Ruin Me

27. Compete me

"You saw them swimming!" Mina cried her doe eyes wide with awe.

"I just sat in on their practise, it was nothing," I dismissed chewing the end of my paintbrush irritably.

"Try blending the colours of the sky again," Mina suggested. That was what was off! "And I don't think it was nothing, guys and girls can't be that close friends especially when they're straight and attractive."

"We can," I insisted, "besides there's four of them I can't be interested in all of them. Besides I would never pick."

"Trust me," Mina waggled her eyebrows playfully, "you can be interested in more than one guy."

"You're the one with the boyfriend here," I tutted concentrating on blending blue into grey in the background of the landscape scene I'd been working on all week.

"Not now obviously," Mina rolled her eyes, "but in the past I've had my eye on several possibilities at once. It's human instinct to test out a wide range of suitors until you find the right one."

"Human instinct is it?" I chuckled. Mina just rolled her eyes, she had a long smudge of blue paint across her cheek.

"Absolutely," she nodded confidently.

"What are you suggesting?" I didn't like the path this was taking.

"All I'm saying is that you should try playing the field," Mina held up her hands defensively, "spend some quality time with each of them and find out more about them. Explore the possibilities, what's the harm in that?"

If only she knew how much there was at stake here.

"I guess," I sighed.

"You're not still thinking about that ex are you?" She looked shocked.

I tried to tell myself it's because she didn't understand, she didn't know how intense and raw and fast paced our relationship was. But I couldn't convince myself because I knew she was right, I should be well over it by now.

"No," I denied forcefully, the less she knew about Jackson the better anyway, "it's about the boys, I'm scared if anything happens with one of them I'll lose the friendship of the others and four friendships means far more to me than one romance."

"I like that," Mina tilted her head to smile at me warmly, "okay I'll stop pestering you about it as I can see that you're doing this for unselfish reasons so you do whatever makes you happy."

"Thanks," I nodded tucking my paintbrush behind my ear and leaning back to look at my painting in a better light.

"Your sky looks a lot better," Mina added with a grin, "looks like everything's going your way now, eh?"

***

"Cara!" Grey caught up with me on my way to my dads office for dinner, "I was just looking for you."

"Whatever it is I didn't do it I swear," my voice was only slightly sarcastic.

"Nothing bad," Grey chuckled mussing up his hair absentmindedly, "there's a swimming gala this Friday, a last minute fixture, please say you can come."