Page 73 of The Friend Scheme
I might be walking up to Jason Donovan.
My enemy.
Here it goes, I guess.
“Matt!” he says, smiling a gorgeous smile. His eyes light up. “Thanks so much for coming. Dude, you should never take this off, you look so handsome.”
If this is an act, he could win an Oscar.
The song changes to that one that repeatsI feel love I feel love I feel loveover and over again.
Good one, universe.
“No worries, I wasn’t doing anything,” I say. “And thanks, um. You look handsome, too, like, I’m sure you know that, but yeah. You do. Sorry. I’m bad at giving compliments. And receiving them, actually.”
He laughs. “You’re doing better than you think.”
Now’s the time. I need to ask him to talk.
“Er,” I say. “Listen, I…”
“What?”
I can’t get the words out. I don’t even know why.
“You okay, man?” he asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
He eyes me warily. “Well, good. So, do you want to meet my friends?”
Not really. I want to talk to him about the scheme. No matter how hard I try, though, I can’t get myself to.
“Sure.”
He leads me through the party to a spot on the dance floor. There are two girls there.
One has short black hair, shorter than mine. She’s wearing a floral dress that’s freaking cute. The other is in this über-cool green dress that contrasts really well with her warm-brown skin.
They both look amazing.
So this is them, Jason’s friends.
And they’re clearly cool.
Whelp.
Jason puts his hand on my back.
“Hey, friends,” says Jason. “This is Matt. Matt, meet Naomi and Bri.”
Naomi, the girl in the floral dress, blinks. “Is thistheMatt?”
“The one and only,” says Jason, and he squeezes my shoulder. “He’s a cutie, isn’t he?”
Wait, he talked about me?
And he just called me cute? On top of calling me handsome earlier?
