Guilty Pleasure

5. Man-pride

Friday afternoon, Annie, Meredith, Iris, and I were lounging on Meredith’s bed, eating more brownies than we probably should. We were all too exhausted from school to think of anything more exciting to do, so we had just opted for talking. Unfortunately for me, much of the conversation still seemed to revolve around the topic of Ben and I.

We’d barely seen each other since the impromptu “date” Annie had set up for us Monday afternoon, but he’d continued to text me constantly, and I could feel us becoming good friends quickly. The bet had barely been mentioned during the week; we spent most of our time discussing random topics.

My friends, however, could not get over the fact that we were talking.

“I’m surprised you’re here with us, Elle,” Meredith commented offhandedly, in between taking bites of a brownie. “I honestly thought you’d go with your boyfriend today.”

Iris giggled. “Or are you guys going out later?”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” I repeated for what must’ve been the millionth time in the day alone. “And he won’t be, either.”

“Elle has a crush!” Annie chanted, completely disregarding my comment. “Who’d have thought?”

“And he’s a senior,” Iris added. “A cute senior.”

I sighed in exasperation. “Guys, I’ve repeated this millions of times. We. Are. Friends. And if we’re talking about hot seniors, you guys have been so busy teasing me that you’ve forgotten Annie – and something definitely happened between her and James.”

To my surprise, Annie’s cheeks were tinged light red, and she was looking down, avoiding our gazes. She opened her mouth as though she was going to say something, but then closed it, preferring to fiddle with her hands. She had a small smile on her face.

Iris turned to her eagerly, clearly about to make a comment, when Meredith cut her off. “Yeah, but Annie’s…Annie. Nothing new there.”

“Hey!”

“You, on the other hand…” Meredith smiled knowingly. “You haven’t had a real crush on a guy in years.”

 I was going to say that I still didn’t have a crush on a guy, but I had already repeated it so many times that I knew once more would make absolutely no difference. My friends could be ridiculously stubborn when they had their mind set on something – which, in this case, was getting me to hook up, and preferably go out with Ben.

I had kept Ben updated on my friends antics, and he found everything they said much more amusing than I thought he should. He’d even hinted at wanting to meet them some day, although why he would want to do that I couldn’t imagine. Apparently, James had tried to tease him with me as well, but as soon as Ben had reiterated by teasing him with Annie, he had preferred to shut up and change the topic.

My phone, which was on the bed, rang once to signal a text message. I grabbed it quickly so my friends wouldn’t see just in case.

“Is it Ben?”

“Answer him!”

“So cute!”

“Guys!” I rolled my eyes, responding to the text and throwing the phone back onto the bed. “Relax. It’s just my mom. God, your excitement over my supposed crush is honestly worrying, you know.”

“We’re just being good friends.” Meredith beamed at me, and I scowled back at her.

“If you were good friends, you’d let me have another friend in peace and not try to make me die of mortification every time I even talk to him.”