Kisses after midnight (WICKED #0) | ✓

39

LUCA DIDN'T SEEM PLEASED at all with the pairing, but Mateo ignored his complaints. They had entered the forest after Jay and Sahar, but he was dead set on arriving at the final spot before them. Though Jay had stated explicitly multiple times that he didn't need to be there, Mateo knew that wasn't what he truly meant. Besides, if he wasn't there, how was he going to check if everything was going well?

"Shouldn't you be searching for that girlfriend of yours instead of your close friend?" Luca said, seeming to have given up protesting.

"Gabriela," Mateo corrected him, before continuing," and she wouldn't like me heading towards her and disrupting the whole test. Me focusing on my friends at times doesn't mean she's still not the love of my life."

"Cheesy," Luca said.

"Aren't you cheesy with your girlfriend?" Mateo said amusedly," if not, she deserves better."

"Shut up, Martinez," Luca snarled," you don't know anything about me."

"Yeah," Mateo said as he ducked under a branch," that happens when you don't tell me anything. I know she's French though."

"She's mine, so don't think about her," Luca said, seeming to be done with the conversation after that.

"Really?" Mateo said," I thought we as men got over the whole possession thing when we collectively realized it was wrong."

"Don't pretend to be all smart," Luca scowled. He shook his head, looking away for a moment. "She makes me a better person. So yeah, she's mine, because I'd be lost without her."

Mateo saw about a thousand things wrong with that sentence, but before he could even tell Luca that a loud gasp left his lips, one he tried to muffle with his hands at the last second. He had finally found Jay and Sahar, the messy shortcut through the bushes and trees beside the road having helped after all.

"What if I yell his name now just to fuck with you?" Luca said.

"I will actually kill you if you disrupt their romantic mood," Mateo smiled at him.

That got Luca to listen, Mateo's attention back to Jay and Sahar. Their voices were carrying in the silence of the forest, their laughter getting tangled in the leaves above them. Mateo quietly got closer, until it became clearer what they were saying. Right at that moment he made eye contact with Imani, who was sitting opposite him in the bushes, looking like she was positively dead inside.

The guys beside her looked more excited for their roles, one already crouching closer, and Mateo wildly gestured at them in an attempt to get them to stop. Imani didn't seem to really understand much of it, frowning at him as she mouthed some words. He mouthed some back and Luca looked at him, eyebrow raised.

"You can read lips?" he said.

"No," Mateo said, before focusing back on Imani's reply.

"So," Sahar said, interrupting his thought process," are you going to go back to Athena next week as well?"

"Next week already?" Jay blinked.

Mateo decided to just run around, turning and quietly making his way through the bushes, before practically jumping across the road a few feet behind them so they wouldn't see him. He ran back to the front then, determined to stop Imani and the guys from scaring them before they passed. Imani watched him with a confused frown, Luca pretending he wasn't there as he closed his eyes.

"We've been here for about two months now," Sahar said," my mother told the principal she's transferring me back and hoping that whatever reform he did worked."

"And?" Jay said, a half-smile tugging at his lips," did it?"

"It did not," Sahar said happily," I just got some new protest buddies." She looked at Jay. "But are you coming with? I'd like for us to still be in the same school, especially when we've gotten so much closer."