T W E N T Y - T H R E E : CONFIDING
THE MORNING AFTER the New Year party, Dustin, Parker, and Lewis were gathered around the table in a coffee shop each nursing a cup of dark coffee. They had all stayed up late into the wee hours in the morning, but somehow had the motivation to meet up at 11 a.m.
Lewis was the first to speak: “So have either of you talked to Mae?” When Parker and Dustin fixed him with the same look, he shrugged and glanced away, sipping his coffee. “What? Someone had to say it.”
Parker sighed, placing his coffee cup onto the table. “You’re right, Lewis. And yeah, I did have the chance to talk to Mae—”
“Thank God,” Lewis groaned.
“—and I think we’ve worked things out.” Parker’s eyes unconsciously narrowed in Dustin’s direction. They never had the chance to talk about Dustin kissing that other girl last night.
Dustin mindlessly stirred his coffee with a wooden stirring stick. A troubled look crossed his face. “I kissed another girl last night.” His confession was barely audible that Lewis genuinely asked him to repeat himself. Dustin repeated what he said, but only a little louder.
Silence. Then: “Why?” Lewis was gaping at him incredulously, like he'd been slapped in the face with disbelief.
“I can't kiss whoever I want?” Dustin challenged defensively. “Go on, Parker. I know you have something to say.”
Parker shook his head. “I just… you looked at me while you were doing it.”
“No, I was looking at both of you,” Dustin grumbled.
“Can someone please elaborate?” Lewis cut in. He arched one of his brows high as he awaited an answer.
“I was talking to Mae when they started counting down,” Parker told him, his gaze steady and an eerie calm on his best friend. “And Dustin saw us.”
“And then you kissed her!” Dustin exclaimed. He didn't seem to care that half a dozen heads turned in their direction, whether hungry for tea, or plain curious, it didn't matter. He laid his hands flat on the table, leaning forward towards Parker. “Don't accuse me of kissing another girl when you were kissing the one I wanted.”
Parker scoffed. “Can we not get into this conversation again—?”
“Again?” Lewis gasped.
“—Don’t be like this, Dustin. We promised at the Christmas party we weren't going to let girls get in the way of us.”
“And you also said that you were going to lay off her,” Dustin pressed in almost a growl. He needed more coffee.
“Spoiler alert, dumbass: I didn't kiss her.”
Lewis let out a low whistle as Dustin flinched away. He sat in his seat normally now, casting his gaze away from Parker's.
Parker went on, “She and I both saw you going in to kiss that girl, and when I looked at her… man, Mae looked like she'd seen a ghost. A goddamn ghost because the guy she liked was making fucking eye contact with her as he kissed another, random girl who he will never associate himself with ever again. Her heart shattered and I saw it in her face, so I thought about something. I knew you saw us, but I tried fixing it.
“So I—I told her to look away from you and pretend to kiss me. It seemed to distract her somewhat, but she was still haunted by it.” Parker took a sip of his coffee, and swallowed hard. “And then I told her to disappear… so you wouldn't go looking for her.”
No one spoke for awhile, simply drinking their coffees. There was a strangled feeling between the three of them. They've all had some kind of relationship with Mae; they all cared about her. But it was just a matter of who would end up with her. Who she would choose, if she chose any one of them at all.
“I didn't want to kiss her,” Dustin admitted quietly. “That girl. She was just someone I saw around school. And when I… When I saw you and Mae smiling and laughing, I kind of lost it. All sense of thought just flew out the window and was replaced by this terrible jealousy.” He didn't have the courage to look at either Lewis or Parker.
“They started the New Years countdown and I needed a distraction—no, I needed to see what would happen between you two. I kissed that girl and I wanted to see how you two reacted. At first, you both kind of just stared, then you glanced back at her and I thought you both were kissing.”
Lewis cleared his throat, gaining the other two's attention. “And you regret what you did?”
“What do you think?”
“Then you need to tell her that,” said Lewis. “You tell her that you're sorry. You talk to her, because Parker isn't about to swoop in anytime soon when he's already established a friend zone with her.”
Dustin nodded his head, swallowing. “I know.”
HOW WOULD ONE go about apologizing to someone for kissing another person when they weren't even together? The question haunted Dustin's mind all the way home. The three of them split up as soon as the clock struck 1 o'clock, and he decided to just come straight back home.
The manor was empty as usual, but he found his mother perched on a stool at the island in the kitchen. A thick book sat laid out before her, her eyes intent on the pages. An empty, dirty plate was inches away from her with a matching set of utensils left on the surface.
She lifted her head up, a gentle smile to her son in greeting. “I was wondering where you disappeared to. I thought you'd be fully knocked out until 3 because of that party.”
Dustin tried to smile. “Yeah. I was just meeting with a couple of friends.”
His mother frowned, patting the stool beside her. “Why the long face, sweetie? Something going on?”
Dustin begrudgingly took the stool and let his mouth sag into a frown.
She scanned his face, and a small smile creeper back onto her face. “Is someone having girl problems?” When he didn't answer right away, she chuckled to herself. “No need to be so dramatic, Dustin.”
He grunted, “It's nothing.”
“Again, no need to be so dramatic.”
“Mom? How would I apologize to a girl I liked about kissing another girl?”
His mother arched a brow. “Hm?”
“I mean,” he stammered, “it's a long story. But I like this girl, and according to Parker, the girl likes me back. I thought she and Parker were hitting it off, so I wanted to see their reaction when I kissed someone. So I kissed another girl.”
“Was she someone you knew?”
He shook his head. “No. It was just some random girl. Turns out that she and Parker weren't even kissing in the first place. He was just trying to distract her from the douche move I was pulling.”
His mother furrowed her brows, puckering her lips in thought. “That's a bit tough. What's she like, this girl?”
A smile flitted across his lips. “She’s sweet when she wants to be. She's a really talented painter, too. She cares a lot about me… Well, she cared a lot about me.” He sighed, “I made a dumb mistake. I just want to right what's wrong, but I'm not sure how to without making it worse.”
His mother snorted, snickering to herself. “You definitely made a dumb move.”
“Not helping, mom,” he glared.
“Okay, okay,” she sobered. “What you do, my darling Dustin, is go to her—”
“Dorm?”
“—right. Dorm. You go to her dorm as soon as possible and tell her you need to talk to her. You apologize. You tell her the truth. Girls like guys with humility, the kinds who can actually hold their promises of being better. So after you promise to not ever do that again, you follow through.” That's what Lewis had said.
Dustin nodded, jotting down mental notes. “And that's it?”
“Well, unless you want to get her flowers or something. I wouldn't want flowers since they're so perishable, but maybe if she's a talented artist, she'll appreciate a good quality bouquet.”
“Should I go now?”
She shrugged, slipping a bookmark in between the pages of her book. “If you want. But for my service, you must pay me.”
Dustin groaned, scowling at her. “I'm broke.”
“Then you're just going to have to bring this girl home,” his mother countered smoothly.
He pursed his lips together. “Fine. Fine. I have to get going now.”
“Mhm, go get 'em tiger.”
“Mom.”
“Don't you have somewhere to be?”
“Thanks,” he said in goodbye, fishing his keys from his pocket. He jogged back out of the house and slid into the driver's seat of his car. The first problem he was going to solve: where the nearest flower shop was.
Turns out, there wasn't one too far away from the school. He had never noticed the small shop cooped up in the corner of the equally small shopping center before, but there was always a first everything. He had no knowledge about flowers whatsoever, but the woman working there was kind enough to help pick out a nice arrangement.
He then headed straight for Mae's dorm. The walk up to it was a tad nerve-racking, but he gripped his hands around the stems of the flowers only a bit harder, trying not to crush them.
His right hand shook as he curled it into a fist and knocked on the door. There was giggling behind the door along with muffled whispers and footsteps.
Icelyn and Joanna appeared before him dressed in monogrammed pajamas with cucumber face masks on.
They spotted the flowers. “We're flattered Dustin—”
“Come on, Icelyn,” he urged. “Where is she?”
The two of them exchanged knowing glances before Joanna broke to him the news: “She left to take her mom back home. You just missed her.”
a/n: and I think I'm on a roll! Well, it's probably because we're so close to the end of this book!!! And Dustin's having regrets??