𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄

[𝟑𝟏] 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐩𝐢𝐝

"Grace, what's taking so long?" Annie whines. Annie leans down, her lips close to my ear. "You need saving right?"

"Yeah, I think she kinda got the wrong idea," I reply.

I look up at her, offering her my hand. Annie grabs it, pulling me up.

"Hello?! DID YOU HEAR ME?! We're busy here!" Lola- ahem- I mean, Lily screams.

"Sorry, Loki, we're hard of hearing." Annie smiles, ushering me towards a booth. I don't see everyone immediately because my vision is still blurry from the whole Lily thing.

Don't get me wrong, Lily's always been confident. In middle school pretty much everyone knew her as "Big Balls Bily". Don't ask where the nickname originated from, all I know is that Tahlia was in the middle of a weird phase when she came up with the name.

So anyway, Lily's always been a confident girl. She's always said what she thinks, and she never hesitated to react negatively to someone or something. But the way she went in for that kiss?

I don't care about the kiss. I care about the fact that she didn't even ask if I was okay with what she did and was going to do. I'm straight. And she didn't even care to ask me if I wasn't. She just went for it.

Was she even being genuine?

Easton slid out of the booth, his hand on my back as he helped me into the side opposite Sam's friends.

Speaking of Sam, I don't see him, seeing as I'm yet to take in my surroundings, but I can sure as hell smell him. He must have been the guy waving at me earlier, just like I thought.

His aftershave is the most prominent of the mix of smells. The smells including his cologne and said aftershave.

He probably shaved this morning.

Or he just likes to smear aftershave all over his face before leaving the house.

I hear Annie and her boyfriend's muffled voices but I'm too focused on my own thoughts to be paying their voiced ones any attention.

I'm pulled from said thoughts when I'm pulled into Sam's lap. I crane my head to look at the gorgeous boy to find a little smile on his face.

"What are you doing?" I mutter, blowing hair out of my face. He just shakes his head, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear as I turn to face Ellie.

She smiles sweetly at me, waving. I smile back as I feel Sam's chin meet my shoulder. His arms wrap around my waist securely and the pressure that comes from his arms against my tummy reminds me of the fact that I've yet to eat today.

The thought struck me just as I make eye contact with Lily as she walks out of the cafe, reminding me of what just happened.

Oh my fucking god, I'm going to cry.

I shift in Sam's lap and he tenses briefly before meeting my gaze.

"Yes, ba- Gracie?" He eyes me worriedly and I frown.

"I don't feel good and I don't want to worry Annie," I whisper as quietly as possible. He kisses my cheek, nodding before he says, "I'll take you home."

He says something to Annie and Easton and they get up as we start to slide out of the booth. Sam's big hand is wrapped around my small one as he says his goodbyes.

"Say, bye-bye." He says it like he's trying to teach me manners. He's looking down at me, waiting for me to say goodbye. Is it just me or is this giant getting even taller?

"Bye-bye."

I rub my eyes as Sam guides me out of the cafe.

"Please tell me you don't have a boner right now." I gasp, inching away from him like his dick is some kind of disease.

He looks down at his crotch. His eyes widen, and he tries to push me out in front of him to hide the fact that he is indeed of the male species.

"I might."

"Sam!" I whack his arm as I shake my head at him, my eyes wide like saucers.

"What?! You moved weird in my lap!" He defends, his arms up in mock surrender. I smirk at this and his face falls. "Gracelyn-fucking-Rieder, don't you dare."

My smirk widens as he stops walking. I start walking backward, my eyes holding his. "Do I make you horny, baby?"

"Grace?"

"Hm?" I grin as he starts charging toward me.

"SAY GOODBYE TO TIKTOK, YOU ADDICT!" My smile falters as he charges into me, throwing me over his shoulder as he reaches into my back pocket and pulls out my phone

"SAM, DON'T YOU DARE DELETE TIKTOK!"

❛❜

𝐒 𝐀 𝐌

"Grace." I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose as she chokes out a loud sob. I reach to pat her back to calm her coughing but she shoves me away, sobbing louder. "Grace, you can just make a new one."

She turns to me, her mascara smudged, both of her middle fingers up in the air as she coughs loudly. "FUCK YOU, YOU SOUR CREAM CONTAINER! THAT APP WAS ALL I HAD GOING FOR ME!"

I laugh loudly, running a hand through my hair as I squat down to get to her level. "First of all, my love, you're also white. If anything, you're whiter than I am. And secondly, blubs? I have all of your passwords saved, and you have all of your passwords saved, too."

She sniffles, running her hand through her hair and flipping it to the side, making it look a little messier. "How do you have my passwords?"

"When you were buying more iCloud storage, you added me or whatever. We share the same thingy."

"Oh." She murmurs, looking up at me through her eyelashes that she swears are so short. If anything, her eyelashes are perfect. I personally think mine are too long but to her, they're everything but too much.

"Sammy?" Before I can say anything, she continues with, "I'm sorry I called you a sour cream container."

"It's okay, you were just upset," I say, my voice something of a whisper. I cup her face and kiss her forehead, my lips lingering before I decide to stand up. I hold my hand out to her, grinning.

"You're so hot." She sighs, shaking her head. I laugh loudly as she puts her hand in mine and I pull her up.

"Thank you, Gracie. You're quite gorgeous yourself." I chuckle. Her hand is still in mine as she starts walking ahead of me and I'm about to take my hand away from hers to...

"Sam," she cranes her head to look at me, "if you fucking grab my ass, I'm kicking you out."

I frown, pulling my hand away from hers as she jumps away from me, almost like she senses my next move. I poke her hard in the rib, earning a yelp from her.

"Why did I know you were gonna do that?!" She growls, smacking my hand away before punching me in the gut. Now, I must admit that she's an amazing puncher. Her punches hurt. Well... so, I've heard. I honestly hardly feel it when she punches me. Grace claims it's because my pain receptors are fucked up.

I think my pain receptors are just fine, but what she says goes.

"Stop staring at me like a turkey dinner, nasty."

I smile down at her, inching closer to her. She rolls her bottom lip between her perfect teeth, her eyes on everything else in her room but me with her arms behind her back.

"Do you remember when you had braces?" I ask as I pull her closer to me, my hands locating her waist. She retracts her arms from behind her back, folding them under her boobs.

"I guess? They were the only thing you ever pointed out to me for three years. I had to get them taken off because you were starting to irritate me." Hey, that last part's a joke.

"Hm..." I nod, leaning down, eyeing her lips. "I always wondered what it would be like to kiss you with braces... is that weird? I just wondered if it would feel different." She gulps when my lips brush hers. "But you know... I think if I ever did kiss you when you had braces and kissed you again after you got them taken off, I'd like kissing you without them better than with them."

Her gaze holds mine, "Why... why do you say that?"

"Because that way..." I start, repositioning my hands on her waist. "There'd be nothing in my way."

She goes to wrap her arms around my neck but instead I throw her on the bed, earning a shriek from her. I start tickling her sides while smiling mischievously as she squirms beneath me, trying for the life of her to get free.

She's obviously playing the "Samuel" card but I don't mind it as much as I usually do because all I want to see is her laugh and smile like this.

She'd looked like she was going to cry when we were leaving and even when we got to her house. Which made me feel like if I left the way I planned to after dropping her off, she'd start bawling her eyes out.

And even the thought of her crying made my chest tight and my throat dry.

She deserves smiles like these on her face.

"I love you," I say. I don't mean for it to come out but it does. My fingers stop moving against her sides and she sits up as I stand up. She's sitting with her knees folded under her, her teeth digging into her perfectly pink bottom lip.

I groan, running a hand down my face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to just say that. I mean- I mean it but... I didn't mean to say it. I know how you feel about-"

She sits up on her knees so she can meet my eyes. Now, she's almost as tall as me standing on her knees like this. But she's still a... what does she call it? Dwarf? Yeah, she always says how she's a dwarf.

'Grace, stop it, you're height is fine.'

She'd pushed me hard in the chest before slumping down onto the couch.

"I'm a dwarf, Jack. Shorter than a dwarf. So, go flex your tallness at your beanstalk or whatever."

I almost laugh at the memory but the only thing I want to laugh at is how she's squishing my checks between her hands before pressing her forehead against mine.

"Listen here, you little poop." Her face surprisingly stays straight as she says that last word. "You can say it if you want. If anything, I like it when you say it. It just proves to me that you've always loved me."

I nod, wrapping my arms around her waist, and pull her closer to me, kissing her cheek as I hug her.

"And Sam?"

"Hm?" I mumble into her neck as she pets my hair.

"I love you more."

"Liar."

"What do you mean 'liar'?" She asks, pulling away and moving to wrap her arms around my waist. "I do love you. A lot."

"But you don't want me." I frown, playing with the ends of her hair with my hands still around her waist. "You don't want me to be your boyfriend."

"Yes, I do." She tells me. "I just don't want to hurt you. I'm not all better yet, Sam. And if I get sick again, I don't want to put that on you. I saw how you were when you were trying to help get rid of... it. And I don't know..." I feel her fidget with her hands against my lower back. "You don't deserve that."

I furrow my eyebrows, "Deserve what?"

"You don't deserve to go through that again. I don't want to see you put all your energy into me. I want you to experience the part of being an adult I can't experience because of Bertha."

I snort at the use of "Bertha." Bertha's what we named her ED because she started getting annoyed with the term "eating disorder." She said it always made her feel like she was weak and had a disease. Which I agree; it sounds terrible.

"Gracie, I've been in this a hundred percent since high school. And because of the fact that I know, I'll always worry about you. I'll always want to be around you because I need to know you are okay. So whether or not I'm with you, you'll always be my top priority. Unless I find someone else, which would be absolutely absurd because..." I pull back from our embrace, looking her up and down. "I mean, there's already an amazing girl right here."

I hear her sniffle and that's when I let my eyes meet her. I laugh softly, cupping her face in my hands. "Awe, don't cry, sweetheart."

"I'm amazing?" She smiles goofily despite the tears clouding her eyes.

"Of course."

"And you're always worrying about me?"

I nod.

She smacks me. "You're stupid."

I stare at her for a moment, completely confused as to what just happened.

Mood swing?

Period?

Grace?

Yeah, just Gace being Grace.

Then she tilts my head to kiss me, her fingers resting on my jaw.

"And my boyfriend," she smiles against my lips. "You're stupid... and my boyfriend."