Colour

Alexandra didn’t get much sleep after Kennedy’s confession that night- her brain wouldn’t let her. All she could think about was his date with this mystery woman. She couldn’t bring herself to ask what his date’s name was, she knew how suspicious that would look, but for some reason she wanted to ask him every question she could think of. What was her name? Where did he meet her? What did she look like? And, probably what was playing on her mind the most, who asked who?

It was Alexandra’s day off but at lunch time she still found herself in the cafe, a half eaten cheese baguette in front of her and her hands wrapped tight around her coffee cup. She didn’t notice that it was burning her palms because she was lost in her own thoughts and staring blankly at the table in front of her.

“Morning beautiful,” a familiar voice said, knocking on the table to bring her back to reality. John sat down across from her and grinned. They had sorted everything out since he came in and tore her a new one after her and Kennedy’s first night together. He wasn’t aware of their other five.

“Hey,” she smiled back without much gusto behind it.

He frowned at her unnatural, relatively unhappy response, “What’s on your mind? From the look on your face you’re trying to think of the cure for world hunger,” he joked.

She chuckled politely and took her hands from her cup as she realised that it was burning, “Nothing much,”

“Doesn’t look like it,” he responded.

She shook her head defiantly, “I’m fine, honestly. How’re you?”

“Gorgeous, obviously,” Alexandra laughed genuinely and it made John smile, “That’s better. I much prefer you with a smile,”

“Surprised you didn’t add ‘and nothing else’ to the end of that then,” she smirked.

“I was going to but the concentration on your face made me rethink it, it didn’t look like you needed any sexual innuendos,”

“I always need sexual innuendos,” she winked.

John laughed and stole a tomato from the salad on her plate, “So do tell. What’s so interesting that needs all of your brain capacity to think about?” He pushed.

She didn’t want to tell him. John was too close to Kennedy and, with her head all over the place at the moment, something that translated wrong could be relayed to Kennedy. That wasn’t what she wanted. Then again, that little part of her brain that was constantly occupied by Kennedy-related-thoughts found a voice. What if John knew about this girl?

“I’m just contemplating whether or not to go out tonight,” she lied.

“Since when do you ever need to contemplate that? It’s usually a no-brainer,”

She smiled lightly, “I don’t think I’m in the mood,”

John gasped overdramatically, “Okay, now I know that there’s definitely something wrong,”

“Just one of those days,” she said dismissively before changing the subject, “So what are your plans for this fine Saturday evening?”

He shrugged, “Not much. All the guys are busy tonight so I’m all on my lonesome,” he pouted.

“Poor you,” she reached out and patted his hand, “Where are all your buddies tonight then?”

“Garrett’s spending some time with his family, Jared has work, Pat has a party to go to and Kennedy has a date,” she noticed that he eyed her face for any kind of reaction but he didn’t find one. She felt the flicker of emotion he was looking for but she didn’t let him see it.

“Oh yeah, he mentioned that the other night,” she said casually, taking a gulp of her coffee, “Have you met the girl?”

He smirked slightly and shook his head, “No, not yet. He doesn’t like to bring a girl to meet us until he’s certain about her,” he explained, “Or at least until he knows she can handle us,” he winked at her.

Alexandra snorted with laughter, “Fair enough. Do you know anything about her or did she come out of nowhere?”

“She’s the daughter of his mom’s friend I think,”

“His mom set him up on a date?” Her eyebrow rose in vague amusement.

“God no, he wouldn’t let her do that,” he laughed, “They met at a family party or something and she asked if he’d like to go for dinner. From what he said about her, she sounds pretty hot so he wouldn’t be so stupid as to turn it down,”

“How can she sound hot?” Alexandra frowned deeply.

“She’s blonde, tall and curvy with brown eyes. That sounds hot to me,”

She shook her head in disbelief, “That’s a standard description- She could well have a nose like Pinocchio or an eye in the middle of her forehead,” she scoffed, “Or no boobs!”

John laughed, “I think he might’ve mentioned the eye thing and besides, don’t you be so judgemental- nobody is perfect but everyone is beautiful to someone,”

She let out a guttural disapproving noise, “Alright Mr. Deep-and-Meaningful. But you know I’m right, you can describe me as brown-haired, average size with brown eyes and that wouldn’t necessarily mean I’m hot. The witch from Snow White had black hair, a slim figure and magical powers, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t ugly as fuck,” she crossed her arms and huffed.

He stared at her with surprise and vague amusement, “Wow... Okay, so you definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed today,”

She sighed and sat back, “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,”

“I think I do,”

“If you even say anything about me having feelings for Kennedy and being jealous of this new girl then the rest of my coffee is going over your head,” she raised an eyebrow dangerously.

After a second of silence and him meeting her fiery eyes with a blank gaze he shook his head, “That actually didn’t even cross my mind. I was going to say that you’re probably hormonal or something...” he trailed off, “But now that you mention it...”

“The fact that that sprung to mind doesn’t mean that it’s true,” she warned.

“Does a bit,” he shot back.

“No.”

John laughed at her stubbornness, “You’re attracted to him, Lex, it’s not a crime,” he rested his elbows on the table and leant forwards, “It doesn’t make us think that you have any feelings that you don’t want us to know about,”

“Good, because I don’t have any,” she said.

“You do, you’re pissed off right now aren’t you?” He smirked.

“I suppose,” she couldn’t fault his logic.

“But you do think he’s hot, right?”

“I wouldn’t have slept with him if I didn’t,”

“Well you have been known...” He sent her a devilish smile and she glared back at him.

“Shut up,”

“My point though, sweetheart, is that if you’re attracted to someone then the thought of them being with someone else isn’t nice for anyone even if they don’t have proper feelings,”

“I don’t like it,” she pouted.

He reached across and took her hand, “Don’t throw your coffee over me,” he said hesitantly, “But I do think you have feelings even if you don’t want anyone else to see them. Don’t worry though- I won’t tell anyone,” he winked at her and pulled his hand away.

“BLT to go!” Vanessa announced from the counter.

“That’s me,” John grabbed a napkin from the table and pulled a pen from his pocket. Alexandra never expected him to be so prepared as to have a pen on his person for no apparent reason. He began writing something down and, when he was finished, he folded it over several times before sliding it over the table to her.

“What’s this?” She asked, her eyes following him as he stood up from the table.

“That’s the address of the restaurant that Kennedy’s going to at seven tonight,” he explained.

“Why are you giving me this?”

“Let’s call it a psychological experiment,” he shrugged.

“You think I’m going to spy on him,” she accused.

He shook his head, “I don’t think you’re going to do anything. I’m just giving you an address to a restaurant with decent food, when you choose to go is your decision,” he said.

“I’m not going to turn into a stalker,”

He laughed, “I never said you were,” he defended, “It’s just a napkin, Lexie, throw it away if you want to,” he smiled innocently before he pressed a kiss to her forehead and went to get his lunch.

Alexandra looked at the folded napkin in her hand and bit down on her lip. She said her goodbyes to John just before he left and then stared down at her hands again. She shook her head and threw the napkin on the table, looking away from it. No. She wasn’t going to do it because that would mean that she cared about Kennedy going on a date with someone else. Which she didn’t. Uh-uh. No way. Nope. She definitely didn’t care. Not at all.

She looked out of the corner of her eye at the napkin on the table, “Stop staring at me,” she hissed at it.

After five minutes of debating, she eventually reached over and picked it up again. She could look, right? Knowing wouldn’t make a difference. She still wasn’t going to go. That wouldn’t be right. She unfolded the napkin and read the address. She knew the restaurant; she had been there once or twice with her parents. It was quite a nice place, not too posh but nice enough for a celebratory meal.

Alexandra nodded to herself and tore up the napkin, placing it onto her plate and pushing it away from her. There. Now she knew where he was going to be tonight and that didn’t change anything. She still wasn’t about to turn into a Bunny Boiler. She still wasn’t going to that restaurant tonight.

=====

So she got to the restaurant about half past seven.

Alexandra had Josh in tow under the pretence that she felt they hadn’t spent enough time together outside work and wanted to have a nice talk with him. She even agreed that he could talk to her about love if he really felt it was necessary. She knew she wouldn’t be paying attention to him anyway, not if she could see Kennedy and his new ‘friend’ in her eye line.

She spotted Kennedy almost instantly and guided Josh to a table where she could keep an eye on the couple but he wouldn’t be able to see her.

“Wow, this place is really nice. I’m surprised we didn’t need a reservation,” Josh was eyeing up the place as they sat down at the table.

“Me too, I thought we might have to wait a little while to get a table,” she snuck a glance at the couple across the room. They were laughing. John was right- Kennedy’s date was pretty. This was a bad idea.

“So have you got something specific you would like to ‘talk’ about?” Josh asked, taking a menu and scanning the contents.

“Huh?” She finally pulled her eyes away from Kennedy and looked up at Josh with confusion.

“You said this afternoon that you wanted to have dinner so we could talk,” he replied.

“Not about anything in particular, I just haven’t spent much time with you lately,” she shrugged.

“We spend all day together in work,”

Alexandra’s eyes had drifted back across the room again and she didn’t turn back to Josh when she responded, “Yeah but we don’t talk properly. I don’t feel like we talk enough anymore.” Kennedy’s date was still laughing. Surely nothing was that funny. He was a funny guy but that was just ridiculous.

“That definitely makes it sound as though there’s something specific that you want to talk about,” Josh glanced up at her but she still wasn’t looking at him.

“Nope, I just miss chatting with you like we’re best friends like we used to,”

“During any part of our best friend chatting are you planning on looking at me?”

This snapped Alexandra’s attention back onto her companion, “What?”

He frowned at her before searching the room for what had so fully snatched her concentration. It didn’t take him long to spot Kennedy at all. “Oh my God,” he shook his head and looked at her with a disapproving gaze, “That’s why we’re here then, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tried to act ignorant as she picked up her own menu and began to stare at that instead. She wasn’t reading it, just looking to try to divert Josh from the truth.

“Yes you do- That’s Kennedy over there, on a date by the looks of things,”

She glanced over, “Oh is it? I didn’t even notice him. What a coincidence,” she mused, glancing over at the couple. She felt something gurgle inside her stomach. Kennedy’s date was touching his hand. Alexandra felt slightly smug because she knew that hand had been on her body last night. Take that, bitch.

Dear God, this was getting out of hand.

“Are you spying on him?!” Josh hissed across the table.

Alexandra shushed him, “No, I’m not. I didn’t know he was going to be here!” He stared at her, knowing and unimpressed, and she caved. “Alright fine, I might be spying but it’s not a bad thing,”

He frowned, “You go ahead and tell yourself that,” he rolled his eyes.

“Stop it. It’s not like I’m going to go over there and be like ‘oh hey, we slept together last night, thought you should know in case you decided to give him a test drive’,”

“You slept together?!” Josh’s voice rose and a few people in the close vicinity sent him sideways glances.

“Big picture here!” She gestured for him to calm down.

“The fact that you’re screwing him is the big picture, Lexie. Unless you’d rather talk about the fact that you’re stalking someone you’ve slept with because he’s with some other girl,”

She stared blankly at him for a few seconds, “Okay... So maybe there isn’t a big picture, I don’t know why I said that,” she waved her hand dismissively, “But it’s not a big deal,”

“Fantastic, so you won’t mind if I go home then?” He went to stand up but she grabbed his arm and held it to the table before he could.

“No, Josh wait,” she looked up at him pleadingly, “I can explain,”

“I really don’t think there could be a decent explanation for something like this,” he fell back into his seat and looked at her expectantly, “But go ahead,”

She paused, “Um...” She genuinely had no explanation and she let out a groan as she brought her hands to her face, “I’m going crazy. I think I’m certifiably insane. I don’t know why I’m even here. When I saw John at the cafe this afternoon he told me where Kenny was coming for his date and I just couldn’t stop myself. I needed to see this girl he was going out with,”

Josh’s eyes narrowed as he analysed her face, “But why?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know,” she averted her gaze and began to pick at her nails.

His eyes then widened in realisation, “You needed to see if she was prettier than you, didn’t you? You were checking out the competition,”

“No,” she shook her head, “We’re not competing,”

“But you still want Kennedy to like you more,”

She sighed, “I don’t know what I want. I’m so confused,” she held her head in her hands as she rested her elbows on the table, “There is no legitimate reason for me to be here,”

“Logic and reason don’t exist when you have feelings for someone, Lex,” Josh stated.

She glared at him, “I don’t have feelings for him. I don’t have feelings for anyone. At all. Ever.”

“If that was true then you wouldn’t be here,” he challenged.

“No... See, because... I...” She trailed off, “I need to go to the bathroom,” she got up and left the table before Josh could interject and made her way to the toilet. She wet her hands with cold water and then wiped some on her neck to cool her down. She’d become very flustered and hot after her exchange with Josh.

This whole experience was something she’d thoroughly love to forget. It was the worst idea she’d ever had. She was going to blame John. Yep, she would have been fine if he hadn’t have told her where Kennedy was going to be. Totally John’s fault.

Alexandra looked at herself in the mirror and she quickly touched up her make-up. When she was done she let out a deep sigh, “You’re pathetic.” She eventually stopped picking her appearance apart, ruffled her hair slightly and made her way out of the bathroom.

She wandered down the hallway, heading back towards the main part of the restaurant when she felt someone grab her hand and spin her around. She slammed into a hard chest with an ‘oof’ and glanced up at her captor. Her heart stopped in her chest.

“Well, well, well,” Kennedy smirked at her, “Fancy seeing you here.”

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'How Did You Get Here Under My Skin?'

Demi Lovato