The following Monday in biology class, I made sure to ask Tara about to the party. I arrived early to the classroom as usual and she was in her seat before me. She looked up from her laptop when she heard the door close behind me and gave a bright smile.
"Hey. How was your weekend?" She asked.
I set my book bag down under the desk and sat down in the swivel chair. "It was fine. Nothing special happened. How was yours?"
"Good." She said. "Oh, yea. Miles told about the party..."
"I was just going to ask you about that. He was wondering if you could come, but he said you didn't give a clear answer."
"I don't know... fraternities can be sketchy." She scrunched up her nose and reclined back in her chair.
"You can invite a friend to come along with you if that makes you comfortable." I said.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Maybe. I can see if my roommate wants to go. But I'm just saying, I've heard enough from my mom about what guys do at these kind of parties."
"We'll just make sure to stay together as a group."
Her eyebrow popped up then fell. "Yea, ok."
She took out a binder from her book bag and ripped out a sheet of paper from it. She clicked the pen next to her laptop and started writing on it. When she lifted her hand, I saw that she had written my name in messy cursive.
"Can I have your number so I can text you my response on whether I'll go or not?" She asked.
I obliged and took the pen from her to write down my phone number.
"What happened to your phone?" I asked, curious why she didn't just take my number down directly in her phone.
"I forgot to charge it last night. Again."
I scoffed. "That sucks."
"Yep." She folded up the paper and stuck it under the cover of her biology textbook then turned back to me. "The party's at eight, right?" I nodded. "And does Miles have a thing for me or something. He seemed kind of nervous when he came to my door Thursday."
"Oh, I don't know." I said, trying to play off that I did, in fact, know that Miles had some degree of a crush on her. "Weird that he was nervous though."
I wasn't going to actually straight out tell her that Miles liked her since that would be messed up. If he was shy just by talking to her than it may kill him for me to tell Tara how he felt about her behind his back. I was thinking that it was just some infatuation phase since all he talked about was her tomboyish and fiery personality and how pretty- correction- hot she is. Tara seemed like the type of girl who wouldn't let a guy down easy and I wasn't about to be in the middle of it all if it didn't work out the way Miles wanted it to.
"Very weird, indeed." She scoffed under her breath and swiveled her chair around so that she was facing her computer once again.
I got out the rest of my materials for class and took out my laptop to pull up the PowerPoint on chromosomal mutations. As I was doing so, I looked around to see that most of the class had already filled the seats yet the one next to me was empty without Keith sitting in it. I huffed to myself and rolled my eyes. It's just sad when people don't have a decent care in their education.
Professor Steiner started the class by recapping on the reading that was assigned last Wednesday. The rest of the class time was spent going through the PowerPoint slides. The only really interesting part of the two hours was some girl bringing up a picture that she saw on Facebook of a tiger that was said to have Down Syndrome. The professor made a sub-lesson out of what the girl said and spent some ten minutes talking about tigers' gene pools.
Keith had officially skipped class for the day- a thing I wouldn't do in a million years even though I'm probably smart enough to skip out on a few lessons before actually falling behind. Being a vampire, for some odd reason, means having better cognition and overall intelligence. I'm pretty sure Keith isn't a vampire by any means since a middle schooler probably knows more about biology than him.
"Where ya going before your next class?" Tara asked as I held the door open for her to exit the classroom.
"I don't know." I said. I hadn't actually considered where I was going after biology so her question caught me off guard a little. Miles nor the other guys hadn't made an plans of where to eat so I assumed it was one of those "every man for himself" days".
"Well, we have half an hour to kill. There's a good pizzeria a few blocks from here that I'm meeting some of my friends at. Wanna come?"
I opened my mouth to answer and quickly shut it when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I held up my index finger to Tara for her to give me a minute to answer the call.
"Hello?"
"Jesse!" I sighed and my mouth stretched into a smile.
"Hey, mom." I replied, glaring at Tara as she scoffed at me.
"How's college? How's NYU? How's Alex?" She was extremely bubbly- more than she usually is.
"Good, good, and still crazy."
"I miss you so much and it's only been a week. I told you to call me the end of last week but you never did. I was going to call you but I was worried I would catch you at a bad time."
"Oh, sorry about that. I guess I've been a little busy getting accustomed to everything."
I starting walking with the phone held to my ear and nodded for Tara to follow me down the hallway.
"It's alright. I just wanted to know if everything is going well. So tell me, have you made any new friends? You were such a loner in high school"
I groaned. "Mom, I wasn't a loner. I had Alex as a friend. And to answer your question, yes, I have made quite a few friends."
She squealed like a little girl. "I'm so happy for you- broadening your horizons." Her voice quieted. "Have you seen any cute boys?"
I fought back an embarrassed smile. I glanced at Tara hoping she hadn't seen my reaction, even though she wouldn't know the context of the situation. She was busy looking out through the windows of the building as we walked.
"Yea..." I said in defeated. "I've seen some throughout campus while walking to my classes."
"Ooh." I could almost see that smile that was probably plastered on her face at that moment. "Whatever happened to Blake. You never talk about him anymore."
Why the hell did she bring up Blake? Didn't Alex poof her memory of him away?
"Who?" I asked, faking that I didn't know who she was talking about. I was so shocked that I stopped walking. Tara stopped as well, looking at me questioningly.
"Blake. Your boyfriend, sweetie. That blonde-"
"Uh. Kssshhh." I said, faking the classic bad connection sound. "Mom- kssssh- think you're breakin- kssssshhh- up."
"Oh, no. Really. It's stupid T-Mobile, isn't? I told your father to switch our phone service..."
"What? Ksssshh! I'll call- ksssssh- later." I ended the call right after and let out a sigh of relief.
Tara looked at me for a second then bursted out laughing. "What was that about?"
"Nothing." I said, starting to walk again. "Let's just head to that pizzeria place."
She paused for a few seconds as if she was going to question what had happened before, but simply starting walking with me down the hallway. We exited the building and caught a trolley a block down the street. It dropped us off conveniently close to the pizzeria place that Tara had mentioned, making us only have to walk a small distance.
As we entered the relatively small restaurant, I could tell it was one of those really good pizzerias- the real New York ones with actual Italians. Not like Pizza Hut or Papa John's. A man at the cash register greeted us with a friendly smile and welcomed us.
I glanced over to a booth in the far corner of the restaurant and say a girl and a guy sitting next to each other talking. The girl looked up for a second and did a double take when she spotted Tara. She nudged the guy next to her and he looked up as well. Tara waved at them and beckoned for me to follow her.
"Hey, guys." Tara said scooting into the opposite side of the booth and pushing her book bag against the wall beside her. She looked at me then back at her friends, "This is Jesse. I invited him to have lunch with us."
"Sup." The guy said, giving me a nod.
"Heyo." The red-headed girl said, giving me a two-fingered salute and winking.
"Jesse," Tara said, looking at me then at her two friends. "This is Evan and Madison."
I greeted them both while putting my book bag on the floor against the booth.
"You hungry, Jesse?" Tara asked.
"Uh..." I thought about it for a second. It'd been a while since I had eaten pizza- much less Italian pizza. "Yea, I'll get something."
We both scooted out of the booth and went up to the cashier. Tara ordered a pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms while I got a regular slice of pepperoni pizza. We paid and took our food back to he table, immediately chowing down on it.
"Jesse says there's a frat party this Friday." Tara said, after swallowing a bite of her pizza. Madison looked up.
"Ooh, really. How come I didn't find out about this?" The way she spoke was amusing to me. She had a sassy edge to her voice with the appeal of confidence.
"Well, I can't go since I already have a party I'm going to." Evan said proudly.
Madison scoffed. "And what party were you invited to?"
"Apartment party in Brooklyn."
"The one with the Columbia people? Eww. Frat parties are way more lit."
"Yea, because of all the weed they spoke there." Evan said. "Ya get it. Because you have to light a joint-"
"I get it." Madison flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Whatever."
Tara looked at them both with a bored expression for a minute then focused her eyes on Madison. "So, Maddie, do you want to go?"
"Hell yea. I'll finally get to wear that dress that I got at Macy's."
"Ok," Tara. "I just asked you, since I didn't want to be the only girl going."
Tara turned to me. "You got your answer. I guess I'll go if she's going."
Madison cheered and looked at me. "Jesse, how many other people are going to be in the group."
"Three other guys." I replied.
Her eyebrows perked up. I was wondered that be a deal breaker for her going, but quickly realized that it made her more excited to go. She did seem like the type of girl that would constantly be on the hunt for guys, though.
"Oh, yes. I'm definitely going." She turned to Tara and grasped her hands over the table. "We're definitely going."
She started squealing like a kitten, making Tara groan but give her a smile. The cashier made came around and told Madison to keep it down or he would a ask her to leave.
"Good luck with her in your group." Evan said to me, pointing his thumb at Madison.
Madison elbowed him. "Shut up. You're going to a lame apartment party while we're going to a frat party." She spaced out her hands in front of her as she said "frat party".
I leaned towards Tara. "Your friends are interesting."
"Yea. I'm basically the only normal one." She replied. We chuckled quietly to each other.
After finishing up lunch at the pizzeria, all four of us got back on the trolley and headed back to the campus. I made sure to give Tara the address and tell her what time to get down to the lobby in our dormitory then parted ways with her and her friends.
At the end of the day, I waited until I got back in my dorm room to tell Miles the good news.
"Is her friend hot too?!" He said with the most excitement I have ever seen.
"Yes." I said, sighing and throwing my arms up in the air. I gave him the answer he was looking for when I wasn't even a good judge. "You'd like her."
Miles plowed towards me with open arms. I didn't get to brace myself before he gave me a tight bear hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, man!"
He finally backed away from me and I watched him with wide eyes. He was doing a mini dance- not as lame as Alex's but just as surprising.
"Don't hurt yourself." I said.
"Miles's got a big selection now!" He looked at me. "I'm so hype right now that you don't even know."
"Oh, I think I know." I said, holding back a laugh for his sake.
"This party's going to be dope! Can't wait!"
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[A/N]: I can't wait either, Miles. ;)
Ok, guys. This is when the ball finally starts rolling. All of the chapters before were just to set the tone, scene, and some characters. The real action is to come. Get hyped!
I'm going to do a time skip so... yea. Enjoy!
Remember to favorite, comment, and just show some love. I want to know what you guys think of the story thus far. It gives me strength when you guys comment.
Stay cool! Peace! ^_^