When Clayton sits down at the lunch table, he shakes his head. His best friend, Jaime, is staring at Marley, who he's been crushing on. Clayton nudges his friend as he nods in Marley's direction. "You have to talk to her."

"I can't. She'll never talk to me or see mein that way," Jaime says. He picks at the burger bun, slowly tearing his food apart. Not that it's any good to begin with.

"Invite her to the mall. It can be a group date. I can talk to Zoey and I'm sure she'll be down for it." Clayton adds a heaping pile of ketchup to his burger and takes a bite, ketchup oozing out. "We're already hanging out tonight, so I'm sure she wouldn't mind it becoming a double date."

At the mention of 'date,' Jaime chokes on his food and shakes his head. "No way. I never-" Clayton cuts his friend off when he holds his phone up. In clear texts, it shows Zoey saying she's fine if Marley and Jaime join. “Clayton. I didn’t, I neevr, why?”

“It’ll be good for you.” Clayton leaves it at that and sends another message to Zoey, asking if they can go somewhere else for their date.

The next day at lunch, Clayton notices Jaime’s blank stare. He arches a brow at his friend, wondering how the date went. Clayton waves his hand in front of Jaime’s face, hoping that he would say something, anything. Jaime didn’t answer any of his texts and Marley didn’t andwer any of Zoey’s. Either the date went well or... they hate Clayton and Zoey.

“Don’t leave me in suspense! I know you got my messages. You left me on read, remember?”

“It went horrible. She thought it was a prank and almsot left. Until she remembered ehr brother wouldn’t be picking her up for another hour. We got to talking, and...” Jaime hesitates, unsure of what to say. “We kind of agreed to hang out again?”

“J! That’s great!” Clayton exclaims. “See? It worked out.”

“As friends, Clay. She has a girlfriend.”