BETTY

nine. july 1st

[ chapter nine. july 1st ]

"Okay, what if you start it with 'My Dearest Lily?'"

"No, last time I called her that I got a book to the face."

Betty hummed, tapping her pink and white ballpoint pen on her lip. "Okay. . . what about just 'Dear Lily' then? Plain and simple."

James puffed his cheeks out, frustrated. "No, that's boring," he argued, flopping onto his back and grabbing one of Betty's small pillows to hug against his chest. "I told you this was worthless - Evans would rather peel off her skin than go on a date with me."

"Maybe your first problem is that you call her Evans instead of Lily," Betty suggested.

"Everyone does that at Ho- boarding school," James said. "Lily hates me."

"That can't be true," Betty said, her eyes widening slightly. She found it hard to imagine that anyone could hate James. "You're very charming and kind, and funny, and. . . quite good-looking. I can't imagine anyone turning you down if you wrote them a nice romantic letter."

James sat up, a cocky smirk on his face. "You think I'm good-looking?" he asked. Betty turned pink and turned her head away so that she was looking out the window.

"No," she whispered. "Well, yes, but not in that way. I mean, I have eyes, you know, and I think anyone with eyes would agree. . . it's hard to deny something that's right in front of me, but that doesn't mean anything. . . I just meant that's probably what Lily thinks."

"You're rambling, Betty Boop," James said, coming up behind Betty where she sat at her desk. He placed his hands on her shoulders and Betty tensed up. She could feel his warm hands through her thin t-shirt.

"I thought I told you not to call me that," she mumbled shyly.

"Yes, but I think it's adorable."

"I think it's stupid."

"You can give me a nickname if you like," James offered, squeezing her shoulders lightly.

"Okay, I'm going to call you 'A Big Massive Idiot,'" Betty said, shrugging his hands off and turning around in her chair. James smirked.

"You sound like Lily," he teased. "Except she prefers 'arrogant toe-rag.'" Betty pressed her lips into a tight line.

It had been almost two hours of this - the back and forth teasing, James avoiding the subject at hand (his date with Lily), and Betty trying to get him back on track before the cycle repeated with James calling her 'Betty Boop,' which he thought was absolutely hilarious.

James, it turned out, did not know how to sit still. He had started sitting at Betty's desk while she sat on her bed with a piece of paper and a pen, prepared to write down drafts for James's letter, but then he had moved to the bed, and then to the floor, then back to the bed, then he started pacing around the room, then he got hungry and raided the fridge, then he went back to the bed with a glass of juice and a sandwich, and now he was standing behind Betty.

The original plan had been to invite Lily to a quaint little bistro a few miles away. So far, they had gotten nowhere. The paper was just as blank as it had been when they began.

Betty set her pen down. "Why did you agree to this if you were just going to be frustrating about it?" she asked. "I thought you liked Lily."

"Oh, I do," James said, trying to balance a tube of Betty's chapstick on his nose. "But you don't understand who Lily is. She won't be wooed by meaningless romantic gestures and me asking her on a date. I'd probably have to dump a bucket of grease on my head for her to like me."