The Heart Does Go On

Over the next week, Seto went back to his usual nice self (to me) Indicating that he was just having major mood swings before me, like he used to. He was back to the Seto Kaiba before we dated, and that was fine with me.

Joey and I got closer than ever before. He met my Dad, and I met his Dad. My Dad was just apathetic towards the situation; he had a habit of picking one flaw out of ANYBODY and disliking them, whether that be my boyfriend, a friend, or a stranger down the street. I warned this to Joey before we met, so he wouldn’t get offended. However compared to my ex boyfriend, my Dad didn’t seem to mind Joey.

Joey’s Dad apparently took a liking to me. He said he was anything I would want for his son’s girlfriend, pretty, intelligent, down to earth and had a sense of humour. I had to blush a lot at this. The meeting of his Dad consisted of fried greasy fast food, a few beers and a TV set watching baseball. I only had a sip of Joey’s beer, beer is gross. In short, it was very casual and relaxed, compared to Joey meeting my father at a restaurant.

And uh, to not go into too many details, Joey and I were once again getting ‘intimate’ again. We didn’t rush into it again, and I didn’t feel like I had to, and I’m fairly sure.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was beginning to actually fall in love with Joseph Wheeler.

***

It was a Friday night at Kaiba corp., and I was waiting out the front for Duke to pick me up. We decided we’d get a bite to eat, and study for our upcoming legal test together. We made sure we didn’t invite Tristan and Joey, as much as I love those kids, you don’t want to study with them.

However, speaking of Tristan, after Duke and I were going out for a study dinner he was taking me to Tristan’s house. Tristan’s parents were gone for the weekend, leaving Tristan by himself. Although his parents were fortunate he wasn’t going to throw a wild party with alcohol, he did invite Yugi, Tea, Joey, Duke, Bakura, Kathryn and I for a ‘raunchy’ sleepover.

I waited for Duke outside with my school uniform and school bag on my arm. He was 10 minutes late, and I decided to sit down while I waited for him.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the mutt is late.” Seto said icily, sitting next to me.

“It’s not Joey that’s picking me up. It’s Duke.” I replied, ignoring his insult to Joey.

“I still can’t believe you and Duke aren’t together. The whole school still talks about it. Everyone thinks you and Duke should be together, and secretly like each other.” Seto told me.

“Besides Michelle the ginger kid. She’s really taken a liking to Duke, and a disliking to Kathryn and I.” I giggled, remembering the girl that went crazy for Duke at the dance.

“Besides her.” Seto agreed.

“I wouldn’t date Duke. He’s nice and all, but he’s not my type. That, and he’s a commit-a-phobe. He would end up doing what his cousin Sam did to Kathryn. Get bored and make out with other girls.” I shrugged, and Seto remained silent.

Duke’s convertible (with the top up, of course) finally arrived at the car park, and Duke jumped out of the car.

“I’m SO SORRY I’m late Ella. Traffic was a nightmare.” Duke apologised, approaching Seto and I.

“Devlin.” Seto greeted Duke, nodding his head.

“Kaiba.” Duke replied, doing the same.

Coming from Seto Kaiba, you could tell Duke wasn’t seen as such a bad guy, compared to the rest of the gang.

“Coming Ella?” Duke asked, heading back to the car.

“Yeah!” I replied, and said goodbye to Seto and jumped into Duke’s car.

***

Duke and I had found a quiet little café to have dinner in, whilst we studied our legal studies textbooks. At the moment we were studying the U.S. bill of rights, and comparing it to the Japan bill of rights. As I used to live in L.A, and Duke used to live in San Francisco as a child (turns out we had some mutual friends. Small world!) We didn’t need to study the U.S. Bill of Rights very hard, as we always had it drummed into us at a young age, about how ‘lucky’ we were to be so free (first amendment wooooo!)

Our textbooks lay aside forgotten, as we were chatting and laughing.

“Kathryn isn’t coming tonight.” Duke informed me.

“Why not?” I asked him.

“She made out with that baseball player, the Mark guy. She got mono.” Duke said, and I burst out laughing.

Serves her right for kissing random boys! When I was 16 before I got my first boyfriend, I used to go around kissing random boys at parties. I learned my lesson the hard way; I got mono from it like Kathryn did. I was only ‘sick’ for 2 weeks, but the tired feeling lasted for 6 months, it really knocked me around. Kathryn would hopefully learn the lesson I did, I was only lucky it happened in sophomore year and not senior year.

“Is Serenity going?” I asked Duke.

“Nah, I think she’s still in the U.S. visiting her mother still.” Duke replied.

“Oh, to be in sophomore year again, and be able to take long periods of time off school and have it not affect you.” I replied, and Duke let out a laugh and agreed with me.

“Come on, we should probably go to this ‘raunchy’ sleepover.” Duke snickered.

“Raunchy my ass, if they play spin the bottle, Joey would kick any guy’s ass who went near me, and Tea would refuse to play. That would leave any boys left, I guess that is raunchy and hot.” I winked at Duke.

“Too bad Kathryn couldn’t come. She’d kiss all the boys and give them all mono.” Duke commented once we left, and I burst out laughing for the second time that night.

“I can’t believe our ‘Kathryn is a slut’ jokes are only starting now.” I said to Duke.

“We’ve got a whole party ahead of us to gain further input.” Duke said, flashing me a smile and driving off.