Boyfriend + Brother || Shawn Mendes

_chapter 23_

I'd like to pretend that I'm staring at mum's homemade pizza. But I'm not. I'm gazing past the food, my eyes boring into those of the guy sitting across from me with his chin resting on his hand. The guy who is quite literally the epitome of nonchalance right now. I bite my lip as I run my eyes over his jaw, over his lips, over his drawn-together eyebrows, over the sparkle within his eyes. Every so often, he smirks when no one is looking.

"So Ellie," Manny says, raising his voice a little to get my attention. My eyes immediately plummet back down to my plate and my hands fumble anxiously with my cutlery as I fork up another bite of pizza. "You're being so quiet tonight." He wiggles his brows and points his knife at me, a slight chuckle in his throat. "What are you thinking about?"

"I was-um-I was just-I-uhhh." The words keep on stuttering past my lips like I'm a three-year-old attempting to string sentences together, so I shove the food into my mouth and offer a closed smile instead.

"How's the pizza?" Karen asks us all, her eyes widening a little as she hopes for a positive response. I'm just glad that she's changed the subject. We all nod our heads in appreciation of the dish she's slaved over. Shawn sits up slightly and sends her a small smile. She made a whole separate pizza for him-four cheese.

"It's great, Mom," he says, and her face lights up with a warm glow.
"It tastes so great that..." Shawn continues as he pulls the plate toward him, scooping up a large portion and lifting the fork to his lips. He leans forward over the plate as he takes a huge bite, but half of it falls from his mouth and lands on the table. Sheepishly, he laughs and wipes the sauce from his lips with his thumb. "It tastes so great that now I'm totally full," he says after he swallows.

"I'm gonna head out," he says wiping his mouth.

"Where?" Karen immediately looks up, and she turns around to face him. Even Aaliyah glances up to hear shawn's excuse.

"I'm seeing Caitlin," he completely lies, and he's such a good bluffer that even I believe him for a moment. And then I remember.

"Didn't you say you're hanging out with Lana, Ellie?" I'm about to say no, but then he shoots me a stern look. He wants me to lie. So I say,

"Yeah," and then steal a glance at Manny to see if he's buying it. Right now, I think he is.

"I can give you a ride there," Shawn pushes, his voice slightly strained as he keeps his eyes firmly locked on me. He gives me the slightest of nods as he waits for me to play along.

"Thanks," I blurt. If I attempt a longer answer, I'm bound to trip on my own words. So I smile a silly little smile and place my cutlery on my plate as mum stands to clean up. But Shawn has no problem smirking back at me like he's forgotten our parents are in the room. Either that or he simply doesn't care if they see or not.

"Ten minutes?" If only they knew we aren't actually talking about him giving me a ride to Lana's place.

"Ten minutes is fine."

"I'll just meet you in the car." He throws me a wink before sauntering out of the kitchen. I stare at him, watching the way he rubs the back of his neck as he leaves, gazing after his tall figure and adoring the way he tilts his head down as he walks. Seconds later, I excuse myself from the family lunch, apologizing to Karen for not having time to help her clean up, and then dart up to my room to adjust my hair, brush my teeth, drown myself in perfume, pull on a sweater . . . All the kind of necessary actions that a girl must take before heading out to a zoo date with a cute guy no matter the relationship.

When the ten minutes are up, I make my way back downstairs and outside to the white and black car parked out on the road because there simply isn't enough room for three cars on the driveway.