David had spent the last half hour (the longest Grace had ever gotten to be on the shared phone) spilling his guts to his sister. It had been awkward at first, and having to be honest with her about how he had felt when he had visited that weekend, had been uncomfortable to say the least. But he didn't want things to be weird between them, he wanted to be there to support her.

If his friends could forgive him for all his grumpiness and stupidity, then he needed to keep spreading the love. He would never stop forgiving his sister.

Once all that stuff was out in the open, the two siblings went back to talking the way they used to. They blabbed on about anything and everything, arguing about silly things, and trying to give advice that probably wasn't that good, but it was nice having his sister back to at least try and speak gibberish into his life.

He had gone on to give her all the details on what had been going on with his friend group; how he actually sort of liked Ricky now, how he'd been an idiot with Hannah but they'd figured things out, and how he had completely made a fool of himself in front of Alyssa and at least fourteen strangers.

"So now what are you going to do?"

David sighed and dropped himself on the bed, putting his phone on speaker so he could lay back comfortably. "I don't know. Maybe buy that new video game. Finish high school, I guess."

She made a scoff sound from the back of her throat. "Not that. I meant when are you asking this Hannah girl out?"

"Hannah? I um -- what? I..."

Ah, who was he kidding.

He liked Hannah. A lot.

That feisty little blonde with the big brown eyes had been dancing around his head constantly for the last few days. It was like when she hugged him she gave him some sort of disease that affected his brain and how fast his heart beat when he thought of her. All he wanted to do was see her, or talk to her, or even just be in the same room as her. It was insane.

He wasn't sure when he had started to crush on her, or when it had snowballed into how he felt now, but in the end, it didn't really matter. The most important thing was that it had started. And he liked her.

A lot.

It had been stupid to even attempt a second date with Alyssa when it was so obvious that there was nothing there, and everything he thought should've been there was so clearly between him and Hannah.

"Oh David," Grace laughed. "I really don't want to be that person in every chick flick that has to tell the main character who they're in love with, okay?"

"No, I know, I--" He trailed off as Mack appeared in the doorway of his room, one hand buried in a bag of chips, and dropped himself on the bed waiting quietly for David to finish his phone call.