LOUD MOUTH → PETER PARKER ✓

Chapter Twenty-Four: Lightning Storms And Korean Meatballs

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑: LIGHTNING STORMS AND KOREAN MEATBALLS

Callie waited anxiously on the street corner, her foot tapping against the curb with incessant strength. Her foot was going to start cramping up soon enough if she didn't stop, but at that moment she felt like she had when she was standing mere inches away from Harry: she couldn't make herself stop.

She didn't even know what she was going to say, really. She had called him on a whim, not really expecting him to agree to meet up with her, and yet he did. Rather enthusiastically, honestly. She was moments away from throwing in the towel and going home when she saw him walking towards her, his eyes fixated on her face. This was going to be harder than she thought.

She smiled at him as he got closer, though it was a tight-lipped, I'm-very-uncomfortable-already kind of smile.

He reached her, and suddenly she wished she had never been the one to break up with him. "Hey," he said with an awkward laugh, "hi. You, uh, you look amazing."

Well that made her heart skip a beat. But she brushed it off, this was definitely not the time for heart skipping beats. "Hi, um, thanks for meeting me." Callie said. "Sorry it was sort of spontaneous. It's just a reflection on the fact that I have no respect for anyone's time, but ignore that." she spoke sarcastically. Oh God, her loud mouth instincts were kicking in, and they never had to when she was around Peter. 

"No, spontaneous is...spontaneous is great. I love, uh, spontaneity."

They both trailed off uncomfortably. Callie hated this. She and Peter had never had this problem. No matter what, they had been able to talk to each other. Now it seemed like she had to speak in a completely different language for him to understand her.

She stood there for a moment before remembering what she had been told earlier. "Oh! I should tell you, Mayor Lewis wants you to, uh, tone it down a bit." she lowered her voice in the crowded street. "Spider-Menace is starting to freak people out, you know? So maybe, you know, lay low for a bit?"

He nodded. "Uh-huh, sure. Yeah. Totally."

There was another awkward pause, and Callie felt as though she'd much rather be at home right now then there. "I'm sorry, I don't—I don't know why I asked you to meet me. I've just had a really weird day, like, really strange, like Freaky Friday but much more poorly written, and now I just feel like I want to talk to someone, but I didn't really know who, and Gwen was busy and my mom is at work and Lily's off being the super cool badass she is doing shit I can barely—actually I have no clue what she's doing, but I guess I realized that you're...you're the only one I really ever talk to. So..."

She stopped, sighing. There was really nothing else to say. She stared at her shoes, unable to see the hopeless look on Peter's face. "Yeah. That's...That's all I had. I'll just—" she turned to go.

"Cal," Peter took her wrist before she could get more than a step away.

And suddenly she had more to say. "I want us to be friends, Peter. No more wedding cake complicated, just simple, easy friendship. I just...I just don't know if you want the same thing, and I'm too scared to ask it outright." she paused, frowning. "Although I guess I just did. Damnit, how the hell—"

Peter's eyebrows raised and he nodded unsurely. "Friends."

"Why do you say that like I just asked you if you wanted to look at my extensive Russian nesting dolls collection and you're too polite to say no?"

"No, no, friends is...friends is great." he said, but Callie could tell that that wasn't really what he thought. She had to remind herself that she broke up with him, and she would not go crawling back just because she got very, very close to Harry Osborn.