Loose Change~ Montgomery De La Cruz / Zach Dempsey/Scott Reed

Chapter 7

The bright sun warmed the entirety of the school, but the cool breeze it went along with kept the temperature bareable. But Ophelia was called under the bleachers. She was stuck in the shadows, away from the sun, and suddenly feeling very cold. She was itching to hurry things up. Groups of boys were running laps around the field. Their energy unnerved her.

"Listen..." Zach hesitated, "I think we need to come up with a cover story."

She blinked. "For what?"

"For what? For last night! Monty knows someone was there."

He sounded panicked, but at that moment, she didn't quite care.

"Zach, c',mon, you sound a bit paranoid."

Zach scoffed, "He saw someone's car. He knows someone was there, and as far as he's concerned, you were cheating."

Ophelia thought about who they were talking about. She knew how jealous he could be. She suddenly started caring.

"Does he know it was you?"

Zach huffed. He put his hands on his hips, with a distasteful expression. The sight of this grown man pouting in front of her, wearing a varsity jacket and everything, was almost enough to make her smile.

"Bryce suggested it was me" he said in a 'dad-who's-happy-he-left-the-office-early' tone, "but I deflected it. We need to be careful."

Ophelia crossed her arms, "First of all, Zachary, I didn't cheat. Even though I technically can't since we're broken up. Me and you didn't even do anything last night."

"You think he'll believe that?" His voice was more desperate.

"If you didn't want him to think we're 'secretly dating', why did you make me meet you at the make out bleachers? You don't think that makes things look a little suspicious?"

Zach stopped. His face twisted into a confused look. His head turned to the side. He pointed to the bleachers on the opposite side of the football field.

"Those are the makeout bleachers" he tried to say.

Ophelia held in a sigh. "This is a public high school. All bleachers are makeout bleachers!"

Zach now looked more disgusted. "I'm standing in the same spot where freshmen grope each other in between classes?"

Zach's innocence softened Ophelia. She knew Montgomery's mind would've went to dirtier scenarios, and she knew she wouldn't want to hear them.

Ophelia had been to the same makeout bleaches with Montgomery once. He had convinced her to skip an entire class for it. She couldn't believe she actually did. But Montgomery was very persuasive when he wanted to be. Which was most of the time.

For a split second, she imagined if Zach had actually called her to these bleachers to do exactly that. Make out. She imagined kissing Zach. His deep voice was so soft sometimes. He was muscular like Montgomery, but his face looked softer. He had more weight in his cheeks, and his lips were bigger. Such a cute face...

When Ophelia didn't respond, Zach assumed she must have gotten bored of the small talk. He got to the point. "Look, if Montgomery asks, just say your parents had a friend over last night, and that they drove together to dinner."

Ophelia nodded, ending her sudden Zach-based thoughts. "That could work."

Ophelia paused. She then said, "I could text him. Have him meet me in the hallway. I doubt he'd mind leaving class."

Zach frowned. "You want to...talk to him?"

"I was...thinking about it. I just-I need some things cleared up."