Too Short To Ride

1 8 : What's up?

Karter had no idea who to talk to. She obviously couldn't talk to Jessica and Bri who thought they were actually dating. What was she going to say? "Hey, I think my boyfriend likes me."?

She ruffled her hair in a flurry trying to think of a realistic solution to her problem. The key word was 'realistic'. The past two days she had come up with solutions like moving to Mexico or changing her identity but both didn't fall under the category of 'realistic'.

Karter has debated calling Camden but she felt strange about it. They had a sort of unspoken agreement in which they didn't talk about "boyfriend troubles". That just wasn't something they ever discussed and Karter didn't want to change that just because of some random occurrence.

Who she really wanted to talk to was Caleb, but she couldn't do THAT because Caleb was the one who kissed her!

Caleb kissed me...

Karter smashed her pillow against her face and screamed.

-

Karter hadn't made any move to contact Caleb which left him both relieved and annoyed.

To be fair though, he hadn't tried to contact her either. The two were stuck in a perpetual circle of avoidance, so Caleb did the one thing he knew how.

He moped.

James and Logan handed the Xbox controller back and forth while Derek watched from the couch and Caleb sat in the corner scrolling on his phone.

"I swear, if this Reaper keeps flanking and killing me, I'm going to lose my mind," Logan muttered angrily as he jammed the right trigger.

"Well it's a little too late for that," Derek added.

James tapped out and switched places with Derek who happily joined the game.

James awkwardly scooted towards Caleb, not quite sure how to start the conversation he wanted to start.

"Alright," He said, getting Caleb's attention, "so Logan totally let it slip that you and Karter are fake dating."

"Hey!" Logan called from the floor, "What the hell?! You said you wouldn't say anything!"

James continued, ignoring Logan, "and this may seem kind of random but I was wondering if you guys were actually platonic or not because I'd like to get to know Karter more."

Ha ha ha ha ha yeah hell no.

"Oh, well she actually told me she wasn't looking for a real boyfriend," Caleb lied. If there was one thing he was certain about it was the fact that he didn't want anyone else near Karter (in a romantic capacity).

"Even if it's not now, I'm okay with that. We could just get talking, you know?"

"No, she's trying to focus on going to Inland in the fall and I don't want you to get turned down too harshly. Karter doesn't really know how to deal with things like that," Caleb explained. He really hoped James would just leave it be but Caleb didn't get that feeling.

He needed to contact Karter.

Getting up from the couch he walked to the bathroom and sat on top of the toilet.

Should I text her?

He composed a text but quickly deleted it, deciding on a riskier method.

He called her.

As the phone rang his heart gradually began beating faster. Would she answer? Did she hate him?

And an even scarier question: did she like him?

Seconds passed and then Caleb heard the familiar click of the phone being answered.

"Hello?" She answered.

Caleb's heart flew out of his chest. He wanted to be next to her, but the phone call would have to do for the time being.

"Hey."

"What's up?"

How did she sound so casual? Caleb was having a heart attack while she sounded like it was any other phone call she was answering.

"I figured we should probably talk, right?"

There was a pause.

"Yeah, I've kinda been flipping out," she laughed, "how about we meet tomorrow at the same ice cream shop we were at when we planned the fake relationship thing?"

"Does 2:00 sounds good?"

"Perfect! See you then!"

And with that, the call was over. Caleb took a few deep breaths before standing up.

He caught a glance of himself in the mirror and saw his face was bright red, but he didn't care too much because he was meeting Karter.

Let's do this thing.

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6/22/18