You're Still My Favorite Melody

William was late. I had no patience and William was twenty minutes late. We were supposed to double date with Pete and his new girlfriend but Pete was tired of waiting and William wasn’t answering his phone.

“Sabrina, you should relax,” Pete says slowly, watching me nervously.

“I am relaxed,” I say in frustration as William’s answer machine rings through my ears again. Where the fuck was he?

“You know what Pete, you two should just go. We’ll meet you there,” I say, dialing William’s number again. Pete gives me an uneasy look but leaves nonetheless. I sigh when the phone goes straight to voicemail for the tenth time and reluctantly decide to try Gabe.

“Have you seen William?” I say into the phone, biting back the words I really wanted to say--or yell rather.

“I wanted to apologize for-” he begins but I cut him off.

“Have you seen him or not?” I hiss.

“Yeah I did...but I’m not telling you where he went unless you let me apologize,” he says, determination lacing his tone.

“Gabe.”

“You wanna know don’t you?” he asks and I can picture the smirk forming on his face.

“You have thirty seconds,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit,” he says cheerfully before hanging up. Did he think I had invited him over here? No, no he couldn’t think that.

But exactly six minutes later, I find myself letting Gabe into Pete’s apartment. I’m so close to yelling and screaming and throwing (larger) objects at Gabe but he knows me too well.

“Before you yell at me, I wanted to give you this,” he says, handing me a tiny pitiful daisy.

The flower looked like it had been dug up from someone’s garden and some of the petals had fallen off, but the gesture was so simple and just plain adorable that I didn’t care. I couldn’t be mad anymore, regardless of how hard I tried and god did I try.

“I’m really sorry about what I said,” he mumbles and I can feel the smile tugging at my lips.

“I’m not mad anymore,” I say and Gabe smiles. The kind of smile that forced me to genuinely smile back. I hated the things he made me feel but at the same time I kind of loved it. And as Gabe smiled at me with something more than happiness and relief in his eyes I stop hating it so much.

“I know that you and William are-” Gabe starts, but the door opens and William walks in through the --unlocked– door. I glance at Gabe and then at William. Oh crap.

“What’s going on?” he asks suspiciously.

Gabe attempts to answer but I cut him off, “maybe if you had answered your fucking phone, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

“My phone-”

“We had a date tonight William,” I blurt out, crossing my arms.

“Yeah I know but if you’d let me explain-”

“Actually William, Gabe and I were pretty busy so you should just go,” I hiss and William gives me an incredulous look. So maybe I was playing with his insecurities, but I didn’t really care. I was angry.

“You’re not serious.”

“I am.”

William sighs, glares at Gabe and leaves the apartment. Gabe and I spend the rest of the evening making chocolate chip cookies until Pete comes in.

“You’re not mad at him anymore?” Pete asks, raising both eyebrows. I shake my head and Pete glances between the two of us.

Gabe had a smear of flour across his nose and a smiley face (drawn by me) on his cheek. I on the other hand had my hair tied up messily and flour covered every inch of my body– Gabe’s retaliation.

“Does William know about your little play date?” Pete asks slowly, watching Gabe hand me a cookie.

“It’s not a play-date it’s just two friends making cookies,” I protest, because this was not a date. Surprisingly enough Gabe had kept things in friend zone. We were kind of friends again, although I wasn’t sure how long it would last this time.

“And William agreed with that?” he prods, taking the cookie from my hand. I don’t answer and instead push another cookie into my mouth.

“She kicked him out,” Gabe answers for me. I punch his arm and Pete gives me an incredulous look.

“You kicked William out, so you could play house with Gabe?!”

“We’re not playing house,” I mumble.

“That’s besides the point Sabrina! I knew you were going to overreact but shit...you didn’t even let him explain did you?” Pete asks.

“Stop making me the bad guy,” I groan, slumping over the table in defeat. Okay. I overreacted. A lot.