Lawn Boy

I walked out of the pool, dried myself off and then walked inside with the towel wrapped around my waist. I took the phone which is in the kitchen. It’s a wireless phone so I walked into the living room and sat on the couch.
“Hey,” I said.
“Sup hottie,” he said.
“Why did you want to call as Nathan? Why don’t you just call as Jamie?”
“Do you really want your mom to know that I’m calling for you? She’ll think there’s something up. It’s not like we’re best buds.”
“But there is something up. We kissed if you forgot.”
“Yeah, it good, but it was just a kiss. It’s not like we’re married now. This isn’t the sixteen hundreds.”
“No, if it was, we’d be killed for kissing.”
“Whatever, you know what I’m talking about.” He sighed. “So what’s up? You wanna go out tonight?”
“I can’t. It’s a school night.”
“Listen to you. It’s a school night. What’re you one of those kids that do everything your mom tells you to.”
“No, but I try and make her life easy. She has it hard as it is.”
“Come on. Don’t you wanna see me again?”
“Yeah, but”
“But nothing—meet me at the mall. Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Good. Meet me at the entrance.”
“Well, give me a little time to shower. I just got out of the pool.”
“Who were you in there with?” he asked.
“Um…no one.”
“Liar,” he said.
“I’m not lying.”
“Yes you are. I can hear it in your voice. Who were you swimming with? It’s just a question.”
“Well…my friend Asher.”
“Oh, is he cute.”
Yes, I thought. “I guess,” was what I said.
“Ooh, sounds like we have a hottie. Don’t be scared, Maxie. I’m not jealous.”
“Um…okay,” I said. I thought he was acting kind of weird.
“See you in half an hour?”
“Sure,” I said.
I hung up the phone and shuffled upstairs to take a shower. I made sure everything was as perfect as possible, which was a stretch for me. My body is so awkward and—I don’t know—weird looking that I can never have anything the way that I want it.
“Mom, I’m going out okay?”
“Where to? Remember that you have school tomorrow.” she said.
“I know. I’m just gonna meet a friend at the mall.”
“Oh, is it Asher? I really like him. He’s a sweet boy.”
“Um, yeah,” I said.
“Okay, be safe,” she said.
I walked out of the door. As soon as I shut the front door, I stopped and took a deep breath. Driving to the mall that I’ve only been to once since I’ve been here was a little tricky, but I got there okay. It was exactly a half an hour since Jamie had called.
It was a small one story mall with a few major department stores, but nothing over the top. A lot of the stores were small local clothing stores. I found Jamie where he said he would be, in front of the entrance.
“Hey,” I said, hitting my fists against my legs.
“Hey,” he said with a smirk. “You look nervous.”
“I am…kinda,” I answered.
“Don’t be. This isn’t a date or anything. I just wanted to hang out.”
“Cool,” I said.
He smiled. “You’re cute. Come on. How about some frozen lemonade?”
“Sure,” I said.
We started to walk into the mall and I spotted Asher. He was with Lupe and Pete. I tried to hide my face, but it didn’t work.
“Hey…Max,” said Pete.
“Hey, guys,” I said.
Asher looked at me like he’d seen a ghost.
“Hey, Jamie,” said Lupe.
“You two know each other?” I asked Lupe.
“He used to go out with my sister Gabby,” said Lupe.
I looked at Asher who still had that look on his face. “Hey, Asher,” I said.
“H-Hey,” he said back.
Jamie smirked. “Asher…hey…I’m Jamie.” Jamie stuck out his hand to shake and Asher timidly shook it.
“Um, where you guys headed?” asked Lupe.
“To get frozen lemonade. You guys wanna come?” asked Jamie.
“Naw, we can’t. We gotta get back home,” said Asher. “Max, don’t we have English homework?”
“Right, I still need to do that,” I said.
“Well, we won’t be long, okay Max,” said Jamie.
Lupe smiled and so did Pete, but Asher didn’t. In fact, he looked horrified. The three of them left and Jamie and I walked into the mall. We walked straight to the lemonade stand where we ordered and he paid for our frozen lemonades.
“I thought this wasn’t a date,” I said as we sat to drink our lemonade.
“It isn’t,” he said.
“Then why did you pay?”
“I don’t know. I just did. What’s the big deal?”
“I don’t know.”
He smiled and took a sip of his lemonade. “So, Asher really was cute,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Can we not talk about Asher?”
“Why? Don’t you think he’s cute?”
“What’s that matter?”
He smirked. “So you do think he’s cute.”
“So?”
“So are you gonna ask him out or something?”
“Why are you so interested in me and Asher? Shouldn’t you be more interested in me and you?”
“Ah, but there is not me and you.”
“Well, there’s no me and Asher either. So…maybe you want there to be a me and you and that’s why you’re asking me about Asher.”
I started to get closer, but he backed off. He looked around to see if anyone was looking. “Chill out, there Max,” he said. “This is not the place for that kind of talk. Someone could hear.”
I backed off too, “Okay, maybe you’re right. Well…let’s go then ‘cause I got homework to do.”