Prince walks through the door, carrying a styrofoam box. "Hi, Elise," He warmly smiles, closing the door behind himself. Elise turns around watching her friend simply walk in her home as if he lies in bed next to her at night. She laughs, allowing his ill mannerisms to roll off her shoulders.
"Hi, Prince." He sits next to her at the table. "Let me guess, you just left Tommy's?" Prince nods, opening the styrofoam, droplets trickling down the lid tell her that his steam had left the building when he did.
Prince glances at her paper and Elise closes her notebook with a swiftness. "You writing about me?"
"No," Elise lies.
"Okay," Prince summarily disposes of the subject. He holds up a fork that carries a perfect triangle that he cut out of his freshly made flapjacks. He was careful to keep his food from touching until it all was in his mouth. The sight was disgusting to him. "You want some?" He offers holding out his fork. He barely gives Elise a moment to contemplate on her answer when he snatches his hand back. "Too bad, you can't have any. They're mine."
Elise's eyes roll, she rises as she laughs at his behavior. "Want to go see a movie?"
Prince's head shakes in disapproval. "No, I rather not." Unintentionally shattering her confidence, he goes on rambling over time. "I don't want to be seen holding hands with any other dame unless her name's Kim. Anybody else can drop dead."
"What makes you think that was an invitation to a date?"
"Because you like me," Prince replies.
Elise feels her pigmentation flushes with a hint of cherry colored shame. "Well, it wasn't," she informs. "I just really wanted to see a movie and I figured since you were already here, we could go together. We are friends, y'know."
Elise is, in fact, being completely honest. Though she carries the burden of crushing on Prince, she stopped asking after the first rejection and that was the upon their very first encounter in life. The moment he finally told her why he didn't want to date her, she stopped asking to save herself the embarrassment. She is pretty but not as pretty as Kim. She's nice but she doesn't dress like Kim, although, he does think she dresses very nicely a majority of the time. Elise simply accepted that she will never be Kim. She'll let Prince unknowingly insult her a thousand times over for the simple fact that he does not mean to.
"We are friends... but you like me. So, no. I don't want you to think I like you because then your feelings will be hurt when— "
"When I see you at the movies with Kim," Elise jokingly questions looking over her shoulder from where she stands in the kitchen.
Prince's head shakes. "Uhm, no!" He loudly objects. "We'll be on a picnic," he grins. "I'll be there and she'll be there... and we'll be eating grapes and all kinds of fruit... then she'll drop one between her legs and to get it I'll have to go down there and I'll get distracted... then, I'll stick my tongue– " Elise playfully gasps, snatching Prince out of his short-lived fantasy. "It'll happen one day."
"Whatever you say, Prince." Elise giggles.
Prince speaks with pancakes filling the inner lining of his cheeks. "You'll find an old man too. Then, we can go on double dates!"
"I don't think I'm a fan of double dates," says Elise. She, again, is being honest.
She reaches into the cabinet in search of her box of bleached flour. As she retrieves it, the eggs roll on the counter giving her a miniature heart-attack. Prince, who's paying zero attention to anything besides his pancakes, continues on in agreement. "Yeah, me either. I'd rather be alone with her anyway. Double dates suck," he says contradicting himself.
"How many have you been on?" Elise asks pushing the flour to sit back on the shelf after she has poured the right amount into her glass bowl.
"None."
Elise's body falls back down to the ground. She looks at her friend with a look that asks the ultimate question. Are you kidding me? The sincerity in his voice was so apparent that she swore he'd gone on two double-dates that both had gone quite sour. Of course, she says nothing. Prince casually continues cutting his food into itty bitty triangles. "Prince," Elise calls out as she cracks open her eggs. The sight of the yolks spreading against the flour satisfies her eyesight.
"Yes?" He says, still not looking her way.
"Do you want to go on a double date?"
He pauses his hand motions. "Uhm," Thinking over his answer carefully, Prince looks around the room. "Nope."
Elise turns around to face him. "Why not?" She asks with a spoon in her hand, she is using it to mix her pancake mix. If Prince won't share his, she will gladly make her own. Once Prince catches her, he'll want some of her pancakes— but guess what, she won't not share.
"Because you're lonely and seeing me with Kim will only make you feel lonelier," Prince says. "I don't want you to feel left out. It's enough of me to go around but I doubt Kim would want to share with the likes of someone like you."
What's that mean, she thinks to herself. I think I'm pretty decent of a person.
"I'll tell you what," Elise says over her shoulder while turning back to continue tending to her pancakes in the making. Prince must be rubbing off on her. Elise has never been one to make breakfast at three o'clock in the afternoon. "You get Kim to go out with you and I'll find a date. If we both have what we need, we'll go on a double date. We're not going anywhere together if the other hasn't got a date, deal?"
Smiling, Prince nods at Elise's suggestion. "Deal. Good luck finding a date," he says genuinely wishing her luck.
