Over the Wall: A Collection of Short Stories (NaNoWriMo 2014)

Day 6: We're Not Dating

Note: This is dedicated to Skylarwood5 for all her help during NaNoWriMo :)

He smiled sheepishly at her.

She rolled her eyes.

He moved closer to her.

She laughed at him but didn’t move.

He brushed her hair behind her ear.

She didn’t stop him.

He leaned in.

She kissed him.

This was almost a daily occurrence for Nathan and Olivia. Yes, they were those kinds of couples. Not the horrible kind that never stops making out but the kind that still acts all cutesy and stuff like that. It’s not fun to watch for single people but it’s also not vomit-inducing.

One of those single people actually happened to be sitting across the table from them, trying to study. She was Olivia’s best friend Natalie, who was perpetually single. And not even in a “she has a lot of short-term boyfriends but they don’t last long because she’s picky,” which is at least respectable in the “at least she gets dates” way. No she’s perpetually single in the “she doesn’t get dates and has no game” way. The sad, less respect inducing, way. She was used to Nate and Liv’s PDA by this point but it didn’t make it very fun. Especially when Harry and his girlfriend were right behind Nate and Liv making out like they’d never see each other ever again. In between the two couples she had given up all hope in finding a boyfriend until college. Maybe not even then.

Lyle came and sat down next to her. She didn’t mind. Lyle was in the grade below them, but only five months younger than Natalie. Like, exactly five months. Her birthday was May fourth (cue the “May the fourth be with you” jokes) and his was October fourth. He was actually a month or so older than some of the people in their grade. He was a nice guy, Lyle was. Cute too. Natalie didn’t think of him that way. She was way too deep in the friendzone.

Actually, she didn’t know how deep in the friend zone she was. It was really hard to tell with Lyle. He flirted with everyone. Guys, girls, anyone he came in contact with it. Which now that Natalie thought of it, made him seem like a sleaze. He wasn’t. Maybe the better word was friendly. That’s what Lyle was. Friendly. Overly friendly. It wasn’t bad, he was always good to lighten a mood or keep people calm, it just made it hard to tell where you stood. Another one of their mutual friends, Miranda, said that the way to tell who Lyle liked was to see who he didn’t flirt with. Apparently he got so awkward that he was physically unable to flirt with them. It was both ironic and sad. Kind of like Natalie’s life.

“Hey Nat.” Lyle said, shooting her is ever present smile.

“Hey.” She said, smiling at her textbook. If she looked up she wouldn’t be able to finish studying. Lyle was a human distraction.

“Whatcha studying?” Lyle lounged against the table. He was always lounging in some way or another.

“Calc. It’s killing me.”

“I can help.”

“Of course you can. You’re the boy genius.”

“Well I wouldn’t say genius... But I also wouldn’t stop you from saying it.” He laughed lightly at his own joke. Lyle didn’t care if he made other people laugh, he just said whatever he thought was funny. But, as was his personality, if he got someone else to laugh too that was all the better.

“I’ll make it a point to call you that then.” Natalie said, laughing also.

Lyle started to say something else but then froze, turning around on the bench where he’d been facing opposite Natalie and moved closer to where she was looking at her textbook, pretending to look at it also. Instead of actually looking he was glancing around like he was a spy who had just possibly blew his cover.