10/1/18
Julia felt the immediate relief when she got in the car on Monday. She threw her bag in the backseat of the town car and reached over the middle console to the driver's seat, throwing herself on the man in it.
"Oh my god, Happy," she breathed out as the man tried to figure out what was going on.
"Hey," he said, the confusion pretty evident in his voice. Nevertheless, he rested his hand over her arm, just before she pulled away and sat down in her regular seat. "That's a warm welcome, the other guy didn't live up to your favorite driver?"
Julia couldn't help the way she rolled her eyes. Not like she was rolling them because of Happy's bad jokes, but like she was really annoyed at something. Happy had known her long enough to tell the difference. "What happened?" He asked, but she shook her head, telling him she didn't want to talk about it. Happy sighed, starting the car and starting to drive.
"Nothing," she swore, pulling out her phone, waiting for her coffee to kick in. "Do we have time for a Starbucks run?"
Happy sighed, but Julia already had her phone open, and the Starbucks app. "Yeah, I guess." He just hoped that she would tell him what it was that happened while he was gone. It would bother him if his favorite girl wouldn't tell him if something had happened while he was gone. But she was too invested in her phone and texting her boyfriend.
We're grabbing Starbucks what do u want?
whatever you get
So Julia placed the order, without saying another word to Happy. She'd definitely need more coffee before she delved into the entire situation, if she did at all. Happy was impatient as he waited for her to run into the 40th and third Starbucks. He was kicking himself as he waited for her to come back. Had he made the wrong choice, going with Tony? He'd always gone with Tony, and assumed Julia would be okay, she was a bright kid, and he trusted the rest of the security team. But something about Julia's relief when she saw him and her refusal to talk to him told him he was wrong.
The latte seemed to help, she snuggled into the corner of the car, waking up a bit more. "Hey," Happy got her attention again. She looked up, a little more alert. "Did something happen with the other driver?"
"It's," Julia groaned softly, sitting up. "Not a huge deal, I don't want anyone getting fired."
"If someone should be fired, then it's a big deal," Happy said, fighting the urge to pull the car over. Julia just tilted her head back in frustration.
"It's not--" she tried to say, but replayed the issue in her head. "He just," she sighed. "What time do you get me from my games?" she asked, not because she was quizzing him, but because she was making sure she wasn't making the whole thing up.
"I mean they're usually over by five or six, but you're not done until seven, at least," he said. Julia relaxed. She wasn't overreacting. "Why, was he late?"
"He wasn't there," she muttered, and it did in fact make Happy slam on the breaks, so Julia clutched her pumpkin spice latte. "Happy, Jesus," she scolded. She watched him take a breath before he kept driving. "It's not a big deal," she said.
"It is a big deal, Julia," he corrected her, but she couldn't understand what he was so worked up about? She made it home okay, obviously. "That was your safety on the line, didn't your dad tell him to wait?"
Julia scrunched up her nose. She didn't want to admit this, because she didn't like that it was true. "I don't think he knows," she said. Despite her relationship with her dad going in a better direction these days, he still had a lot of getting to know his daughter to do.
"You know you could tell him," Happy suggested, but Julia just laughed through her nose.
"How's that gonna go? Oh hey dad, by the way, I stay an extra hour at practice and games so I can be good enough at something that you'll notice?"
"Is that why you do it?"
"Can we stop talking about this?" she shut down the conversation with one sentence, but she couldn't even believe what she'd just admitted out loud. Yes, she liked that it was something that she excelled at that wasn't from her dad, wasn't sciency, wasn't about her looks, but she also liked that it meant she might impress him. Everything else felt handed to her, but she worked for her captaincy. Maybe she hoped he'd see that. "And don't tell him I said that," she pleaded. Happy said nothing for a minute, then a few, then almost the whole ride. And it was enough to tell her that he was almost as upset as she was.
"Hang on, how'd you get home?"
Julia groaned dramatically, making a show of how he'd disturbed her peace, but it made him almost laugh. "I took an uber," she said, though she knew that wasn't the whole truth. She bit lightly on her thumbnail, trying to decide what she could tell him. Did Happy know what she knew about Peter? "But we hit pretty bad traffic right around fifth so I... I walked," she said.
"Julia!" he scolded, and she just sighed, putting her phone away after texting Peter that they'd be there in five minutes.
"It's fine, I was fine, okay?" she assured. "I wasn't alone anyway," she finally admitted, looking at the cup in her hands, warming them as the temperature outside started to drop. Hence her oversized sweater and skirt combo today. "Uh," she willed herself to say it. "Spider-Man was there."
The car nearly came to another abrupt stop. "Happy, you've gotta stop doing that, you're gonna cause an accident," she said. But it was all the evidence she needed to know that he did in fact know what she knew about Spider-Man.
"Sorry, sorry," the head of security muttered. He glanced skeptically at the girl in the rear view mirror. "Spider-Man, huh?"
"Yeah," she said casually, trying to play it off as well as she could.
"You ever uh," he began, seeing Peter's building come into view. "Ever met him before?"
"No, actually," she said. "He was," she smiled a little, "he was really sweet." Happy's eyes narrowed.
"Uh-huh."
Finally the car slowed, and Julia didn't bother changing a thing. The need to not give him her attention and look really cool when he got in the car had faded in two weeks. She just picked up his coffee and waited for him, her heart pounding. She hadn't seen him since their exchange of secrets Friday night.
The door opened and he climbed in, in his recognizable nerd shirt and blue flannel. Blue really was his color. He smiled when he saw her, taking the coffee from her ringed hand.
"Thanks," he said, plopping down into his seat. She almost forgot about the conversation with Happy. The car felt warmer, the morning felt brighter.
"Sure," she said.
"Kid, have you heard about this?" Happy's voice ruined it. Julia pursed her lips as Peter gave him his attention.
"Huh?"
"She tell you she met Spider-Man?"
Peter froze, his mouth hanging open stupidly like he was gonna say something. Julia was going slightly red next to him, embarrassed that Happy just exposed to Peter that she'd been talking about him. But she admittedly found it pretty funny. After a moment, Peter closed his mouth and looked at Julia like he couldn't believe she told Happy. She just nodded a little, admitting it to him. Peter sighed, pulling the car door closed. "Yeah, she knows," he confessed.
This was one of those times that Happy deemed too important to use the rearview mirror, so he turned around and looked at Peter like he was gonna kill him. Julia tried not to giggle.
"She knows?"
Peter gave an apologetic look. "Yeah, I sort of told her," he said carefully, but Julia looked at him like he was stupid.
"No, hang on," she corrected, gesturing with her coffee cup for him to stop. "He did not tell me," she said to Happy. "I figured it out," she made a gesture with her cup as if to ask for a little credit. Peter tilted his head from side to side, reluctantly agreeing.
"Yeah, she did," he admitted.
"Come on," she looked between them, leaning back in her seat. "It was obvious," she said, earning an alarmed look from Peter.
"No, it's not!"
"I mean to me," she assured, which only helped slightly as Peter tried to sit back in his seat.
"Fine," he huffed, as Happy slowly turned around and put the car in drive. He looked like he was prepared to issue a threat, though to which one of them was unclear, so he let it go. "What did you get?" Peter asked, bringing the coffee closer to him, a little scared to try it since he hadn't asked beforehand.
"Pumpkin spice latte with oat milk," she told him, then watched as he quietly celebrated, and she couldn't help but smile. She didn't know Peter Parker was such a fan of seasonal drinks.
Between the note that he gave her that morning and the far more relaxed car ride before that, Julia found it hard to focus in calculus. She chewed aimlessly on the cap of her pen, hearing equations go in one ear and out the other.
"Julia," Emma hissed from the seat next to her, and it finally got her attention. "I've been psst-ing at you for like thirty seconds, what's the matter with you?" Emma asked her. Julia felt her cheeks turning red. She did not need to admit to her best friend she'd been lost in her thoughts about a boy. It was new terrain for both of them.
"Harris, Stark, eyes up here," their teacher said, which didn't help Julia's red face. She hadn't needed attention to make this situation worse, and she certainly didn't need the other students to know she'd been distracted. But it was fine, they had no idea why. Peter was her boyfriend, as far as they knew, therefore not someone whose name she still doodled on her page with hearts around it. Not that she'd done that...
"What is up with you?" Emma asked her as they left the classroom, and Julia tried to brush her off, say nothing and keep walking. "Hey, uh-uh, I'm your best friend, you're talking to me," Emma said, with a tone that Julia was unfamiliar with.
"Excuse me?" she asked, head tilted, eyes narrowed.
"I know calculus is like the worst thing to have first period, but you usually at the very least take notes," Emma snatched Julia's notebook from her hand to emphasize her point. Julia made a grab for it. She saw Emma's skepticism at her hesitation, which only made Emma want to dive deeper. She saw her start to flip it open and Julia reached for it, to no avail. Emma was already walking to their next class while flipping through Julia's calculus notebook. She finally saw a very adolescent J + P surrounded by a heart. Emma paused, so Julia finally grabbed the notebook out of her hands. "All this over some boy?" Emma asked her, but she saw the offense immediately on Julia's face.
"He's not some boy," she said, her tone lower than it had been before. "He's my--boyfriend." Julia recognized the pause right after she'd said it. She was kicking herself for it. Emma's eyes narrowed. "He's," Julia shrugged, "different. Than Ethan was." she tried to justify it, but she could see that Emma only sort of bought it. Because the truth was, Peter was only just a boy. A boy Julia had the biggest crush on, but that wasn't hers. She'd done her best to make it appear like that wasn't the case, but it ate at her every day. Peter wasn't hers. But it was enough, for now.
10/8/18
Julia didn't need the skeptical looks from Happy in the morning when Peter got in the car to remind her that it was getting bad. She was getting too comfortable. But the routine was nice, and the boy in the seat of the car was, too.
It definitely didn't help that he texted her to meet her after school. It surprised her. He didn't usually take that much initiative, even after almost three weeks of this, and she thought he tended to be pretty busy after school. And now she knew why.
He'd only asked because he knew she usually had practice, but he wanted to talk to her. She figured she could take a few minutes for him before she went to practice. For him, she'd skip the whole thing if she had to, but that wasn't the case.
"Hey," Peter smiled when he saw her. Her head flopped to one side, smiling back at him.
"Hi there," she beamed, meeting him by the side of the school, on the way to her soccer practice. He floundered for a moment, not sure what to do when he saw her. He felt like he'd stood up too fast, but he'd been standing too long for that to be the case. Must just be her. He finally landed on putting out his hand, which she happily took. "What's going on?" she asked him, squeezing his right hand as they went in the direction of her practice.
"Just had a question," he said, which more than piqued her interest. The sheer idea of a question made her stomach flip.
"What's up?" she asked, as they stopped by the picnic tables beside the track and field. Her heart pounded. It was a fairly romantic location, at least to her. What were they doing here?
"Are we..." he began, pulling away his hand as much as she wished he wouldn't. "I was just wondering, since it's coming up--sorry this is really last minute, maybe we should've talked about it sooner-"
"Peter," she politely silenced his rambling.
"Right," he shook his head, getting his focus back. "Should we be going to homecoming?"
Julia looked at him. He could see in her face that it alarmed her. He hadn't meant to. She just hadn't considered it. Before Peter, she didn't really plan on going, mostly because she didn't have all that much fun last year. She composed herself as quickly as she could, narrowing her eyes.
"Peter Parker, are you asking me to homecoming?" she asked, a smile finally gracing her lips. It was his turn to be caught off guard. He breathed slowly, then nodded.
"Yeah, yes I am," he said, which made her let go, smiling embarrassingly big.
"I'd love to," she admitted.
His nerves finally stopped, if just for a moment. His smile felt relieved. "Yeah?" he beamed. "Good." Julia felt herself getting lost looking at him. He hadn't really just asked her to homecoming had he? "I know this has been," he lowered his voice, "working pretty well, I just feel like that's a good place to really, I dunno, convince people, I guess, plus it would look really weird if we didn't go together so-"
"Hey, I already said I'd go," she stopped him, her tone different than before, it had lost its play. But she hadn't needed the gutpunch of the it's not real right now. She didn't want to look at him, and it bothered him. He liked having her eyes. When he finally caught them, he saw the difference in her mood from twenty seconds ago. What was different? What did he say?
"Okay, I'm looking forward to it," he said, reaching for her hand one more time, and she didn't pull away, of course, had to maintain the image. But she found it harder to hold it with the reminder looming over her head everywhere she went. Her brain was screaming at her to pull away. It's not real, it's not real. He'd asked her to homecoming for the politics of it all. Which she had to admit she was kind of proud of him for. "I'll let you get to practice," he said, pulling her a little closer by her hand, and kissing her cheek. Then he was off. And she could only watch him go. Her hand colder, his kiss lingering. Julia felt like she floated to practice.
10/9/18
"Psst," Julia whispered to Emma as soon as she sat down beside her in calculus. Emma gave her a look that said why are you whispering, class has not started. Emma looked around as if someone was listening to them, then looked at Julia.
"Yes?"
"Are you going to homecoming?" she asked her, clicking her pen on the desk as she waited for a response.
"Yeah," Emma shrugged. Then she did a double take. "Are you?" She looked pretty much exactly as Julia thought she might: shocked. Julia nodded, a small excited smile on her face. "After what happened with the king of all douchebags last year?" Emma confirmed.
"Come on," Julia tilted her head at her. "Peter isn't like that," she reminded her. Emma put up her hands in surrender. How would she know, she barely knew this guy.
"Whatever you say, boss," Emma agreed.
"Do you have a dress yet?" Julia asked her.
"Jujubee it's on Friday," Emma said, a little bit like Julia was dumb, which was fair. "Of course I have a dress, but I will absolutely come with you to pick out yours," she told her, reaching over and putting her hand over her best friends, making Julia beam.
It was unusual to get Julia to leave practice before five, but Emma had made a point about the dance being so close. She wasn't sure why her and Peter hadn't thought of it or discussed it sooner. So instead of staying out as the temperature dropped into the 50s, Emma had convinced Julia to spend her evening in the Saks Fifth Avenue. They had multiple pairs of shoes, and more dresses than Julia currently had in her closet.
"I do not need this many dresses," Julia complained, but Emma wasn't hearing it. And they both knew Julia loved dresses anyway. She had a few things that fed into her public image, the fashion, the modeling. But not all of that was a total facade.
"Better safe than sorry," Emma shrugged, shoving her best friend into the dressing room and then sitting herself down on the comfy couch outside of it.
Julia felt like she was in a montage, trying on each dress, modeling it for Emma. She hung some of them on the maybe rack, some on the hell no. But she was noticing a pattern. Red, red, and more red. Julia heaved a sigh as she opened the curtain to yet another maroon dress for her best friend.
"Did we grab any in another color?" she asked.
Emma sat up, putting her phone aside. Her eyes narrowed, leaning forward.
"Red is your color," she reminded Julia. "And I don't just mean it looks good on you. I mean it belongs to you," she said. Julia laughed, shaking her head.
"I know, I just feel like that's what everyone is expecting," Julia shrugged. She didn't want to do that She'd been feeling more and more lately that she needed to not be what everyone expected. Peter certainly wasn't what people expected, and she liked that. She also wanted to do something he wasn't expecting, she didn't want to be predictable. Emma stood, and Julia stood up straighter.
"Alright, what gives?" Emma said, stuffing her phone in her pocket. Julia backed up, crossing her arms over the dress. She felt it, the guilt she'd been feeling for weeks, piling up in her chest. She'd been lying to her best friend which wasn't like her, because she really only had the one person she really trusted. That she really believed was there for the right reasons.
"What?" Julia asked, and while she knew she was generally a good liar, she didn't feel like one right now.
"I don't know who this is," Emma gestured. "This girl, this Julia. She's worried about what some guy thinks, she's worried about what she wears, she won't wear her signature color because it's predictable? What is the matter with you? And I want a straight answer-" before she could answer Julia was pulling her into the dressing room, trying to get her to stop.
"Would you please keep your voice down," Julia hissed, closing the curtain and pulling Emma back into the corner. Emma just looked at her, a look on her face that said well? Julia knew the look, because she knew Em. She sighed, knowing what she had to do. "I need to tell you something,"
"And you think someone in the Sak's fifth avenue is gonna overhear our conversation and publish it?" Emma asked, and Julia tried not to let that bother her.
"Yeah, I do, Em," she said, with all the seriousness in the world. Emma closed her mouth. The comment was unfair, she'd known Julia long enough to know that someone spreading her personal information was not out of the question. She was just getting tired of the secrets, whatever it was Julia was hiding, and it was making her mean. She would've apologized, but she knew Julia could read it off her face.
Julia didn't even know where to start. How do you tell your best friend that your boyfriend isn't your boyfriend and you've been lying to her and the whole school for almost a month? "This thing me and Peter are doing--"
"Dating?"
Julia didn't answer. She just looked at Emma, watching as her eyes narrowed. Then she slowly shook her head. "You're... not dating?" she asked quietly, and Julia sighed.
"We never were."
Emma stood up straight, looking at Julia like she wanted to scream, but then she sat herself down on the bench in the dressing room, and gestured for Julia to go on, to explain to her what the hell she was talking about. And with a deep breath, she did. She told Emma all of it. From seeing Peter in her house and her dad telling her she couldn't pursue him, to the pissing off Ethan and Flash and Tony, to this, to homecoming, to it just being a part of them trying to convince everyone it was real, taking Ethan and Flash down a few pegs. Emma could understand that, Julia needing to get back at Ethan while simultaneously rebelling against her dad. She knew that was something she needed.
"And I'm sorry I didn't tell you, we just agreed we wouldn't, but I wanted to. I just don't want to mess this up with him because I feel like it's working, and we're getting closer, and maybe it could lead to something, maybe he'll stop worrying about my dad enough that we can have this, so excuse me if I care what he thinks, and I'm still stuck with this stupid crush, and I don't want to wear red because I'm kinda tired of being predictable-"
"Juju," Emma cut her off, looking up at her. Julia stopped, she looked at Emma, trying to read her, but her heart was pounding and her hand was shaking while she tried to decipher how her friend felt about this.
"Oh, also I punched a wall when I was ten that's why my hand shakes," Julia added, now that they were sharing. Emma looked at her funny.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"It doesn't. Are you mad?"
It looked like Emma was considering it really hard for a second, but the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. This was all a very Julia thing to do. It was new, sure, she hadn't seen Julia act like this for a boy, but the way she went about it was very like her. Her best friend was used to getting anything she wanted. Any way she could. And she clearly wanted Peter. Only because she could see real concern on Julia's face, real worry about the whole thing with Peter, she decided she couldn't be mad. "No," she said. "I do wish you told me, you know I could've spread rumors about you guys," she said, making Julia crack a smile. Emma didn't need to ask what she was about to, she knew the answer already. "You really like him?" she asked her. Julia's smile grew slightly. She nodded. "And you think he deserves it?" Emma double checked.
"I do," Julia said, and Emma could tell that she meant it. "I think he may actually like me, too," Julia said quietly, fiddling with her rings.
"Of course he does, he has a brain, right?" Emma said, making Julia laugh. Before Julia knew what was happening, Emma was standing and heading back out of the dressing room.
"What are you doing?"
"Just stay here, I have an idea."
Julia pulled back the curtain with her eyebrows slightly raised, looking at Emma just as she hoped she would, like she was a genius.
"Emma Leigh Harris, you are the mastermind here."
"I thought you might like it."
10/10/18
Julia usually wasn't one for change, which she'd had a lifetime of in just the past few weeks. Yet somehow, it didn't bother her that much. How could she be mad that she got to spend every morning with Peter in the town car instead of just her and Happy? Or that she finally had the upper hand on her ex for once? Or that she even knew Peter now in general? That was definitely the biggest change. But she found this morning to be like the ones before Peter. Only because she had practice with her girls before school. She knew they all famously hated pre-school practices, but when they had a game after school they came in handy, especially with new plays.
Julia had asked Peter if he still wanted the ride, but he told her he'd meet her there. So she curled up in the corner of the car in her sweats and puffer coat, trying to catch even twenty extra minutes of sleep before the practice.
"Why do we have to do this?" Molly complained as she sleepily made her way onto the field. She looked up at the sky, clearly bitter that the sun was barely even up.
"Don't look at me," Julia rubbed her eyes, not afraid of getting any makeup on her hands. She knew better than to wear makeup to a before school practice. "Coaches idea, just trying to make her proud," Julia yawned. She loved their coach, and she loved how much responsibility she let Julia have, because she knew how much it meant to her.
"Couldn't you just lie?" Maia asked, throwing herself over Molly's shoulder. "Tell her we did it and let us sleep?" Julia tilted her head down to glare at her, and Maia backed off, leaving Molly alone with a shove towards the goal.
"Yeah, yeah," Molly muttered, heading that way.
"Thirty minutes, I just need you to focus for thirty minutes," Julia begged, and Maia waved her off as she headed back towards the other girls. "Would a few laps help?" Julia called at her very sleepy team. She heard a collection of panicked "NO"s follow.
The showers in the locker room sucked, but it was better than nothing. Julia put up her hair, needing it to stay dry so it'd keep it's style and so the wet hair wouldn't make her freeze more than she was. The sun had just barely risen by now, so only once she was in her skirt and sweater combo did she start to feel a little warmer. She reached for the dry shampoo she kept in her locker, fixing her hair before she added a headband.
"Can I borrow that?" One of her forwards, Rachel, requested, and the captain tossed it to her without even thinking. "I love you," she said, making Julia smile sleepily.
"Okay Blair Waldorf," Maia said, coming out of the shower in her towel, which made her laugh. She supposed that was the inspiration for the outfit. She couldn't help it, she loved dressing up. One of the perks of all that money was the clothes. And Julia had made it very clear from a very young age that she wanted lots of them.
"Too much?" Julia asked, looking in her mirror on the inside of the locker door as she reached for her makeup. Who was she even kidding though? She hadn't cared if anything was "too much" since freshman year.
"For me maybe, but not for you," Maia said, coming to her own locker, the one beside Julia's. She smiled a bit, turning back to the mirror as she pulled out her concealer. "What, do you keep an entire Sephora in there?" she asked.
"Pretty much," Julia laughed. She quickly got wrapped up in the familiarity of the makeup routine, drowning out the conversation happening around her. She knew Molly had come over to Maia but she wasn't keeping track of much else. She reached into her makeup case, putting out two lipsticks, trying to decide which looked better with her outfit. She turned over her shoulder at Maia and Molly, holding them both up. "Hey, which-" when she looked at them she could see them looking at her and her brow quickly furrowed. "What?"
"Did you not hear us at all?" Molly laughed, and Julia went a little red.
"No, sorry, I was focusing," she blushed. "Did you ask something?"
"We're talking about homecoming," Molly told her, while also grabbing one of the lipsticks from her hands, the more subtle red.
"Oh," Julia's red did not fade at the topic. "Are you guys going?"
"We are," Maia said, with a slightly mischievous look on her face that went unnoticed by Julia.
"With anyone?" Julia asked, making Maia's mischievous smile grow. Julia caught it that time as she looked at Maia funny. Maia just looked at Molly who was handing Julia's lipstick back to her. Julia's confused expression returned, before she saw Maia look from Molly to Julia, and Julia finally noticed that Molly was still hanging on Maia. And it dawned on Julia that it may not be just a casual, friendly, platonic kind of touch. "Oh," Julia giggled at her own stupidity. "Obviously," she shook her head at herself.
"Did you know?" Maia's mischief switched quickly to confusion.
"No, but it makes sense," Julia turned back to her mirror with the lipstick of choice in hand. She glanced at the girls from the mirror. "Just don't fuck it up please, I worked hard on this team," she joked, earning a shove from Molly that nearly messed up her lipstick. "Molly!" Julia laughed, turning back to them.
"What about you?" Maia asked, looking right at Julia's eyes which scared her ever so slightly.
"What about me?" She asked, glancing once more into her mirror before turning back to the girls.
"Homecoming? You and Peter are going, right?" Maia asked. Julia began to smile a bit, thinking about the upcoming dance, Peter in a suit, him hopefully gawking over her dress.
"Mhm," she hummed. "We're going," she said.
"Soooo give us details, what color is your dress?" Maia asked, and Julia went to open her mouth when Maia answered her question, she thought. "Wait, stupid question--" she began, when Molly jumped in.
"Is he getting you a corsage?"
"He's gonna match his tie, right? But which shade of red-"
"Girls," Julia said quickly, trying to get them to stop. But it didn't stop her head spinning. She hadn't thought of any of those things herself. Was Peter supposed to get her a corsage? And a red tie wasn't what he needed either, did he think she was gonna be in red? She shook her head, putting on a brave face. "You're just gonna have to wait and see," she shrugged. She quickly picked up her bag so she could avoid further questions and hopefully go find Peter. She gave her teammates a polite smile before she turned to go.
"You're the worst!" Molly called behind her.
"Love you!" Julia turned over her shoulder to stick her tongue out at them. "Good job this morning girls!"
On the other side of the locker room door, she made sure she had everything. She smelled good, her makeup was done, and her headband was concealing anything that might be wrong with her hair. Check, check, and check. So she began the journey up to her locker, hoping to keep the trip short so she could head to Peter's. She kind of loved that she got these butterflies in her stomach on her way to see him. They'd been doing this for a bit now, they were certainly closer, she just hoped that it was working how she wanted it to.
Yeah, he was nervous. Just not for the reasons he usually was. As far as he could tell, even without Julia next to him, Flash and Ethan were steering clear. It was a relief to know the plan was working for its intended reason, that Peter had mostly lost sight of. There was a very different, slightly more concerning reason that he wanted to keep this plan going, a reason he'd never speak aloud. It definitely didn't help though that he'd grown attuned to feeling her coming from a mile away. He felt himself start to smile, then he felt like an idiot. But he slipped his books into his bag just as the feeling in his spine stopped.
"Hey," he said, without turning around.
"How did you--nevermind." Julia shook her head.
"How was your practice?" he asked, turning around and closing the locker. His eyes widened a little upon seeing her. How did she look so composed and put together after a 6:30 A.M. soccer practice.
"Good, freezing," she said, breathing out through a nervous smile. He sort of hated that he knew that by now.
"Want my jacket?" he offered quickly. Julia looked at the jacket, then at her own outfit, then at Peter with an apologetic look. "Doesn't go," he agreed, leaving his jacket tucked into his locker.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly, but he shook his head at her with a smile.
"Don't be, I wouldn't wanna ruin your outfit, I mean, look at you," he said, making her cheeks go just a little red, only because of the sincerity in his voice.
"But I said I would," she reminded him. Peter just smiled, appreciating her concern, but shaking his head at her as he pulled today's note out of his pocket.
"I don't mind," he promised as she took the note sheepishly. "I mean," he tilted his head, which made her smile immediately. She loved when he did that. "How much was that sweater?"
Julia began to go red. "I don't wanna answer that," she muttered, making him laugh, which in turn calmed her nerves ever so slightly. He put out his hand as he closed his locker, and she put the note in her other hand with her phone, and taking his. "Uh, anyway," she began, as they headed towards the calc classroom. "Gold, my dress is gold," she told him. "I don't know if you got a tie already, or if you wanted to match, but a gold tie would kind of be stupid, so maybe a black tie?"
"Yeah, I've got a black-"
"And are we doing a boutonniere and corsage or is that tacky because it's just homecoming--and do you want Happy to drive us or-"
Peter stopped walking, making Julia stop too. This was a side to her he wasn't used to seeing. She was genuinely nervous, frazzled. So he pulled her over to the side of the hallway. "Are you okay?" he asked first, which made her eyebrows raise. It took her a minute to realize that she'd been rambling. Peter held still for a moment, seeing if her left hand was steady in his right. There was maybe a slight tremor, but it wasn't the worst he'd seen.
"Yeah," she breathed out, but could see in his face he didn't believe her. "Yeah, I'm good, sorry. I just," she stopped herself. Homecoming was in two days. She really did not want to get into why she didn't like homecoming right now. She'd wait and see how this one went, it was bound to be different, because Peter was. "Have you been before?" she asked, mostly because she didn't want to ask if he'd specifically been last year. Peter tilted his head.
"Yes and no," he said, making Julia use his signature move: she tilted her head at him. Peter took a breath. It would be a lot to tell if Julia didn't know he was Spider-Man, but here they were. "I sorta went with Liz..." he began, watching as Julia's eyes narrowed in confusion.
"Liz... Liz who--" she stopped herself when she realized. "Liz Allen?" Peter flinched, but he nodded. "You went with Liz Allen and I didn't know about it?" Julia asked. She knew Liz. They weren't in the same groups, but they were both well known. Peter would use the word popular.
"Yeah, probably because I left two minutes in," he added, which stopped Julia in her tracks. Her expression changed, like she wanted to know more. "You remember..." he lowered his voice. "How her dad like," he really did not want to finish that sentence, "went to jail?" he asked. "And she moved?"
Julia's expression changed a third time, her brow furrowed once more, nodding in agreement. "Yeah."
"Yeah, that was my fault," Peter admitted. And a fourth time, but he expected this one. "He was like--a supervillain, it was a whole thing," Peter rambled, swinging their hands since he couldn't use them to gesture.
"Oh, okay," Julia said, as though that made perfect sense.
"Anyway," he breathed finally. "We were talking about you," he said, though he knew that was her least favorite subject. "Why are you nervous?"
Julia hadn't expected that. She could usually get away with her nerves. But Peter knew her by now, which yes, was what she wanted, but she could still pretend to hate it. She just really didn't want to tell him the real reason. So she did what she did best."Just a lot to put together last minute," she said, trying to see if Peter bought it, and it looked like for the most part, he did.
"I should've asked sooner," he said, squeezing her hand and starting to walk again.
"No, no, it's okay. We maybe should've thought of it when we wrote up the contract," she said under her breath, making him chuckle lightly.
"Yeah, maybe," he agreed. "But um, maybe it's best if Happy drives, if that's okay. I haven't exactly," he swung their hands nervously, "told my aunt anything about this," he said, earning a look from Julia.
"Anything?"
"I dunno, I don't really want to lie to her," he admitted. He'd always figured that he'd tell May if there was something real to tell her. Julia nodded. She understood that. She'd told Happy the truth weeks ago, but she knew that was different, given she was Peter's first girlfriend, and she wasn't even his girlfriend.
"I also live further from school than you," she added, glancing at Peter as he nodded in agreement. "But maybe I can come to the door?" she turned to him outside the Calculus classroom. "Obviously you don't have to tell her anything, I'm happy to just be your homecoming date, but-"
"I'd love that," he said, before he could stop himself. The prospect of all of it, the boutonniere, corsage, picking him up at the door, it felt a bit like a real homecoming date. Which made the note of the day true. Julia blushed in her calculus seat while reading that he was excited to take her to the dance.