Put Your Hands Up And I'll Copy You

After I had sat through half an hour of Paige, Jon, and Max talking about people that I didn’t know, the pizza finally came. I looked at it in horror. Someone had ordered every possible topping available. You couldn’t even see the cheese underneath, if there actually was any cheese.

“What the hell is that!”

“Oh, it’s my favorite.” Max grinned. “You’ll like it.”

“I’m not eating it. Ever.” I frowned, then gestured to the waiter. “Excuse me, could I have another pizza please? Yes, just pepperoni.”

Max just looked at me. “You know what, you’re not being very talkative. That’s like the first thing you’ve said this whole time.” All three of them looked at me.

“Maybe she just has nothing to say.” Jon smiled, but not in the way that Max usually smiled. When Max smiled, it was in a mocking way. When Jon did, it was a, well, just a really sincere smile.

Why did I keep comparing the two of them?

Max leaned back. “Whatever.”

As the night continued, I kept catching Max staring at me. He had pale green eyes that were almost brown, and shaggy blond hair. He was the kind of guy that you would notice in a crowd, just because of the way he walked, the way he talked, the way he carried himself. Like he thought he was the most laid back, cool guy in the world.

I wonder how many girls fell for that kind of thing. With the way Max was talking, quite a few.

“Jamie. Earth to Jamie. You in there?” Paige tapped me on the forehead. “We’re about ready to leave. You want any more of your pizza?” I looked down to discover that I had eaten about three pieces of my pizza, with Jon and Paige finishing the rest. Max, somehow, had managed to eat the entire other pizza by himself. I wished I could be like that- eat a 12” pizza with everything on it and not feel like I’d sink if I tried to swim.

“Max thinks you have nice eyes.” Jon whispered to me on the way out to the car, his mouth close to my ear.

“That’s what everyone says.” I sighed. My eyes are a dark blue, and they’re the only thing that anyone ever compliments about my looks. Aside from that, I’m pretty average looking. Brown hair down to my shoulders. Normal lips. Normal nose. I get looked over a lot.

“I think you have a nice face too, if that makes you feel any better.” Jon laughed, looking at me, and then hurried to catch up with Paige, who was unlocking the car.

“Whatever man!” I shouted at him, smiling.

“What’s that?” Max said.

I just looked at him up and down. “Why do you keep talking to me?”

“Why do you keep staring at me?” He said, crossing his arms.

“What? I do not!”

“Yes you do. All you did the entire time you were eating is stare at me. I’m thinking, like, either I have food on my face, or you’re think I’m gorgeous.” He bent down to look in the car side mirror. “And since I don’t have food on my face, I guess it’s the latter.”

“Um.” I opened the car door- I had been sent to the backseat this time. “I’m not even going to respond to that.”

“Cool. You want to ditch this party with me and we can chill somewhere else?” He said when we were all buckled in. Paige and Jon were arguing about music in the front seat, too deep in their conversation to pay any attention to us.

“No.”

“You want to listen to some really cool music?” He pulled out his iPod.

“No.”

“You want to watch a movie with me?”

“No.”

“So you really do want to go to my brother’s party, huh?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, so you want to give me your phone number, that’s it.”

“Nope.” I rolled my eyes.

He just shut his eyes and shook his head slowly. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

I opened my mouth.

“No wait- I can answer that for you. ‘No.’”