The rest of the night was pleasantly spent talking, joking, eating Thai food - ice cream for dessert - and a lot of smiling. The looming anxious concern went through Peter's head multiple times as the night was beginning to wind down: What if he tries to kiss me?
Sure, Peter kind of hated himself for thinking so confidently that someone he liked wanted to kiss him, but he was genuinely scared. When the two rounded the corner down Peter's hallway, he started sweating.
The thing was, Peter wanted to kiss Caden, but he also didn't want everything to crumble to pieces especially not after a successful first date.
Caden stopped a few doors away from Peter's, smiling down at the boy. "I had a really nice time. I hope you did, too."
Peter chuckled, meeting the boy's brightly lit blue eyes. "Yeah, it was great. We should do it again sometime."
"Peter Parker," Caden started, a smirk tugging at his lips, "are you asking me out on a second date?"
Peter could've sworn he turned as red as his sweater in that moment. He looked down at their feet, smiling at Caden's voice that was full of faux questioning and a huge grin. "Well, only if you'd want to..."
"Of course I'd want to," Caden answered, a hand trailing down the boy's arm until he gently held his hand.
Peter glanced upwards to see Caden smiling down at their intertwined fingers. The older boy settled his gaze onto Peter's face. "Do you want to come in? I kind of don't want May to ask a million questions right away, you know?"
"Sure thing." Caden broke their eye contact, turning towards Peter's apartment door. He dragged Peter along, hand gently holding his.
"I liked talking with you, by the way, even though looking at you is great, too. You're pretty cute," Peter echoed Caden's statement from earlier in the night, laughing softly as the taller boy's ears reddened. "You know, one of these days I have to walk you home to repay your multiple favors."
"Maybe after our next date," Caden replied absentmindedly, shooting Peter a wink that passed by so quickly that he questioned whether he had imagined it.
Peter drew his hand away from Caden's, reaching into his pocket to grab his keys. Unlocking the door, Peter heard footsteps approaching the doorway rather quickly.
Opening the door, neither boy was surprised to see both May and Harper waiting for them. The women smiled at them, sipping their coffee as Peter locked the door behind him.
"How was dinner?" May greeted them, having to suppress her wide smile as she saw Peter and Caden's hands brushing each other.
"It was great," Peter answered, hand brushing Caden's as he went to put his hands in his pockets. He looked to the other woman at the table, smiling. "Hey, Harper."
"Peter, I don't see you for about a month and you get yourself a boyfriend," Harper commented with an impressed smirk, pulling her dark hair to the side. Peter sharply inhaled, shifting on his feet.
He glanced towards May, her eyes already on him and a bright grin on her face. He hummed a response, dragging his eyes over to Harper's dark ones. Starting in the direction of his room, Peter was dragged back to the kitchen area after hearing Caden speak.
"I'm Caden Young, by the way," the boy politely shook hands with Harper, smiling at her. "I've heard about you from Peter, you're Harper."
"I am," she raised her eyebrows at Peter before looking back to Caden, "Hopefully all good things said?"
Caden immediately nodded his head, causing May to crack a smile. "Yes, only good things. Like, how you make May happy and that makes Peter happy."
Sensing where the conversation would head from the look the women gave each other, Peter grabbed Caden's wrist, dragging him to his bedroom. "We'll be in my room!" he called down the hall, shutting the door as soon as they were inside.
Caden stood in the middle of Peter's room, rocking back and forth on his feet slowly. "Oh, uh... you can sit on the bed or at my desk if you want," Peter offered him a smile, looking around his room in a self conscious way.
"Harper seems nice," Caden commented, spinning in Peter's desk chair to face the boy as he spoke.
"She is," Peter sat on his bed, wiping his hands on his bedsheets nervously. "I didn't mean to freak out, it's just..."
"Boyfriend?" Caden's blue eyes and his upturned lips radiating off an understanding vibe, making Peter instantly relax. "I get it, don't worry. I mean, it's only been one date. I don't think it's a crime to be unsure of a label for us yet."
Peter agreed with a nod, smiling as he lifted his eyes to meet Caden's. Peter cleared his throat before speaking, pulling both of them into another lighthearted conversation while Harper and May shared one of their own in the kitchen.
-
The following days at school were spent with four pairs of eyes on Caden and Peter. It wasn't ever explicitly mentioned between the two but neither talked about their date to the others. It was something just for them.
Lunch came and went with questioning eyes that turned more desperate by the day. The couple would just look at each other during conversations and share a smile, making Jackie especially infuriated.
"So, are you guys ever gonna tell us about this date that happened Saturday?" Jackie snapped at lunch, the table cut off from their previous conversation and silencing at her question. She looked directly at Caden next to her then glanced at Peter across the table, her eyebrows raised. "After all, we did kinda push you guys together. Right, everyone?"
Reese, Ned, and MJ all had similar expressions on their face. Their widened eyes were telling, they had no desire to get between Jackie and her goal of revealing the details of her best friend's love life. "You're on your own, I'm not getting involved. That's a death wish," Reese snorted, shaking his head as he continued to eat his lunch silently.
Caden cleared his throat, glancing towards Peter who was already looking at him expectantly. "We just... went to eat and got ice cream afterwards."
"Not that big of a deal," Peter added, trying to relax Jackie's mood with a casual shrug. Caden nodded, pointing to Peter as he looked at his friends, clearly agreeing with him.
Jackie slammed her hands onto their cafeteria table, a loud smack emitting from the impact. Several heads turned their way, her friends jumping at her outburst. "Are you kidding me?!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air at the two boys. She turned quickly to face Caden, his blue eyes wide and his mouth was open in shock. "You spend weeks making this boy an adorable sweater to ask him out, and then you guys go out for dinner and ice cream?"
Caden looked helplessly to Peter, the curls on the brunet's head bouncing as he ran a hand through them. Caden gulped, chuckling nervously as Jackie didn't break her stare. "Well, actually... Peter suggested the restaurant and knew the nearest ice cream shop."
Jackie let out a slow, defeated sigh, running her hands down her face while letting out an exasperated groan. At that point, Ned interjected himself into the conversation, drumming his fingers on the table out of the nerves that Jackie projected onto her friends.
"So, is that it?" he questioned the couple, a disappointed tinge mixing in with his short query. "Nothing else is happening between you two? You're just friends again?"
Peter looked down at his pitiful portion of chicken nuggets from the school, turning slowly to Ned with furrowed brows. "Well, we haven't really discussed labels yet because we don't feel the need to use one yet." He glanced at Caden, his doubts of speaking for both of them disappearing as he was faced with the blue eyed boy's grin.
Ned cracked a smile, happy for Peter's own happiness as he watched his best friend lift his lips into a small smile. "What I'm hearing is... there's going to be future dates?" He tried to contain his excitement, his once small grin widening.
Caden and Peter smiled at the boy, their cheeks flushing since their own excitement easily matched Ned's. With the tone of Ned's voice, Jackie lifted her head, leaning on MJ's shoulder as she watched the other couple's interactions in quiet peace. Even Reese pulled off his headphones, allowing them to hang around his neck, noticing as the table had their eyes on Caden and Peter - who had their eyes on each other.
"Yeah, we talked about having a next date a bit on Saturday," Caden answered, reluctantly dragging his eyes away from Peter to face Ned. The boy's wide smile at the couple made Caden's pink cheeks morph into a deeper red.
"I was thinking maybe Friday, if you're available, that is," Peter spoke up, a hesitant smile playing on his lips and Caden glanced over at the sound of his voice.
Caden immediately nodded, not missing a beat. "Friday's perfect." He titled his head with a grin on his lips, watching Peter's shy smile widen into his real, genuine one.
The silence from Jackie didn't last long as she piled trash onto both Ned and Caden's lunch trays. "Hey, can you guys go to the garbage cans?" She looked behind her, wincing at the full cans that were closest. "Darn," she dragged out the word, resisting the urge to smile as she watched Caden roll his eyes, "guess you'll have to go across the cafeteria. Have a nice trip, boys."
Sighing, they stood up, grabbing their lunch trays. Jackie waved them away, smirking at Peter once he was alone with her, Reese, and MJ. "You two kissed, didn't you?" Jackie latched onto the small boy's fading blush and vulnerability with purpose.
Peter blinked, surprised at the girl's widening smile that kind of terrified him despite her dimples showing. "What- no, we didn't," his eyebrows furrowing and the crease between his brows more prominent as he was thoroughly confused.
Reese let out a long sigh, throwing his headphones into his bag before cutting off another start of multiple questions from Jackie. "Can you not freak him out, please?" he asked of her, his voice tired with the conversation even though it had barely started. "She's just saying that it's a lot more... intimate between you guys, or at least, it seems that way to us."
Peter stayed in his confused state, going back over their last conversations in his head to try to pick and choose the points of intimacy that his friends noticed that could lead them to believe he and Caden had kissed. MJ sighed, smacking her hand against her forehead at his obliviousness.
"Unless Caden has kept it a huge secret so far, I don't think that giant has ever kissed a boy," Jackie thought aloud, humming as she tried to remember an instance where he had shared a first kiss of a boy with her. "Plenty of lady kisses, though, so he's kind of an expert." She laughed, unable to remain serious at her own joke.
Peter let out a weak laugh, watching as Reese shot Jackie a look. "I wouldn't worry about those girls, Pete, that was his denial stage," he explained, waving a hand in the air to convey the emphasis on it not being a big deal at all.
Before anyone else could speak up, MJ turned to Peter, pointing a finger at him. "What you're gonna do is not be a total loser on your next date," she advised him in her version of a caring tone which to Peter sounded more similar to Reese's done-with-everything tone. Nonetheless, he lifted his head to look at her, giving her a thumbs up.
"You will be perfectly cool, and you won't mess this up, trust me. But, if you do need anything," she paused, her eyes lifting to the cafeteria ceilings as she smiled ever so slightly, "you can call me because... I care about you."
"Now, was that so hard?" Peter joked, MJ being very thankful for the lightheartedness tone that settled over the table. "Thanks, MJ, I really appreciate that." They smiled at each other. Well, Peter smiled brightly at MJ who looked downward after offering a small grin to the boy.