Chapter #7The One Where You Hang Out With Rachel by: rugal b.   You have to keep your jaw from dropping and making you look like a complete fool. Rachel wants to go somewhere after school... with you? Well you did like the conversation, as much as you could call it that, on Monday and as you look at her she really isn't that bad looking. Her posture is less guarded and more relaxed, the look of bored disinterest replaced by a friendly smile showing white teeth that contrast to what you presume are the remnants of a summer tan.
Caleb had wanted you to help him but... he'd understand, right?
"Sure," you respond. "Hanging out together would be nice but, uh, just the two of us? Really? What about your friends?"
She shifts a bit and nervously bites her lip. "I mean... hmm... well, no," Rachel says. "It was easier to talk when it was just us right? Audrey and, um, Dorothy kind of dominate the conversation don't they?" she adds with a giggle.
"But if it was just the two of us wouldn't that imply, uh..."
"What? you mean like," her eyes widen, "a date? Well, but it's not right? We'd just be hanging out. It's not like I know you well enough to just go on a date."
"Right," you respond nervously. "So where do you want to hang out at anyway?"
"Oh, gee, um, you know I hadn't thought about it, haha!" she answers with seemingly equal nerves. "Let's just meet out front by the parking lot and figure something out, okay?"
"Yeah, okay," you you say positively. She smiles and gives a positive response but as she starts to leave you grab her attention one more time. "So do you want to, I don't know, hang out together for lunch or something?"
"Oh!" she exclaims. "Um, sorry but maybe we should get to know each other a little better first before we, uh, start intermingling our social groups? But I will definitely see you this afternoon! Seeya!"
With that she turns and walks out of the room while you want to sink into the floor. Of course you had to go and make things awkward at the last minute and with a few hours left in the day and hanging out with her friends, if she even says anything to them, you wonder if she might change her mind. You hope note though because you're actually excited. The only issue will be Caleb but, well, if the positions were reversed he'd do the same thing right? Yeah, he'll totally understand. He has to.
* * * * *
"I really don't understand, Will," Caleb complains. You're sitting with him in the grassy quad in front the school for lunch and he isn't overly happy with what you've told him.
"What don't you understand?" asks James as he and Carson come to join you. They tell you that Jenny will be by in a few minutes while you tell them that Keith probably got spooked by Javits.
"Or maybe he got spooked by Ashton after yesterday," Carson laughs.
"Anyway," you start, "Caleb's made 'cause I'm bailing on helping him out with something to hang out with someone else after school today."
"Yeah? Who with?" asks Carson.
"Rachel Bell. I think you guys have her in eighth."
"Yeah," James nods. "That's surprising though. I had to partner with her on something in class once and she wasn't the most outgoing. I barely got more than five words out of her."
All you can do is shrug. "I dunno, we talked for a bit when I was hanging out with Dorothy on Monday," you explain. "Then today she comes up to me after fourth lets out and asks to hang out so I figured why not?"
"Johansson, man," Carson turns to Caleb. "Will's got a date and you're seriously gonna be pissy about that?"
"It's not a date," you quietly interject. So quietly, it seems, that it's skipped over.
"The hell d'ya need help with anyhow?"
"It's the time capsule," Caleb admits. "I gave Walberg a thumb drive as a joke but was going to swap it out with something else. Was gonna write my paper on the second item."
"What kind of plan is that?" asks James. "What'd you even have on a thumbdrive anyway?"
Caleb is silent for a moment as he clearly doesn't want to answer but eventually wilts. "Porn," he quietly admits which sends both Carson and James into hysterics.
"Oh man, for real!?" Carson whoops. "The hell do you need it back so bad for then? Don't tell me you put all your porn on there something. Hell, who even downloads porn now anyway?"
"Of course I didn't put it all on there!" exclaims Caleb. "I'm worried about him digging it up and finding out what's on there."
James cocks an eyebrow. "How would he find out? It's not like he's going to take home and pop in a random thumb drive," he says. "Just write about whatever. Not like he'd know the difference. Why'd you need Will's help anyway?"
"He needed me to play lookout for him for whenever Walberg left," you explain. "Except it was pointless because Dane was there with detention so Caleb chickened out."
"Then you'd probably need two people to help you, right?" asks James. "One to play lookout, the other to distract Dane."
"Yeah and with this guy," Caleb says as he jerks a thumb towards you, "abandoning me it looks like I've got open spots."
"I never actually promised I'd help," you say defensively.
"And we would definitely love to," says Carson, "but me and James have our own stuff to do after school. So looks like you're shit outta luck, buddy."
Caleb can really do nothing at this point beyond mutter and grumble impotently and soon talk turns to other things. However you continue to be anxious. You know that Carson is just joshing and you know that Rachel said it was just hanging out but you still can't help but to feel excited all the same. Even if you think back to that moment at the end of class and want to bury yourself with Walberg's dumb time capsult.
* * * * *
As it turns out, however, you don't have much of anything to worry about. Rachel meets you at the front of the school and you take a few minutes as she follows you to your truck to discuss where it is you want to go. Eventually, before she separates towards her car, you settle on heading up to Monte Viso, a general hangout spot with mini golf and go-karts though really you're there to hang around in the arcade and pump tokens into games made likely before you were even born.
As it's a weekday afternoon there's not many other people around so the two of you are able to freely talk and get caught up with one another. She tells you about her classes and you tell her about your own. You talk about your friends and she mentions her's. When you inquire about Dorothy specifically she relates a story about how they shared a class last year, Rachel gave her some help and they just started hanging out not long after. It surprises you that they'd share a class at all but Rachel's pretty sharp in rebuking you.
"Dorothy is how she is," she shrugs. "I mean she likes, you know, marijuana and all and I know how she comes off but..." She pauses and fidgets a bit. "But she's not stupid or anything. She's just kind of a lazy student I guess."
From there that leads to talk about how Dorothy has another subset of friends that Rachel doesn't regularly interact with. You don't recognize all of them but the ones you do, like Jordana Trujillo who you also share fourth with, are enough to give you a general idea and you're not at all surprised that Rachel doesn't hang out much with them.
Overall you spend about an hour hanging out and you find yourself enjoying it. She seems a lot looser compared to how she was on Monday which is something you bring up after you decide to grab something to eat at Panera.
"You can tell, huh?" she says as she takes a sip of soup. "Well, I guess I can just be kind of, I guess, shy? Especially in unfamiliar situations or around people I don't know." She grimaces a bit. "I guess it makes me come off as kind of aloof doesn't it? Audrey and Mindy say that all the time."
"I guess I can see how that can cause problems," you admit. "But there's not really anything you can do about it and, uh, you seem to be able to open up pretty well."
"Well I guess that's because you're kind of easy to get along with," she replies and gives you a small smile. "Usually guys hear about the classes I'm taking and it's like it's so weird that a girl is taking those classes or whatever." She rolls her eyes at that. "I mean I guess I'm kind of smart but it's not like I'm the only smart girl around. Hell, I'm not even the only smart girl in school."
"I dunno," you shrug, "I was surprised but I guess that's because my own classes aren't so hot. I'm more surprised you've got classes with some of my friends than anything else. They've never really mentioned you."
The two of you continue to talk and eat before deciding to go your separate ways for the evening. Out in the parking lot you head over to your respective vehicles, conveniently parked next to one another, and get ready to say your goodbyes when Rachel grabs your wrist. She looks at you and you think you can almost see faint hints of red on her cheeks.
"So, you know, this was pretty fun and I said you were easy to get along with right? And your friends, you said they kind of joked about this being a date?" She fidgets nervously quite a bit. "Well I know this was just hanging out and all but, uh, what about a real one? A date that is. Like maybe going to see a movie tomorrow evening?"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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