60 Discussing Justin's Love Life

"Was I good or was I good?" Alexa said with a grin at the next indie game club meeting. "Did you see the way she defended you at the end? She totally caught onto me and took your fragile heart away to safety!"

"I do not have a fragile heart!" Justin protested.

She looked down her nose at him. "That remains to be seen but the point is she THINKS you do and cared enough to protect it! Whether she realizes it yet or not, this girl was jealous of me and protective of you. That's a definite sign of like."

He was doubtful. No way would Emily like him for real…she liked fake internet him.

"How would you know? You've never liked anybody."

"I do read, you know," she sniffed. "I call it like I see it. And that girl likes you. Or at least she's starting to."

Dominic and Zack meandered back to their table and sat down. "What are we talking about?"

Justin tried to make something up but Alexa beat him to the punch. "We're discussing the love of Justin's life. Care to join us?"

His ears turned pink and he hissed Alexa's name angrily. She ignored him and continued on, eyes sparkling with mischief.

"She's a film and television major. They live in the same apartment building. He's liked her since the eighth grade and her name is—"

Justin finally came to his senses and clapped his hand over Alexa's mouth to shut her up. A moment later, he yelped with disgust and pulled his hand away.

"You licked me!"

Zack shook his head and laughed. "Yeah, she does that. I should have warned you when I saw you move your hand."

Dominic wasn't deterred by the hand licking. "You like someone? Have you gotten anywhere with her?"

"She finally knows he exists," Alexa said, blatantly ignoring how uncomfortable Justin was.

Must she trample his dignity like this in front of everyone? All he did was cover her mouth for less than thirty seconds so she wouldn't spill his secrets.

"We're friends," Justin mumbled. "We weren't before."

"Friends is better than nothing," Zack said meaningfully.

Justin wanted to reach out and sympathetically pat the guy's shoulder but Alexa was right there and would see. He wasn't sure if she was aware of her best friend's feelings.

Dominic shook his head sadly. "The friendzone is not a good place to be, dude. Very few make it out."

"Justin will," Alexa said confidently. "I've got this girl's number. She's super jealous."

"Jealous of what?"

"Of me, of course!" she cried, waving her arms about. "You guys know I'm a bit much for most people. She feels threatened by me. I've seen it!"

"She does get angry every time she sees Alexa…" Justin admitted reluctantly.

He didn't like her methods much but he couldn't deny that they were effective. Her goal was to make Emily mad and she was very good at it.

She smiled smugly. "See. I told you my plan would work."

Zack narrowed his eyes suspiciously, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Lex, you hate getting involved in other people's drama. What's going on?"

"In exchange for helping him I'm getting mostly free labor. It's a good deal."

"Free labor? For what?"

She leaned over and whispered in her best friend's ear. His eyes lightened with understanding.

Justin squinted at her, confused. He thought she hadn't told anyone about being the mind behind Sink or Swim. She must really trust Zack. He supposed they had grown up together.

"I'm completely lost," Dominic said.

Zack patted his shoulder. "Need to know, my friend. If we're lucky we may see something interesting go down in the near future."

Dominic looked like he wanted to say something but decided to let it go. Justin was grateful when the topic finally got off his love life and back to video games. He was a lot more comfortable talking about the merits of Epidemic than he was about Alexa's plan to get Emily to like him.