the other side of us | ✓

1.19 | all my friends say

"If we're going to do this," Charlotte said slowly, "there need to be some ground rules."

"Absolutely."

"First rule is that you aren't allowed to mention my dad. At all."

Devin sighed and rolled over on Charlotte's bed to look at her. "You still haven't told him?"

Charlotte gave Devin a hard look. "It hasn't come up."

"How could it have not come up? All you have to do is say 'hey, remember that time you were arrested? Yeah. That's my dad.' How is that hard?"

Ash threw a chocolate at Devin. "Be sensitive. It can't be easy to tell your boyfriend that your dad is the one who arrested him."

Charlotte rolled her eyes and turned back to her laptop, adding another sentence to the open document. It was a Sunday, which meant that the shop was closed. It was one of the few days during the week that Charlotte was able to see her friends without worrying about her business. Devin and Ash had come over to study while Charlotte worked on a paper for one of her classes, but the conversation had veered towards her relationship with Mason, as it usually did these days.

"Max really does want to meet him," Ash said now, trying to draw Charlotte's attention back to their conversation.

"We should bring him to movie night this week," Devin said, not looking up from her phone.

"This week?" Charlotte asked. "Don't you think that that's a little soon?"

"He's meeting Max, not the parents. Which, you should also work up to," Ash added, throwing her hands up in defense. "Just saying."

"Fine, I'll see if he's free."

"Oh, please. You know that if you ask, he'll clear his entire schedule for you," Devin pointed out. "The boy is courteous to a fault, especially when it involves you."

Charlotte rolled her eyes again and spit out the first comeback that she could think of: "Shut up."

"You guys have been dating for what, a month? And we still never see him outside of work."

"She's right," Ash added, stealing a chip from the bag in Devin's lap. "It's weird that he never hangs out with us."

It wasn't that Mason didn't want to hang out with her friends. It was just that Charlotte was nervous about bringing him into their group in a casual setting. And that she wanted him to herself.

Second to him meeting her dad, a movie night involving Mason was going to be one of the most stressful events of her life.

***

Mason could always tell when Charlotte was nervous about something, and while she was usually nervous about most things, today was worse than usual.

They were at his house, which had become normal for them when they weren't at the shop. He was stretched across the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table, and Charlotte's legs were draped over his, a book in her hands.

"Something going on?" he asked, not moving his eyes from his own book.

Charlotte moved her bookmark into place. "Why?"

"You've been fidgeting for the past half hour and you haven't turned a page for at least ten minutes."

Mason set his book on the coffee table and turned to face Charlotte who was tugging at the sleeves of her sweater.

"It's not a big thing," Charlotte said, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers.

"But it is a thing, so tell me what's on your mind, so that I can tell you not to worry about it," Mason told her, tracing a pattern on her knee with his index finger.