Either/Or

C01

"Ricky wants to know when you're coming back to work," My best friend, Dorian MacDonald, said, looking up from his cell phone. He involuntarily placed his index finger to the bridge of his nose, pushing up glasses that were no longer their since he'd switched to contacts over the summer.

"Remind Ricky that he has my number and can text me himself."

"Ok," Dorian shrugged and began texting back. I freaked when I heard the whoosh chime signifying the text had been sent.

"Dorian!" I grabbed his phone and opened his messages as he looked on deadpan. I swiped the mysteriously bead of sweats that suddenly forms on my forehead when I'm embarrassed—or trying to lie to my parents—away with my free hand.

"Boy—" I almost threw his phone at him and exhaled sharply to avoid cussing him smooth out. He had texted Ricky, our manager, back that I would start this Friday.

Dorian slowly cracked a smile.

"Boy you so dry," I quoted instead, mimicking my Mama's southern drawl. She always said this to him after he got one over on her with his trademark dry humor. I handed him back his phone, flicking his nose hard for good measure.

"Ow. What cha do that for?" He rubbed his nose, glaring at me.

"You're not wearing your glasses anymore, so stop pushing them up," I sneered and copied him by pushing up my invisible glasses. He'd switched to contacts over the summer break, and she hadn't found out until she'd come back from camp. "What else have you been keeping from me?"

"Nothing, Veev. You're caught you up on just about everything," Dorian dug into his chicken spaghetti. We were sitting on opposite ends of the obnoxiously ornate dark wood tables in our school cafeteria.

Then again, it was Oakhurst School for Science and Mathematics, a lavish boarding school on a lush campus in north Dunwoody. Since it was a boarding school, it boasted some of the brightest young minds from all over the world. I always quipped to my play cousin Natashia that I just knew I was breathing the same air as the person who would cure cancer.

"You sure you've told me everything? Because I think you're hiding a girlfriend."

Dorian didn't even bother responding. He was so shy around girls that he could barely speak to the school librarian who was pushing 100, let alone do anything to get a girlfriend. But I had a sneaky suspicion that things will be different this year for my shy friend.

I flicked my eyes around the cafeteria, sipping my Sprite, briefly making eye contact with a Nigerian-British girl who had been eyeing him and whispering to her friends. I raised my eyebrows and the girl turned back towards her giggling crew.

Yep, there were some things Dorian hadn't updated me on while I'd been away all summer with crappy phone service.

Like switching to contacts...oh and getting hella buff.

I truly don't know what steroids my cousin Jamari had Dorian taking over a summer to initiate this metamorphosis from a scrawny caterpillar into a chiseled butterfly. He'd even shaved his bushy, fluffy afro down to immaculate waves.

So, imagine my shock when my friend greeted me at the airport with a rib-crushing bear hug.

"That girl was looking at your booty," I whispered to him, licking my lips in faux seduction. "I think she wants to bite it."

"Shut up," Dorian whacked me square in forehead. I head back my laugh while he blinked furiously. "Damn it," He said, blinking and blinking, beginning to tear up.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just this contact is drying up." He looked at me, looking like a fool as he now blinked only his right eye at me.

"Let me see," I stood up from my seat, leaned over, grabbing his face in my hands like I used to do all the time when we were kids and he'd get an eyelash or some dirt in his eye and I'd blow it out. "You have an eyelash stuck in it." I picked up a napkin covered my finger with it and carefully extracted it. His eyelashes were thick and curly, and he still had those same big doll brown eyes that he'd had since he was a baby. That was the only thing that hadn't changed.

"Did you get it?" He asked gently. I still had one hand on his cheek and was looking dead in his face, completely zoned out.

I loosened the hand on his cheek, which gently slide down his rock-hard arm. My eyes traveled down his body. He was really filling out that school uniform now. "Yeah," I crumbled up the napkin and put it on my empty tray. "I'm going to go dump my tray." I stood up awkwardly and headed towards the trash cans.

What the hell was wrong with me?

As I was dumping my tray, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I whipped around. "Ye—," I didn't finish as my brain processed who had tapped me.

Kaz.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" His voice was rich and smooth and got me, until I remembered that during the first weeks of school he had completely forgotten and ignored my existence. Not even a surreptitious head nod acknowledging our shared time at summer camp. Not that I expected that, but still.

"Nope." I started to walk away.

"Please." Something about the way he said that one word roped her in. I turned toward him.

"What do you want to discuss?"

He smiled. That smile made me forget everyone there, who were no doubt all staring at Kaz and wondering what he was doing with me. Kaz held out his hand and I instinctively reached out to clasp it with my own.

Just like I'd done so many times before...

+++++++++++++++++++

A/N:

So, like I said in 00, this is a completely unplanned story, therefore, I don't know where I'm going with this. I do have this novel that I have been writing and rewriting for the past 2-3 years, but this past year, I have not been writing so I thought I'd take a breather and just free flow.

By the way, I got this idea from a Twitter post about romance tropes you're sick of and it made me think "Hmmm, I'm so sick of movies where the main girl has to choose between two guys instead of just choosing both," and then I was like "Welp, be the change you wish to see in the world," I started scribbling down thoughts. 

Luckily it happened during NaNo, but I don't know how much I will get done because I probably will have to move for this job. Uggh.