Imperfectly Perfect

17.

                 

"Shawn," Alfonso rolls his eyes, "I never was your man."

Shawn looks over at me and whispers, "He just doesn't want to admit our relationship because he didn't want too much publicity shining on us, he's actually rather shy, you know."

"I am not shy," Alfonso retorts, indignantly.

Alfonso looks at me, exclaiming this, I rest my head on his shoulder as he looks down at me and presses his lips against my temple. I feel his gaze linger on me for a moment longer as Shawn continuously clears his throat.

"Are we— over?"

"Shawn, do we have to do this right now?"

"Yes," Shawn winks at me, much to my amusement and to Alfonso's distaste, "our relationship is an important part of my well being!"

"We should've never invited you."

I roll my eyes, poking Alfonso in the ribcage as I smile at our friends, before whispering in his ear, "be nice," admonishing him.

"Yeah Alfonso, be nice..."

A moment pauses just as Leah, Alice, and Kayla reach the top of the hill, out of breath, "Your freaking best friend, Alfonso," Leah rolls her eyes.

"He fucking sprinted here all the way from town center when we were having a nice lunch and then he gets up and fucking sprints all the way. As we try to keep up behind him," Leah mutters some curses under her breath as she rests her hands on her knees, bending over, panting as she attempts to catch her breath.

"My best friend is amazing, thank you very much," Alfonso remarks.

"I'd say so..."

Shawn replies, as he quirks an eyebrow running around with a phone — my phone!

Suddenly, he yells out of nowhere, "Who's crusty old man?"

"HEY!"

I rip myself out of Alfonso's grasp and proceed to lunge at Shawn, as I do, yelling at him, "That's none of your business, Shawn, give me my phone back!"

I tackle him and as we both go down I hear his chin hit roughly on the concrete.

"Ouch," Shawn mutters as I quickly get off of him and slip my phone in my pocket before turning to him and searching him for injuries.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I ask him for what seems to be probably the hundredth time in the past hour, "Ari, calm down, I'm okay, you're acting like a mother hen, being kinda obsessive over me, it's freaking me out, breathe."

"So what were you guys doing here before we all crashed?"

I sit back down, letting myself relax against Alfonso's chest once more. When I do, Alice nudges my knee with her foot, sitting down, leaning back as she supports herself putting all of her weight on one hand as she half lay-half sat on the ground in front of me.

I ignore her for a moment, obviously weirded out, "Do you know how unsanitary it is to sit on the floor? How much bacteria is on the ground, probably infesting, finding warmth underneath the palm of your hand?"

"Ari, you need to breathe, and not give us random, gross facts about germs and bacteria?"

Kayla, but it's so gross, Alice needs to know what the facts and endangerments are before she go all willy-nilly and just rests her hand on the ground with all the bacteria down there.

"Anyways," Shawn stretches out the word, longer than necessary, "what exactly were y'all doing before we arrived?"

"Ran," Leah snorts, rolling her eyes.

"Well," I pause, smiling lovingly at Alfonso, "he was— "

Alfonso clears his throat and grabs ahold of my hand; "I was asking her to go on a date with me."

"Well what'd you say," Shawn asks in a valley girl accent.

"Yeah," Kayla agrees with him, "reenact it, or make changes that you would've wanted to say when you first asked Ari out."

Alfonso turns to me, "You in?"

"I am if you are."

He does some version of a very strange, creepy smile at me, or a smirk, I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen next, but I don't think I'm gonna like it.

"I swear Alfonso, if you serenate me with song right now I'm going to slap you."

"O—"

Leah interrupts him, "Let the poor man speak, he should make his own decisions about how he wants to ask you out!"

"Elle, I wanna take you somewhere... a playful glint ignites in his eyes, the same one that appeared when we were checking things off my bucket list. The only thing I could think of is oh no, what is this crazy boy plotting in his head.

"What're y'all waiting for?"

Alfonso asks us, turning around, looking back at us with an expression on his face matching his speech exactly.

What were we waiting for?