15 Fourteen

Once again, it was my most favorite day of week, Saturday.

As I sat quietly in a cab on my way to Casa del Cibo, I thought about the events of the past week. For each day of the week, Tyler, Claire and I used one of the numerous items Claire provided us with, and our popularity increased each day on social media.

Tyler and I tagged Clarisse and Alex in most of our posts since they had a lot of followers, some of which were our classmates and a few seniors. I had even dared to tag Kim in one of my posts. As strange as it may sound, she did nothing significant about it, she just yelled insults at me and told me never to tag her again.

I had spent most of my evenings making TikTok videos with Alex, who was a bit skeptical at first but was still excited to spend time with his little brother.

The most shocking event of the week occurred on Thursday, three of our classmates, Carl, Mason and Jade, joined us at our lunch table.

Mind-blowing right?!

Tyler and I made sure to avoid Jake and his friends, although, it seemed as if they were uninterested in bothering us or, so we thought. By the end of the day on Thursday, an extremely embarrassing flyer had circulated amongst our mates. The flyer had a picture of Tyler from Kate Jackson's party in nothing but his underwear and a picture of me from the ninth grade when Sophia Edgar poured her mashed potatoes on my face because I accidentally stepped on her foot. The flyer was tagged, 'the legendary cave man and the absurd fart boy.'

To my surprise, the flyers did not affect our slowly rising popularity as adversely as I had expected. Yes, there were giggles in the hallways as we passed by and even louder giggles in the classrooms when we walked in, but, Carl, Mason and Jade still sat with us during lunch on Friday and I overheard a few people saying that they believed the pictures on the flyers were fake.

The taxi came to a halt in front of Casa del Cibo. I paid the driver and walked into the restaurant. As soon as the door was closed behind me, I scanned the restaurant for my friends and spotted them seated on a table beside one of the windows, chatting and laughing.

Tyler loved to talk and Claire loved it even more, so it would have been a surprise if I walked in and found them seating across from each other with sealed lips.

"Hey guys." I greeted when I got to them.

"Finally!" Tyler exclaimed. "Now can we order?" he asked, turning to Claire.

"Sure." Claire replied, then she narrowed her eyes at me, "You're late." she said through gritted teeth.

"You said to meet by noon." I replied in defense.

"Exactly, and by my time, its five minutes past noon."

"Well unlike you guys, I actually need a cab to get here."

A waiter finally arrived at our table after Tyler's ceaseless beckoning. "Can I get your orders?" she asked, showing off her entire thirty-two teeth that would have looked better if they were shielded by her bright red lips. It would have been more bearable to gaze upon her horrible dentition if her smile was genuine.

I buried my face in the menu I had just retrieved from the table. This was the first time I had the opportunity to look at the menu of the restaurant, and as I browsed through it, I realized why the restaurant was named House of food. The menu contained four segments, breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner. Under each segment, there was an extensive list of various healthy and unhealthy meals, drinks and snacks including vegan dishes. I had eaten at many restaurants but I had never encountered any that served this many dishes.

"I'll have the medium French fries, a regular hamburger and an orange soda." Tyler replied.

The waiter wrote on her petite notepad frantically as Tyler spoke.

"Two chocolate cupcakes and a small cup of strawberry ice cream with hot fudge and sprinkles for me." Claire said.

More frantic writing.

By now I was satisfied with going through the menu, or rather, I was tired of going through the menu. "I will have a medium-sized strawberry shortcake smoothie."

More frantic writing, then, "Anything else?"

"No, that's all for now." Tyler replied.

The waiter flashed her smile at us one last time before hurrying away.

I stared after her and wondered what her reason was for continually torturing our eyes with her horrid dentition. It was either that she thought her smile was beautiful or that her paycheck depended on the wide smile. I thought about it for a while and settled on the latter.

No one could possibly describe that smile as beautiful thanks to the ugly white soldiers they displayed.

"Jason!!" Claire's voice interrupted my thoughts. "I'm saying words that I need you to listen to."

"Oh, sorry I was not paying attention."

"I figured. As I was saying, we need to start planning the next step of our plan, which is instilling fear in our enemies."

"I thought that was step three?" Tyler asked.

"That is true, but I have not been able to come up with a means of carrying out the original step two, so I had to switch them up."

"Alright. So how are we going to carry out the new step two?"

"By carrying out some pranks, scratch that, a lot of pranks." Claire rubbed her palms together, maniacally.

There was a replica of the wide smile on my face on Tyler's.

"Also," Claire continued, "we may need to get some dirt on them."

"How do you plan on doing that?" I asked.

"A certain group of cheerleaders want to be friends with me, and if I accept, we will be obliged to carry out the activities of friends which include secret sharing and invitations to their private parties and hangouts."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" I asked.

"Judging by this wide smile on my face, what do you think?" Claire replied, pointing at her lips with her both index fingers.

We all laughed.

I still had my doubts about the plan, but, I had to admit, it was fun to carry out.

"Here are your orders."

I looked up and was greeted with the gaze of miss ingenuine smile. Immediately my eyes met hers... she smiled. It was as if she was waiting for me to look her way before revealing what I now dreaded even more than a Monday morning.

"Do you need anything else?" She asked after placing our orders on the table.

"Yeah." Claire replied. "I need to ask a favor from you for my friend here."

I stared at Claire who was gesturing at me for some reason.

"He couldn't take his eyes off you earlier, so could you give him your number, he is really shy that's why he is not the one asking."

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped but I could not utter a word.

"Sure, I can give him my number." Miss ingenuine smile pulled out her notepad, tore a piece of paper from it and wrote on it, then she looked up at me, smiled and dropped the piece of paper beside my smoothie. "You don't have to be shy, call me." And she walked away swinging her hips in a suggestive manner.

I froze, but the loud laughter from my friends soon defrosted me. "Claire, What did you do?!"

"I got... I got you a...girlfriend." She managed to say between laughs.

"I think you both would make a great couple." Tyler added.

I sighed and focused on the smoothie before me. The image of her walking away flashed through my mind and I immediately began a silent prayer to God to remove the image of her walking away completely from my mind.

I'm in the eleventh grade for God's sake.

*~* ~* ~

A few minutes later we were done with our food, and we waited patiently for our bill to be brought.

"Guys, I've got tickets." Claire announced.

"To what?" Tyler asked.

"To see Eruption." Claire replied, her eyes wide with excitement.

"The band?!"

"No Tyler the pack of wolves." Claire retorted.

"You could have just said yes."

"I know. You guys want to come?"

"Definitely." I replied.

We waited a little while longer before miss ingenuine smile returned with our bill. She dropped it on the table and winked at me before walking away. Claire and Tyler burst into another fit of laughter.

"Can we just go? Please."

"You guys go ahead, I'm meeting with a friend here in a few minutes." Tyler replied.

"Who?"

"Ashley."

I exchanged glances with Claire.

"You could invite her for the concert, I have an extra ticket." Claire said.

"She would love that."

"Bye." Claire and I said and turned to leave.

"Where are you guys going?" Tyler asked. "We all have to pay this bill." he added waving the little piece of paper in front of his face.

"Since you still have something doing here, you can just handle the bill." Claire replied. "Its no big deal."

"Oh no! No! No! No! I will not accept this!" Tyler argued.

Claire and I said nothing in reply and started toward the exit.

"I am not joking, guys. I will not pay this bill!"

Claire and I were near the exit door.

"You guys are the worst. I'll exchange you two for a bunch of snail shells in a heartbeat!!"

"Love you too bro!" I yelled back before joining Claire outside the restaurant.

"What do you think he is going to do?" Claire asked.

"Pay the bill." I smiled.

Claire chuckled.

"I guess I'll see you later tonight." I said.

"Yeah."

I nodded and turned to leave.

"Do you have somewhere to be?" Claire blurted out.

I turned back to face her. "There is no where special."

"Would you like to come over to my place?"