His Marshmallow

Five

He stared at me like I had grown two horns. “You are kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not.”

“What? Why?”

I shrugged. "I just don't like how it tastes and feels in my mouth."

"How can you not love this?” He took one and ate it, for emphasis. “How can you not like the sweetness, softness, and squishiness of a marshmallow?”

I gave him the look you'd give someone you think is going crazy, raising my eyebrows.
"Okay, I get it. You love marshmallows but I don’t. I don’t like it at all. It’s kind of disgusting to me."

Okay. I kind of exaggerated but who cares!

Alex looked at me like I was a criminal; like it was a crime to hate marshmallows. “How… how… oh my God. How can you say marshmallows are disgusting? They’re divine…”

Okay, this guy was just being dramatic. Did marshmallows save his life or something?

I chuckled, amused that it was bothering him this much. "Okay, okay. I’ve heard you. Can we drop this and focus on what we’re here to do?"

Alex furrowed his eyebrows and pouted like a kid who just got scolded by his mum. "I guess we can."

So we continued to work on the assignment. Alex ate a few more marshmallows and then kept away the rest for later.
Some minutes later, two girls approached our table. One was a redhead and the other was blonde. They were both really pretty and it didn’t take rocket science to figure out they were here for him.

"Hi, handsome." The blonde said, grinning. She was chewing gum and started to twirl a strand of hair around her index finger.

"Hey, beautiful." Alex smiled at them politely. It was pretty obvious the blonde was flirting with him but I couldn’t tell if he was playing along or just being nice.

"Hi," the redhead greeted him also. Both of them completely ignoring me.

"I'm Catherine but you can call me Cat. Nice to meet you," the blonde said, offering her hand.

Alex took it. “I’m Alexander.”

Catherine held his hand longer than necessary before letting it go. “Such a lovely name.”

The redhead also introduced herself. "And I'm Ruby but you can call me whatever you like," the redhead giggled, also offering her hand.

Catherine pushed her hand away so that he wouldn’t take it and laughed it off.

“Well, nice to meet you, girls.”
 
I was mentally shaking my head and face-palming at this silly conversation.

"So, I was wondering if I could get your number," Cat said with a wink.

"I'm sorry. I don't have a phone." Alex smiled, blatantly lying to their face. I wanted to laugh because his phone was right here on the table.

They both looked at him incredulously. They obviously didn’t believe him and then again, his phone was right on the table, in front of him.

“I’m kidding. Of course, I have a phone but unfortunately, I can’t give you my number.”

“Why?” Ruby whined.

Catherine turned to me as if just noticing that I was present. She gave me a once over with a scowl on her face. “Is it because of her? Don’t tell me this whale is your girlfriend. You can do way better than her.”

Wow, what a delightful thing to say, I thought. It wasn’t new though. I’d heard that one before. Now that she has decided to acknowledge me, it was just to throw insults at me. Typical.
“What did you just say?” Alex asked. He was no longer smiling. He looked like he has had enough of them. I had enough of them the moment that came.

Ruby giggled. “She asked if whale over here is your girlfriend.” Her reply made me believe that she was daft.

"Apologize," Alex deadpanned, seething.

"What for?" Cat asked, confused. I was also confused. I didn’t understand what was happening any longer.
"Wait, is she actually your girlfriend?"

"That is none of your business. Apologize to her for calling her that."

I wondered what was going on. Was he really asking them to apologize to me?

"Why should we? We only said the truth. " Ruby replied. She wanted to say more but Catherine stopped her.

"Okay, we're sorry. " Cat said and Ruby repeated after her. The funny thing is that they weren’t even facing me. You’d think it was him they were apologizing to.

"Say it to her face," Alex told them.

I should have been happy that he was doing this but I just felt that he was taking this personal.
Cat rolled her eyes and they both turned to me. “Look, we’re sorry for insulting you, okay? It won’t happen again.”

I knew they weren’t sorry but it still felt good to hear them say it. I didn’t even understand why they were apologizing. They could have just walked away. I guess they desperately needed his number.

I didn't say anything.

They faced him again. "We apologized. Can we get your number now?" These girls didn’t know when to stop.

"No, I don't give my number to bullies." Alex dismissed them confidently.
I watched them give him the stink eye and saunter away angrily, wondering why Alex did that.

"I'm so sorry about them," he apologized.

All I could do was stare at him. Different assumptions of why he could have done that ran through my mind but none of them made sense to me and I couldn’t come up with a conclusion. Nobody had ever stood up for me - damn, not even myself, but he did and here he was apologizing for their rude behavior.

Who was this guy and why was he being nice to me?