The Dates.

I was slouching at my table in the school cafeteria, impatiently waiting for Jake to arrive. My lunch sat untouched in front of me, my hands twisting the cap of my cola bottle on and off. Boredom was striking.

"Heeeeeey, ANDY!" cheered a voice. It sounded like a cheerleader or something. I spun around on my seat to see Jake striding towards me, pieces of paper fluttering about in his left hand as he high fived some girl sat at a table he was passing.

"Sup." I greeted, pushing my lunch at him when he sat down opposite me. He didn't question it, just grabbed the nearest edible thing and shoved it into his mouth.

He pulled a face. "Ugh, cheese. Dude, you know I hate the stuff."

"So why are you still eating it?"

"Because I'm hungry, dur." he shrugged, cramming the other half of the sandwich into his mouth before we carried on our conversation.

I watched as he devoured the rest of my lunch. After the sandwiches, I was sure he swallowed a chocolate bar whole and then after that, he tipped the entire contents of a bag of crisps straight into his mouth in one go. He pointed at my drink.

"You done with that?" he asked, already reaching across to drain the bottle before I could answer.

"I guess I am, now." I sighed. I looked back to the paper that he'd slapped onto the table. "What're those?"

Jake followed my gaze, his eyes widening with realisation when he saw what I was talking about. With an arm, he swept the remains of my lunch to the side and instead brought the pages to the center of the table to fix my full attention on them. They were blank side up.

"Is there anything on the other side? Because, you know, that's kind of anti-climatic if they're just normal pieces of paper."

"Andrew!" Jake scorned. "These are what I've been working on since I left your house yesterday. These are my masterpieces."

I stared dubiously at them again, highly doubting Jake could achieve anything that was worthy of being called a masterpiece. He rolled his eyes at my expression and turned them over so I could fully witness what he had created. They were flyers, I presumed.

I read the small paragraph at the bottom of the page before taking in any of the bright colours or pictures of broken hearts. I didn't quite want to look at those just yet.

"Roll up, ladies...you are all invited to attend the one and only interview dates. Will you be the lucky girl who gets chosen to be the new...Mrs Andrew Dawes." I read out loud, not quite believing what I was seeing. The rest was just about times and dates and where the interviews were going to take place. "Are you serious?"

Jake looked up from the page, he'd been miming along when I'd read out the sentence. "One hundred percent serious. I can't be any more serious. Like, if the Joker asked me why I was so serious, I'd show him this flyer and tell him this is why."

I shot him a look at the reference to Batman but mostly, I just shook my head.

"You can't put these out. I'll be...I'll be the laughing stock of the school." I told him, grabbing the flyers and cramming them into my bag before anyone passing could see by chance.

Jake looked slightly offended but he soon covered it up with a sly smile. I didn't like that at all. That look could mean only one thing...

"Tell me you didn't." I begged. "Please tell me you didn't already put these up around school."

His eyes swivelled up to look at the ceiling, avoiding my desperate gaze. "Not exactly..."

"Not exactly? What the hell does that mean?"

"Well, to say I put them up would imply I went around the school, nailing them to the walls in the corridors and classrooms."

I dragged a hand over my face, dreading the next answer. "So what did you do instead, if you didn't do that?"

"I sort of fed them through the gaps of every girls locker in the school. Except, you know, mostly girls in our year. Dating a year seven would be kind of weird, bro." he said with chuckle.

Oh God. I was going to be hunted down and carted around the school for the amusement and entertainment of others. I was going to be a laughing stock. Not even the kid who still wets his bed was going to be a topic of gossip if I'm around.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying my hardest not to knock Jake down with a single punch. Breathe in, breathe out. Inhale, exhale. This totally wasn't working, I was going to kill him!

"Jake...because I've known you for as long as I have, I'm going to give you a head start before I come running after you to skin you alive. How about I count to three and you see how far you can get before I'm done?"

He didn't even look like he cared. He just rolled his eyes at me and drummed his fingers on the desk, knowing I wasn't going to even attempt to hurt him. He knew that I knew that he'd had lessons in boxing and I wasn't going to stand a chance against his knowledge and experience of fighting.

Instead, I vented my anger out by grabbing my now empty cola bottle and squeezing it until it crinkled and cracked under my hands. I suppose I could just move schools or something. Somewhere that Jake wasn't.

"What's the deal, Andy? I thought you were up for this?" he asked, winking at a redhead girl who'd just sauntered by.

"I was but...but not like this." I hissed, indicating to the flyers that were pointlessly being hidden away in my bag. "I thought it would be a bit more, I dunno, discreet?"

The bell for the end of lunch rang out and Jake stood up and stepped away from the table, pausing only to reply to me.

"What's the point in being discreet? Girls won't find out about it then, will they?" He laughed.

I needed a new best friend.