Resistance Is Useless

20.
Jack

"You like her?" I finally asked, after a moment of awkward silence. Alex nodded, still looking down at his feet. I pursed my lips and nodded slowly.
"You're not mad are you?" he asked. I thought about that question for a moment.
"No, I'm not mad. Just... surprised I guess," there was another moment of silence. "If you like her, why'd you get so mad at her?" I asked. Alex finally looked up at me.
"Okay, I'm just gonna be really honest right now..." he took a breath before continuing, "I guess I was basically just jealous,” He waited for a moment, studying my face to see my reaction, but I just raised an eyebrow, and he continued, “It kinda sucked to see you guys making out last night, but I didn't let it get to me, and then when you were talking to me this morning about how you wanna actually ask her out? Well that just made me feel shitty, but I knew it wasn't fair to be a dick to you about it, cause you had her first, so I just hid it. And then earlier, I don't even know what happened. I was just mad at myself for liking her in the first place and I just lost my cool."
"You can't loose what you never had," I said quietly with a smirk.
"Shut the fuck up Jack!" he said with a smile, "I'm telling you my feelings, and you make a fuckin' joke about it!" he chuckled. We just smiled at each other for a moment, but as I realized something, my heart sank.
98% of the time, when Alex and I want the same girl, he gets her in the end.
"So, I guess, if you're gonna go for her too... I mean, were not officially dating or anything, so she's technically still available, so—“
"—Jack," he cut me off, "she's already yours. I don't think I would even have a real chance with her, cause she likes YOU. plus, you liked her first, and fair is fair."
"Really? You're not even gonna try?"
"What's the point?" Alex asked rhetorically with a shrug of his shoulders.
Wow. I really could not believe this. This would be the first time that I ended up with the girl. In the other 2% of the time, Alex would just loose interest before either of us got the girl, so I got her by default. But this time, I got the girl that Alex still wanted! And it wasn’t just some girl, it was Andy!
"Thanks" I said sincerely, "But you're still gonna need to apologize to Andy,"
"Hm. You're right. I hope she doesn't plan to be mad at me for too much longer. Will you text her and see where she ran off to?" I did exactly that. But she never replied, so I texted her again.
"Is she not replying?" Alex asked. I shook my head 'no'. "Try calling her" he suggested. Andy answered quietly on the third ring.
"Where are you? Alex wants to talk to you." I said.
"Well maybe I don't wanna talk to him" she muttered. Alex tapped my arm and I covered the phone with my hand and looked at him.
"Jack I really need to talk to her, can I have the phone?" Alex asked.
"No, she said she doesn't want to talk. She'll just get mad," I whispered back.
"Okay fine, just tell her I'm sorry. And please don’t tell her I like her.”
"Kay," I said, putting the phone back to my ear.
"Just ask her to come back to the bus," Alex whispered.
"Andy, will you come back to the bus? Please?"
"Jack. I don't want to talk to Alex right now. And I know he's with you. Dammit. "Will YOU come sit with me?" I looked up at Alex before answering, knowing he heard her say that, and saw a tiny bit of hurt in his eyes, but he quickly smiled. I agreed to meet her wherever she was. I hung up the phone after Andy did and slipped on my tennis shoes.
"Alright, I'll be back in a while. I said to Alex. He nodded. "And just for the record, if you tried, you could totally get her," I added.
"Yeah, I know. I was being nice," Alex said with a smirk. I laughed and shook my head as I walked out the door.