The Middle - Volume Three ✔️

Chapter 19

Jamie

Patrick starts choking, and Joel is staring daggers at him. Jay looks confused, Erin looks amused and Sarah looks surprised.

"Excuse me?" Jay asks.

I laugh, before anyone starts freaking out. "Yeah, I practically begged him to kiss me at midnight on New Year's Eve. Better him than some random guy at the party, right?"

"You know it's not illegal to not kiss someone at midnight on New Year's Eve, right?" Joel asks me, trying to keep his voice level. Patrick's still coughing, and Joel is clearly unimpressed by this news.

"It is totally lame not having someone to kiss though." Sarah says to him lightly.

"I would have done the same thing in your shoes." Erin says, winking at me. "Patrick was the hottest guy in the room after all."

"Hey!" Jay exclaims, pretending to be wounded. "I was there! You kissed me!"

"Besides you, of course." Erin replies, with a playful kiss on his cheek. He rolls his eyes at her and she laughs.

"We're talking about a PG13 kiss here, right?" Jay asks seriously, looking between me and Patrick. We both nod our heads quickly, satisfying Jay.

"Okay, fine. That's fucking weird though, no more kissing." He says casually, brushing off the news and closing the subject. Phew.

I'm glad they're all laughing this off. Well, everyone besides Joel. He is definitely extremely suspicious of Patrick and me. Well, Patrick at least. Maybe not me. God, I really need to find out what's going on with Joel. 

I chance a quick look up at Patrick as a couple of waitresses arrive with our food and milkshakes. He catches my eye, smiles, then shakes his head ever so slightly. I smile and look down at the strawberry milkshake the waitress has set down in front of me. That is not mine. We'll rearrange all the food and drinks when the waitress leaves. When I look up again, I catch Joel's eye. He's looking at me in disbelief. Now he's looking at Patrick in annoyance. Now he's staring at the plate in front of him and shoving some fries around it.

Oh shit. I know the smitten look on my face just now when I smiled at Patrick has probably given Joel the wrong idea. Well, the right idea...

We eat, and the conversation in the group stays light. No more mention of me and the guys potentially banging each other, and no more talk about New Year's kisses. We pay for our food and leave the diner. Jay and Erin are heading over to Erin's parents to visit them before she leaves for New York tomorrow, and Joel and Sarah are heading to the cemetery to lay flowers down for Joel's parents (another year without them.) So Patrick and I decide to walk back to my place together (as much as Joel insisted he would drop us both off at home, separately). And as predicted, as soon as Patrick and I are alone, he starts giving me shit about what I said in the diner.

"So, you wanna tell me why you told everyone we kissed?" He asks with a smile as we walk towards campus. Cutting through the gardens is the quickest route back to my house.

"I was testing them." I answer truthfully.

"Testing what?"

"How they would react."

"And?"

"It wasn't too bad." I look up him and smile. "Well, besides Joel. Did you see his face?"

"No," Patrick says, looking down at his feet. "I was trying not to look at Joel. I knew what he'd be thinking."

Okay. It's time to get to the bottom of this.

"Patrick, what is going on with Joel?" I ask, "You told me you thought he had suspicions before, which is blatantly obvious to me now..." I trail off and look up at him. He's still looking down at his feet as we walk, and his hands are shoved into his front pockets.