"Do you have a game today or something?" I ask Chase as we start walking to my house together.
He offers me an exasperated smirk with a nod of his head. "Might be my last."
"How? Doesn't the season end in, like, February?"
"Somewhere around then. But Coach got on my ass at practice yesterday when I showed up late. Not to mention all the gossip going around because of me."
I raise my brows in agreement at that.
"Why do you ask?" His voice delivers the question low and what he believes to be charming. "Were you planning on stopping by to watch?"
"In your dreams."
"By the way, why did you do that today?" Chase asks after a minute of silence, completely ruining the bliss I was feeling after the awkward energy had completely left us.
"Do what?" I ask, pretending to not know what he's talking about. I know exactly what he's talking about and I know the last thing I want is to explain myself to him. He should know why I did it.
"You kissed me. Like, really kissed me."
Yep, I know. Please stop reminding me.
"You said I was boring," I give him a lame excuse. I can't exactly say I kissed you as a way to stand up for myself—it doesn't make much sense without the context.
"I was proving to you that I'm not."
He frowns skeptically beside me. "But you said you wanted to take it slow."
"So you complain for days that I won't kiss you, and when I finally do, you won't stop questioning me about it?" Changing the subject seems like the right thing to do here.
"Hey, I didn't say I didn't appreciate it-"
"You know, you should really stop underestimating me, Matthews. There's a lot more to me than you think."
"Oh, is there?" His voice rumbles to my side as he tugs my hand toward him, making me lunge his way. He catches me by the arm and pulls me close to him, positioned well for a ballroom dance, if it were to come up right now. "Why don't you show me?"
I laugh directly into his face at his audacity. You kiss a guy one time and suddenly they think you'll give all of yourself to them. Ridiculous.
"You don't just get to see all sides of me at once, big boy."
His face stiffens for a moment before he eggs me on further. "Some day."
I roll my eyes and start walking off toward my house without my hand latched to his.
"Hey! Wait up!" he calls out. Yeah, I'm not waiting up.
He finally meets back up with me when I get to my front door, my hand hovering over the doorknob.
"Michelle," he says, pulling me into a hug before I get the chance to open my door.
"What?" I ask, clearly annoyed.
"Keep kissing me like that. Maybe then I'll enjoy this game."
My system freezes and I register his words, realizing he may have just admitted that I'm a good kisser. It wouldn't surprise me if it were anyone else, considering I know what level I'm at in most things, but coming from Chase Matthews—the man who has probably kissed more people than he can count—it's kind of a huge compliment.
But with that same logic, he's probably just saying that to get me to kiss him some more. What a classic teenage boy.
"Whatever," I wave him off and open the door.
"Can't wait for our date tomorrow, babe!" he says as I step inside, releasing a girly giggle completely out of the blue. I almost allow myself to laugh at the ridiculous delivery, but I can't let him see me react positively to him—he would take it and run so far with it that I wouldn't be able to see him anymore.
Saturday, January 6th
As soon as I wake up the next day, I read the texts Isaac sent me the night before that I chose to ignore in the meantime. But now that I'm awake, I really have no choice but to read them.
There are only a few, but I really only need to read one of them to understand the point of why he sent them.
you humiliated me michelle, that's not cool. remember what i said about you being a good friend? i take that shit back. have fun with your fake ass boyfriend.
My eyes just fall in disbelief when I read it. He always has a way of making everything about him. Why do I keep allowing myself to put up with this?
I throw my phone back onto my bed and start cleaning to distract myself. After a few hours, the house looks practically spotless, all thanks to me since today seems the be the one day my parents want to sleep in.
And when I'm about to start doing my hair so that it's out of the way for the stupid date, I hear my door creak as somebody starts to open it. I glance over, making out the body of my five-year-old little sister stumbling into my room.
"Naomi," I groan out, knowing she's going to ask me to do something. "What's up?"
"Mickey, can I sleep in your room?" she asks, strolling over to me and pulling at my sweatpants.
I glance down at her, my head tilted over to the side and my eyebrows frowning in confusion. "Didn't you just wake up?"
Her eyes start to water as she responds with a whine. "I want more sleep. I had a bad dream."
I roll my eyes and pick her up, helping her onto my bed as she paints a huge grin onto her small, chubby face. Her bright silver eyes shine back at me as I tuck her in and play her favorite music from my phone to send her to sleep. Within a few minutes, I hear her breathing slow down as she drifts off and I can finally get back to what I was doing before she walked in.
I finish up with my hair after a couple of hours when I hear my parents out and about, finally getting out of their room.
I move inside the living room to tell them good morning, though it's already approaching noon as I give them each a hug.
"You look cute today," my mom tells me, even though all I've done so far was my hair. "Did you clean up the house?"
I nod with a smile. "Yeah, I woke up early so I thought I'd knock out some chores real quick."
"You truly are a blessing, sweetheart. Not many teenagers would be willing to clean at any point of the day."
"Yeah, thanks," Dad agrees for a moment, "But you forgot to take the trash out."
"Oh, I knew I forgot something-"
"Don't come up in here bragging about cleaning the house when you don't do it right," he continues, even though his point is already perfectly clear.
"Okay, Dad."
"And don't give me that attitude either-"
"Nick, stop," Mom coaches Dad out of his lecture when his temper starts to pick up. Someone must've woken up on the wrong side of the bed today.
I depart back to my room to escape the tension surrounding my dad today, finding Naomi sleeping peacefully where I left her. I almost forgot she was in my room—that could've been bad.
I move into my bed with her, glancing over Isaac's texts one more time. How can someone like him—always telling me to go out and live life—be so cruel to me after I do exactly that? Is he mad because he's not included for once? I can't base my entire life around him.
I suddenly remember why I threw my phone down before, because I do the exact same thing again, chucking it at the foot of my bed before I grab the remote to my TV and pull up a show to watch.
After getting through a couple of episodes, Naomi wakes up and tells me she's hungry, so I tell her to go ask Mom and Dad to make her something. She stomps out of my room as the main character of my show finds out a huge secret about her love interest. They fight until the girl walks away, but her lover pulls her back. They apologize and hug it out, about to kiss-
"Michelle!" my mom's voice calls out from the kitchen. I groan as I get up from my bed to meet her.
"Yes?"
"Your dad and I are going grocery shopping," she explains to me, pulling Naomi's shirt over her head as she whines out. "We're taking Naomi with us. Is there anything you need?"
I think for a second, but I can't pick anything out from my memory. "I think I'm good."
"Okay, well just call if you find something," she tells me. I nod her off and they all leave after a few minutes, so I start making myself something to eat for a ridiculously late lunch.
By the time I finish eating and watching the season finale of my show, I glance back down at my phone to realize it's already a quarter past seven.
I quickly turn the TV off and start actually getting ready for this absurd date. My phone buzzes with a text from my mom, who is now coming back from the park after grocery shopping with a five-year-old. I quickly respond and then start trying to pick out what to wear.
I first debate on a dress, but then swiftly turn that down as I remember who I'm going out with. I wouldn't dress up for Chase Matthews if he were the last man on earth.
After a while of debilitating, I finally decide on the new jumpsuit I bought with a gift card Grandma gave to me for Christmas. It's sleek and black—nice enough to go to a restaurant, but not too nice where it looks like I actually tried for Chase. Perfect.
As I'm pushing my legs through the pants of the suit, I hear a sudden ding of the doorbell. Is Chase already here? It's only-
It's already 7:45?
I rush out of my room, realizing how much I'd overestimated how good I was at getting ready in a time crunch.
I open the front door to reveal Chase on my front porch, glancing down at his phone. I zip myself up in the back while I talk to him—a skill I've learned over the years after being told so many times to "do it myself" when my parents were busy with Naomi.
"Hey, sorry I'm taking so long," I apologize, finally getting his attention. "I still need to put my makeup on and-"
"No, it's fine. Go... put your makeup on or whatever. I'll be out here," Chase says. What? It'll take me ten minutes to even pick the makeup I want to wear. He can't wait out here.
"No, come inside and wait," I insist. "Get out of the cold."
"I've already been waiting out here for ten minutes. I'll be fine." Ten minutes? He's been here for ten minutes and didn't bother to knock? Is he insane?
"I said get in here," I demand through my teeth as I grab his wrist. I pull him inside and make him sit on the couch while he obliges through it all. "I don't want you to get sick or anything."
"Aw, you care?"
"You wish. I still have to kiss you for some god-awful reason and I don't wanna get sick from it. I hate being sick."
The upset look on his face is enough for me, so I turn around and start heading back to my room through the hallway. When I get inside, I hurry up with my eye makeup and contour, also adding some highlighter. I don't usually wear a lot of makeup—only some mascara and blush every now and then—but this is a date. I suppose despite who it's with, I still want to look good.
I grab my phone and my purse as I slip into some nice platform sandals, and walk out of my room to meet Chase, who I see on his phone again.
"Okay, I'm ready," I announce to him when I approach the living room. His eyes finally rip away from his phone and I seem to succeed at catching his attention, the way his mouth practically falls open at the sight of me.