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“And we are… Just Getting Started.”
Milo Murphy stares at Amanda Lopez’s retreating back, a blush forming on his cheeks. She turns and smiles at him one last time before disappearing from view.
She kissed his cheek. She kissed his cheek… what did that mean? He suddenly feels frozen, his mind lost in waves upon waves of overthinking, something he has never done before.
She kissed his cheek.
Milo touches his cheek, a smile spreading across his pink face. He looks up to Melissa and Zack watching him, identical grins on their faces. Mischievous, teasing grins, and he knows for sure that he is about to be teased to next Wednesday and back. But there is genuine happiness there too. They are happy for him. Which won’t stop the teasing, but still.
Melissa’s smile is perhaps wider than Zack’s. “See, I told you she would make the first move!” She declares, in that triumphant tone that Milo had been hearing since the day he first met her. “Five bucks, hand them over.”
“Fine.” Zack grumbles. But even his annoyance at Melissa doesn’t stop him from grinning at Milo.
“Were you two betting on my love life?” Milo folds his arms and tries to look annoyed. But giddiness is still plain on his face, and he knows he isn’t fooling anyone. He doesn’t want to fool anyone. He is very, very happy, and he wants to be happy with his best friends.
“Did you expect anything else from us?” Melissa asks him.
“No.” Milo admits.
“Anyway, who cares about that now, she kissed you!” Melissa exclaims. Milo smiles again, somehow even wider.
“Yes. Yes, she did.” He says. “I just didn’t expect it at all.”
“I did.” Melissa says. “I was pretty sure, after the dance, it was only a matter of time.”
“Why the dance?” Milo asks curiously. He doesn’t remember Amanda acting particularly differently. She had been quite annoyed with him, actually, for existing too close to stuff. He supposes he should find that rude, but he is used to people not liking him existing too close to their stuff. And she did ask to dance with him, and they did dance, but that was because he fixed the dance and she was happy.
“Duh, you fixed everything at the event that was super important to her! After she kept telling you to get lost.” Zack says. “That is super romantic, dude.”
“It was very sweet.” Melissa agrees. “She started to like you then, we could all see it.”
“I couldn’t.” Milo admits. He thinks back again. Should he have noticed something when she asked him to dance? He had just been happy that she was happy. That was why he fixed the dance, because he wanted her to be happy. He hadn’t even thought that it might lead to her reciprocating his crush.
“Yeah, we could all see that too.” Zack teases.
“Then there was Cake ‘Splosion.” Melissa adds. “It was super obvious you two liked each other, it was just whether or not either of you would do something about it. And then she did.”
“And then she did.” Milo echoes. Unconsciously, he touches his cheek. Cake ‘Splosion had been fantastic. Amanda finally seemed to accept Murphy’s Law, which made him so happy. And she had forgiven him for Murphy’s Law ruining their cake. When she hugged him, he thought his soul was leaving his body. His crush had been as obvious as a flashing light in a dark room, but he honestly hadn’t noticed anything from Amanda. “So, what do I do now?”
“What do you mean?” Zack asks.
“Do I talk to her? Do I ask her out? What do I do?” Milo asks, flustered. “I don’t want to make things weird. And I’m not really sure what we are, now.”
Zack and Melissa exchange amused, exasperated looks. “Come on, Milo. She did the difficult bit! All you’ve got to do now is talk to her.” Melissa elbows him teasingly. “You’ll be fine. This is way easier than chasing stampeding llamas.”
“She obviously likes you.” Zack agrees, patting Milo’s shoulder. “It’ll be easy.”
“Like you find it easy?” Milo asks Zack. Switching roles. Now he is teasing, and Zack is embarrassed. He knows if Zack found it easy, he would be the third wheel right now.
“Zack likes someone?” Melissa looks surprised. She expresses no outward unhappiness, which disappoints Zack. But Milo can see she is annoyed by this development. And they think he’s obvious.
“Shut up, wise guy.” Zack shoves Milo. “Nothing, Mel. Besides, it’s not the same! She kissed you already, so she obviously likes you, which makes it easy.”
Milo stops teasing and nods. He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. “Yeah, easy.”
———
“This is not easy.” Milo mutters.
Other students buzz around him as she waits next to Amanda’s locked, his nerves creating a bubble of silence around him. He has absolutely no clues what to say. But hey, that’s ok, right? He can just wing it, something he has always been good at.
“Milo?”
He spins around to see Amanda. “Oh hey, Amanda!” He exclaims, too loudly.
“Hi Milo.” Amanda smiles. “Do you need something?”
“No!” Milo says then winces. “I mean, yeah, I mean, um… can we talk?”
“Of course. About what?” Amanda asks. Milo can see trepidation beginning to leech into her eyes, and her body tense. She clasps her hands together nervously. No, he didn’t mean to do that!
“Nothing bad!” He assures her hurriedly. “I hope, anyway. So, um, you’re really pretty, and so organised and clever and really nice, and at the concert, you, um…”
Amanda smiles encouragingly. Her cheeks begin to darken, which matches Milo’s new tomato complexion. Milo meets her eyes, nervousness grabbing hold of his tongue. He forces himself to blurt it out.
“Do you wanna go out to get ice cream or something? Just us? I know, with your schedule-“
“Milo.” Amanda holds up a hand to cut him off. He freezes. Then she smiles widely. “I’m sure I can fit it in.”
“Yes!” Milo pumps the air. Then he grins sheepishly. “I mean, cool, how about Saturday?”
“Sounds great. I have an enjoyment hour scheduled for the afternoon.” Amanda stands on her tiptoes and leans in to kiss his cheek. “See you then.”
Milo’s face explodes into a deep blush. “See you then!” He echoes, unconsciously touching the spot she kissed.
Amanda smiles, retrieves her book from her locker, dodges a falling roof tile, and hurries away again. Milo watches her retreating back, then grins. “She said yes!”
Melissa appears around the corner to give him a high five. “What did I say?”
Zack makes a teasing kissing face. Milo tries to scowl, but is smiling too much. “I’m going on a date with Amanda!”
Dozens of heads turn to look. He coughs. “Too loud.”