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I didn't feel like arguing with Pierson. Because even though Dakota had his guard up at times, I felt like I knew him awfully well compared to any other student at our school. I wouldn't quite say I knew everything there was to know about him, but he sure as hell wasn't a stranger to me. Knowing that he was on the Lacrosse team seemed like a trivia fact, like what is favorite pizza topping was or which hand he wrote with. It didn't have much significance to me.

For the most part, I kept my comments to myself when Pierson tried to talk badly of Dakota, insisting that I should drop all contact with him and saying I didn't need to associate myself with such a low-life. I sealed my lips and didn't say anything back. I knew if it wasn't for this plan, I would've gone off on him.

About two hours in, we'd finished a good three quarters of the project. We needed to make a sketch-comedy entirely in Spanish about us doing any interesting task. While working, I revealed to Pierson that I had taken up Coach Walkers suggestion to join the track team. Pierson was overjoyed and said he would love to go to the first meet of the semester at the end of the month.

When we had finished our project, it was three o'clock and Heath was asking if I had finished my job yet. I needed some space away from Pierson. He and I were working in the living room so it wasn't like I could easily slip out of his view without him knowing.

I texted Heath, informing him that I would get to the plan as soon as possible. I told him to drive over to Pierson's house since it was time for me to leave. I also told him how we needed to pick up Ronnie for the gig later on tonight. He didn't seem to mind. I think he had a small crush on Ronnie.

Right when I got a text, saying he was five minutes away, I turned to Pierson and sat down my textbook. "I need to use the restroom."

"It's up the stairs and to your left." He instructed, pointing up in the general direction of the stairway. "Make sure to hurry up, because I want to talk to you about track. It's great that you'll finally be able to join the team. Maybe I could help since you behind from where the rest of the team is."

I nodded and got out of my seat on the couch, making the short journey up the stairs and to the restroom. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure he couldn't see me take a right and not a left, entering into his bedroom. My heart was pounding in my ears when I shut the door behind me, taking in what might as well be my last breath.

Guilty was already floating in my veins by the time I walked to his laptop and turned it on. Following the short steps Heath gave me, I put in the flash drive he handed me and took off any file saved on to his computer. There was an email Heath had sent Pierson as well, but he hadn't opened it.

Luckily, he was already logged into his email when I checked. The email Heath sent was a spam, riddled with bogus information inside, asking for him to open the attachment and fill out a fake form. By opening the attachment, it would spread a virus into the computer. Heath said something else would happen to cause him to crack into the laptop, but I was too zoned out to really listen to him.

After I was done, I shutdown the laptop and exited out of the room.

I nearly dropped the flash drive in my hand when I saw who was across from me, leaning on the wall with his hands deep in his blue jean pockets.

"What are you doing in my bedroom?" Pierson asked.

Swiftly, without him looking, I stuffed the flash drive into my back pocket. "I...uh...got lost."

"You were lost for a very long time." He eased off the mint green walls and leered forward, towering in front of me. "Either you tell me the truth or I'm going take whatever it was you stuffed into your pants pocket just then."

Okay, so maybe I wasn't all that swift.

Shutting my eyes, I sighed in defeat. My mind buzzed for a lie-any lie. I was a crappy liar. If there was an award for being a bad liar, I would win first place every year. Despite knowing that, I knew that I needed something, and quick. "Alright, I'll tell you. But you have to swear you won't call me a creep."

He didn't look the slightest bit amused. His arms were still crossed over his chest, coming off more defensive than ever. "Tell me."

"I have this weird...fetish."

Oh God. This is such a stupid lie already.

This, oddly enough, sparked his interest. His dark brows knitted together, narrowing down at me with a bemused expression. "What do you mean by weird fetish? What were you doing in there?"

"It's not too strange." I paused, collecting my thoughts. "It's just that I have this thing where I like going through guy's dressers, looking at their underwear, maybe even putting it on. I don't know what it is, but it really gets me going."

"No offense, but that is quite odd. Did you put anything on now?"

"No, I was just looking."

He cleared his throat and then glanced down the hallway. After a brief moment, he reopened his bedroom door and told me to follow after him.

There was a shift in the atmosphere and I wasn't all too sure if I liked it or not. The sway in his walk and the movement of his hands were different. His arms weren't crossed over his chest. Instead they were at his sides, occasionally moving over to touch the space between my shoulder blades. When he offered for me to take the empty seat next to him on his bed, I said yes.

Dakota wouldn't be okay with this.

Dakota would probably lose his s-

It didn't matter how Dakota felt about this. His thoughts should not be the ones worrying me right now. Heath had said it to him, loud and clear, that whatever I did with Pierson wasn't real. I had no intentions of kissing Pierson so that was clearly off the table. But just enough flirting to get him off of my back would help this plan from falling apart. I was good at flirting as I was lying, so in the end, this idea of mine might also backfire.

Even though Heath and Dakota hadn't voiced their own opinions on who the possible father of Ophelia may be, I had a hunch that it was either Chase Bennet or Maven. My third guess was Pierson, but I highly doubted it since Beth said she rarely saw him date anyone.

Pierson leaned on his left hand, setting it directly behind me on the bed. "I would've never pictured you as the kind of girl who as weird stuff like that going on in her head."

"You have a lot of ideas on how you think I'll be and expect for me to act." I noticed. "Also, it's not that weird."

"On a scale from one to ten. And ten being creepy, it's up there on the list near the top."

I rolled my eyes. "Not as weird as urolagnia."

"Okay, okay. Nothing is as weird as urolagnia. That will not, and cannot, be topped. I will give you that." He chuckled until his laughter came out in soft, slow breaths. Then he stopped laughing entirely and held his gaze on me, periodically gazing down to my lips. The room fell silent and I wanted to kick myself for getting in this kind of a situation.

I knew what kind of look he was giving me now. It was the look that created babies. It was the 'let-start-taking-off-our-clothes' seductive look and none of me was okay with that. His eyes were low on my body and his hand moved from being behind me to now being on my knee. His lips were getting uncomfortably close to mine. I watched, with open eyes, as his mouth connected to mine.

I raised up my hand and pushed against his chest. I could still taste him on my tongue when the start of a complaint began to come out of him. I quickly stated: "I just got out of a relationship, Pierson. I don't want to start anything new. Besides, I hardly know you."

He scoffed. "We know each other."

"If you know me so well, then what's my middle name?"I ordered him. He shrugged. "I don't know. Is it your father's first name? I know that in your culture it's common to take your dad's name as your middle name." I blinked, genuinely shocked that he knew that.

"How did you know that?"

"I had Somali neighbors before."

"Oh, well, that explains it. But you're wrong. My middle name isn't my father's first name."

"Okay, is it Ann?"

"I'm half-Somali and you think my middle name is Ann?" I scoffed, hoping this would further distract him from the flash drive in my pocket. So far, it was working. He seemed committed to prove me wrong and show that he knows me well. "My middle name is Ikran."

"Oh, I'm so sorry." He snickered sarcastically. "I assumed your mum and dad would follow the tradition. It's not my fault they decided to stray away from tradition. Frankly though, I should've expected it. I don't think there's any other Somali person in the world named Silvia. Aren't their names usually Arabic?"

"Yeah, they are," I nodded, "and I'd bet money that you're right that there is a shortage in Somali Silvia's." I chuckled. "Silvia isn't a familiar name from my mother's side of the family, but my father's aunt was named Silvia and she passed away a month before I was born. To commemorate her death, they named me after her. My mother planned on naming me Ikran, but decided to make it my middle name after Silvia's death."

"That's not traditional at all."

"It is for my dad's family," I stated, "and don't even talk about not following traditions. What kind of name is Pierson on someone who's supposedly Irish? It's not an Irish name. I bet you're not even Irish."

"Have I disappointed you with my very boring name? Would you have rather I gotten the name Jameson? Maybe even Declan or Cillian?"

"I would've simply been satisfied with Seamus." I chortled and he joined me, laughing along. The pervious sexual tension was still there, lingering in the air, but I was doing a good enough job of ignoring it with more questions. I hadn't yet processed the fact that he kissed me for a split second. I needed something to distract me. "If you don't mind me asking, why is your name Pierson?"

"It's my dad and granddad's name." He replied in a low tone. "They both ended up being failures in life, so I guess my mum thought it would be a brilliant idea to keep that running in our family by naming me after them."

"Can we switch? I'd rather have failures than cheaters."

"Sure we can switch. My mum and dad unfortunately never were cheaters."

"Unfortunately?" I echoed.

He smirked. "It's kind of funny thinking back on it now, but when I was a kid I would hope-pray, really-that my mother cheated on my dad. Because then maybe there was a sliver of a chance that he wasn't my real dad and that there was a better dad out there in the world. Just waiting for me to meet him."

I rested my hand on his large, broad shoulder. "I know the feeling. I thought the exact same thing whenever I was with my mom. I told myself that I was adopted. Only problem with that idea though was the fact that I was a splitting image of her."

He brought his hand up to mine on his shoulder. "Eh, I doubt she was that bad though. You guys are closer now, right?"

With my lips sealed, I nodded. Opening up about my thoughts on my mother wasn't something I did freely or often. Because at the end of the day, she was still my mother and I didn't want talk badly about her--even though what she had could easily be frowned upon.

She'd made a lot of mistakes, like we all do. What I had a problem with, essentially, was how she handled her problems and dealt with her mistakes.

She ignored them, waiting for them to disappear. Of course, it never did. It always resurfaced, scratching for her attention and begging for her to notice it. Little did she know that those mistakes would eventually come back and haunt her.

. . . .

SONG FOR THE CHAPTER: FRIEND CRUSH BY FRIENDS

Lyrics: ❝I've seen you around. I don't know what you think of me.❞

https://youtu.be/gfamBoa_zYQ

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