Friends With Benefits

The week at school went by pretty normally. We all adjusted to our classes and I even got a chance to reconnect with Will during study hall since Natalie wasn’t around to pester him or keep the two of us apart. Sara apparently found a guy to set me up with, one of Eric’s friends who went to a neighboring high school. I was a little skeptical since Eric was a bit of a goofball, not to mention the only friend of Eric’s I had ever met was Chuck Fink. I was a little surprised that Fletch hadn’t bothered me about the whole blind date thing because he usually wanted to chip in his two cents about everything. Then there was the fact that Fletch and I had made out just about every afternoon after he had driven me home Monday through Thursday. Friday night, however, I was determined there would be no secret make out session with Fletch since I was going out with someone else that night.

“So, what’s the plan for this weekend?” Will asked as he sat down beside me in study hall.

“Nothing,” Fletcher shrugged. “You hanging out with Natalie?”

“Nah, she’s got family stuff,” Will shrugged. “You guys want to hang tonight?”

“Sure,” Fletch shrugged.

“I can’t…” I bit my lip.

“Why not?” Will frowned.

“Aileen has a date,” Fletch snorted.

“What?” Will said, surprised. “With who?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “It’s a blind date… Sara set us up…”

“Sara?” Will said, his nose crinkled. “No offense, Ailee… but is she really the best person to set you up? I mean…she’s dating Eric… I mean, he’s not a bad guy or anything but… he’s an acquired taste, I guess…”

“I’m sure Sara found someone nice,” I shrugged.

“But you don’t even know this guy!” Will protested. “He could be a creeper or a murderer…”

“Just a murderer,” Fletch offered. “Lenny made sure Sara wasn’t setting her up with Chuck Fink.”

“Well, if the guy shows up and he’s a freak or he tries to pull anything, feel free to call me,” Will insisted. “I’ll pick you up and punch his lights out.”

“Thanks,” I blushed. I smiled inwardly, knowing this had to be a sign that Will really cared about me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have gotten so tense about the thought of me going out on a date with another guy or been so ready to defend me if that guy tried to hurt me.

“You need a ride home tonight?” Will asked me. “I don’t have to take Natalie because her folks are picking her up from school today?”

“Okay,” I grinned. I managed to catch a glance at Fletch, who just disgustedly rolled his eyes at me. However, I wasn’t going to let him ruin my afternoon.

Will and I chatted back and forth about everything on the drive home. It was like we had never been apart all those months Natalie kept him from hanging out with everyone. I was glad to have the old Will back, even if it was just for a little while. I managed to get my few weekend assignments finished in time for Sara to come over around five to help me get ready. She promised me the guy was nice, the son of one of the guy’s Eric’s father worked with, and that we were going to have fun. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a quick meal and bowling, but I was still incredibly nervous. I hadn’t ever been out on an official date before, mainly because I had spent the past eleven years of my life waiting for Will to ask me out.

Sara left around six, when Evan, the guy who was supposed to be taking me out arrived. Sara only gave me the vaguest of details about my date. His name was Evan Flick, he was a junior at Westmoreland Comprehensive High School in the next town over, he liked to skateboard with Eric and other mutual friends, and he had a nut allergy, though I wasn’t exactly sure how pertinent that last factoid was. I heard his car pull up and looked out my window to see how well Sara had done. Evan was at least decent looking. He was cuter than Fletch but not as drop-dead-gorgeous as Will. I shook the thought out of my head, knowing it wasn’t a good idea to start comparing this new guy to the two other guys who made my life infinitely more complicated. I went down to get the door but Matt, who still had a few days before he had to leave for school, grabbed it before I did.

“Aileen!” Matt screeched up the stairs. “There’s some dork here who says he’s taking you out! Should I tell him to leave politely or rudely?”

“Shut up Matt,” I grimaced, heading down the stairs and pushing him out of the way. Matt rolled his eyes at me and then ran off. I turned to Evan, embarrassed. “That’s my brother Matt… he’s…”

“The stereotypical overprotective big brother?” Evan offered.

“I was going to say the stereotypical goober big brother who tries to ruin my life,” I shrugged. Evan laughed.

“Well, shall we?” Eric smiled.

Though things started off easily enough, it quickly became apparent that Evan and I were completely ill suited to each other. He was a nice enough guy, but we had nothing in common and absolutely nothing to talk about. I was a big reader and he didn’t like books. He liked first person shooter video games while I liked action adventure types. He wasn’t really in to music whereas I was about obsessed with it. Evan had this whole seven year plan for college, getting married, and having kids. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to major in. Evan was also a world class bowler and pretty competitive, so the game wasn’t very fun for me since I pretty much stunk and didn’t appreciate his mocking or victory dances. By the time he took me home, it was basically decided that the two of us could be friends but probably wouldn’t work out.

I called Sara to tell her about the disaster that was the blind date and she was completely shocked that Evan and I hadn’t immediately hit it off. She made sure I hadn’t spent the entire evening moping over Will and I promised her I honestly hadn’t thought about him or Fletch the entire time during the date. Sara was upset that the evening ended early and promised me she would find someone I had much more in common with for my next blind date, though I wasn’t sure if I wanted to repeat the excruciating dating process again, wasting my following Friday evening.

After also answering Matt’s suspicions about why my date had ended extremely early, I managed to get ready for bed and curled up with a book before going to sleep. I was only to able to get through half a chapter when I started hearing a noise outside my window. At first I ignored it and then I realized someone was pelting something at my window. I walked over to see Fletch in the front yard, filching the river rock pebbles in our front yard landscaping to throw up. I sighed, throwing on a bra under my shirt then a jacket over it and headed out to meet him. He didn’t notice I had come out and threw at least three more rocks before my bare feet hit the wet evening grass.

“Fletch! What the hell are you doing here?” I grimaced at him.

“I thought you were asleep,” he said, dropping the remaining pebbles on the ground.

“I’m not,” I snorted, “but my parents are and you know how pissed my dad gets when someone interrupts his weekend sleeping patterns.”

“That’s why I threw rocks instead of ringing the doorbell,” Fletch snorted.

“That’s why they invented the cellular telephone, Fletch,” I retorted. “Is your phone broken or something?”

“Forgot to charge it… and I think possibly lost it in the backseat of my car yesterday afternoon…” Fletch trailed off. I blushed. Yesterday afternoon, Fletch had parked his car in our driveway only for the two of us to get involved in a rather intense thirty minute make out session in his backseat. There was no doubt his phone was somewhere back there.

“You could have just gone out and gotten it rather than walk three blocks to my house,” I snorted. “Why did you come here, anyway?”

“I wanted to see how your blind date went,” Fletch shrugged.

“Seriously? You should have just picked up the phone and called me,” I snorted. “Or you could have waited until tomorrow or something…”

“I didn’t know I’d be seeing you tomorrow,” Fletch shrugged.

“I figured you had to completely annoy me every few hours or you’d spontaneously combust or something,” I shrugged. “Anyway, you still could have just called.”

“I just wanna know how it went,” Fletch shrugged. “You wanna go somewhere and talk?”

“Tree house?” I sighed, knowing exactly what he meant.

There was no fence between our yard and the Swain’s yard next door. Will’s Dad and mine had worked together to build a tree house in our backyard, which Will had always been free to use as well. When we got older, it became more of a hang out place than our imaginary fortress. It became really more of mine and Will’s place when Matt decided he didn’t want to play with “babies” any more and got his own friends. Will and I hadn’t been up in the tree house together since middle school, but every once in a while, Fletch would come over and the two of us would hang out in it.
I told Fletch everything about my date, from Matt’s awkward introduction to my date to how we ended it early because we just didn’t have any sort of connection. Fletch seemed vaguely smug about the fact that I didn’t exactly click with a random distant friend of Eric’s.

“You know, this guy sounds a lot like Eric. I think Sara just set you up with an Eric mimic because she likes Eric so she figured you’d like someone like Eric,” Fletch said after I had finished relating the story to him.

“Maybe, but Sara knows I don’t find Eric remotely attractive,” I shrugged. “Yeah, he’s funny and all, but he’s kind of a dumb-butt.”

“He is,” Fletch agreed. He paused for a minute. “So, what made you decide to do the whole blind date thing?” I frowned. Fletch hadn’t once brought up the fact that I was going out on a date with another guy, except for when he tactlessly broke the news to Will earlier in the week.

“It was more Sara’s idea,” I admitted with a shrug. “She thought maybe putting myself out there would help me get over the whole Will thing. Broaden my horizons, I guess.”

“Did it ‘broaden your horizons’?” Fletch snorted.

“No. It just made me realize that the whole dating around thing seriously sucks,” I shrugged. “I mean, how many other losers do I possibly have to go out with before I find a non-loser? I already had to sit through one painful evening of listen to a guy brag about the fact that he’s in a junior pro-bowling league and the proud vice-president of his school’s Future Business Leaders of America club. Kill me now.”

“I would, but they’d probably try me as an adult and I’m too pretty to go to big boy jail,” Fletch rolled his eyes. I shoved him and he shoved me back.

“You should probably begin that three block walk home,” I noticed. “You’re wearing all dark colors, too. You’re going to get hit by a car, you know?”

“Only the type of cars that drive on the sidewalk,” Fletch snorted.

“So, you’ve driven with my brother before?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe I’ll hit up Will for a best buddies sleepover,” Fletch shrugged. “If he isn’t over at Natalie’s house banging her.”

“Don’t mention that,” I grimaced.

“What? Best buddy sleepovers?” Fletch asked. “Or the fact that Will spends the majority of his Friday evenings sensually taking of Natalie’s pants so he can…”

“I’m going to shove you out of this tree and tell everyone you feel by accident after your brain splatters on the patio,” I glared at him.

“Whatever,” Fletch rolled his head.

I climbed down from the tree house and headed to the front door, which I had left unlocked, hoping no burglars were just lying in wait for such an opportunity. I looked over to find Fletch following me to the front door instead of heading home or over to Will’s like he said he would. I looked at him in annoyance, hoping he would get the message and leave, but he only stepped closer to me.

“What?” I asked.

“No goodbye?” Fletch asked.

“Get lost,” I snorted. I turned to open the door, but found Fletch’s arms snaking around my body. He twisted me around and planted a deep kiss on my lips. Before I could react, he had skipped off into the night, slowing disappearing into the darkness.

“Freak,” I said to no one in particular before heading inside.