I knew I was asking for it, but since I offered to help with the SAT, Flora picked a fight with me every day. It could be about anything, from grades, college, her parents, to the fact that she had no guy friends anymore, or that I wasn't as into her as I used to be. She even complained that I kissed wrong, like I was just doing it as a chore instead of it coming from my heart.

Seriously? I rolled my eyes and it only made her madder.

"I can feel it! And when we do that, you're not as...thorough as before," she said. We were walking away from the cafeteria as we relished the rest of the lunch break. Since we were still at school, Flora was trying to be subtle. Well, subtle by her standards. "You go straight in for the kill like you just want to get it over with."

"What?"

"It's like...you used to be like a mechanic who checks every part of the plane, but now you're like the pilot who jumps in the seat, sticks the key in and takes off right away."

"Can you not compare it to a key?" I laughed which was a big mistake. Flora stared at me silently, her cheeks flushed with anger.

"You're right," I said. "I'm sorry. It's not that I want to get it over with, but sometimes I just can't wait because...you have to know you're very sexy." And also because we don't have an hour to spend on foreplay with your test fast approaching.

I admit I had been acting more like a tutor than a boyfriend, but she really was running out of time. The SAT was just around the corner. She jokingly told our friends that our dating agenda mostly consisted of a three-letter word that began with S, but I knew she didn't find it funny anymore.

"Sometimes when you turn me down it really hurts my feelings," she said when we reached the side of the building. There was no one else in sight and we were alone finally.

"Baby, I'm as into you as ever. Maybe even more so. But I want to be responsible. I don't want you to look back on senior year and see all we ever do is have sex and you failed everything else." As soon as I said it I wanted to go back and try again. Telling her she failed everything else was really tactful.

She wouldn't miss it, of course. "So now you think I'm a failure?"

"No...I mean if I were one of your regular guy friends I'd just think of ways to get into your pants, but now I can't be like that. I want to do what's right for you."

"I want to do things that make me happy and they aren't necessarily the right things." She gave me a typical Flora-style answer. "I don't need another parent."

Right. Another parent? She barely had one. "You're lucky I'm not your parent. I'd cut down on half of my business trips and guard you like a hawk over your homework. I'd cut your allowance and set a curfew, too."

She was instantly enraged. "You don't get to insult my parents. My parents are nice to you. Don't you dare imply they aren't doing their job."

I sucked at negotiation today. "I'm not. I really like your parents. I want to personally thank them for bringing you into this world and bringing you up into such a delight. No sarcasm intended." I was honestly amazed Flora turned out the way she did instead of becoming a drug dealer or owner of a gambling joint, or whatever it is that rich, bored people without parental supervision do. "I just think they should stay with you more. You miss them a lot, right?"

"Yeah, but now I have a boyfriend." She sighed in a dramatically sad way. "Who doesn't even want to touch me anymore."

"Flora, you know that's not true." It hurt to hear her talk like that. Of course I wanted to touch her, and sometimes I wondered why I didn't just follow my desires and to hell with her future.

She looked away. "And you don't do anything cute anymore."

"Like what? When have I ever done anything cute?"

"You know. Like writing me those chemistry pickup lines and flying paper airplanes."

"You miss that?" I chuckled. "You really are a dork, Flora. I thought you said it's cheesy."

"It's cheesy cute," she said, even though she never told me she liked it before. "I feel like once we're a couple, you stop trying altogether. We don't do anything exciting and go to fun places. Remember when you took me to The Cape to see the city lights? That was spectacular."

"We can go again if you want."

"No, I mean a secret place only you know and you can surprise me."

"Do I look like a guy with a dozen romantic hideaways up my sleeve?" I shook my head. "That's the only place I know." At the time I brought it up as a casual suggestion, but I totally planned it to impress her.

She let out a whoosh of breath, disappointment raining down on her face. "I just really want to do something fun. Like going to a bar. We're so busy preparing for the future, we forget to live in the moment."

"Flora, we are living in the moment. Preparing for college is exactly what high school seniors should be doing. Someday when you own your fashion magazine, you'll be sitting in a bar in Manhattan sipping your Cosmopolitan, and I bet you'll miss studying with your high school sweetheart."

She smiled a little at that. "You mean my high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband?"

"If I'm lucky."

"Well you better start kissing me like you mean it."

I put my arms around her and asked for a make-up test, to prove I really knew how to kiss properly. This time I was so busy with thoughts, even I knew I wasn't as into it as I should be.

Our relationship was everything I wanted. How could she still not be satisfied? What's so wrong about feeling comfortable in a relationship and did I really have to try all the time?

At basketball practice I stupidly decided to ask Dylan if he and Sydney still fought a lot.

Jake laughed before he could answer. "Does a bear shit in the woods?"

"I'm just wondering how you deal with it."

Dylan looked at me with a scowl. "Are you sincerely asking for advice or are you going to brag about how perfect you and Flora are?"

"What? We're not perfect. Getting mad at me is her daily routine."

"Really? What about?" Jake asked. In front of them Flora was always super supportive and never disagreed with anything I said. She thought it was important for my male ego.

"About...anything. Mostly because I'm bugging her a lot about the SAT and college applications," I said. "I thought I was helping her."

"Man, that's easy. Stop bugging her," Dylan said.

"She's not dating you for your help on math," Jake agreed. "Biology, maybe, but not math. I'd appreciate it if someone checks application deadlines for me, though."

"But Target is hiring all year round," I said and he laughed easily. Jake was good enough to play professional and was wanted by scouts everywhere. He was one of the lucky few who didn't need to worry about college at all.

"I know why you're doing it," Dylan said, sounding serious all of a sudden, "but the sad truth is, you're not going to be around when she goes to college. I don't think Sydney and I will even make it to prom. Why bother worrying about where she goes?"

"That's depressing. What happened?" I asked out of obligation.

At first I thought he wasn't going to answer, then after a while he said, to my utter astonishment, "I think she doesn't love me." The shocking thing was that he would even tell us.

"So? I thought you didn't love her either," Jake said. I wondered if he was making a special effort of being stupid today.

"I'm just saying, what's the point?" Dylan grunted, his mood dropping quicker than the ball through the net. "High school relationships are a waste of time."

"You know what your problem is?" Jake started launching into one of his grand theories. "You both choose to date really hot girls, and really hot girls expect to be treated like prima donnas. If you don't serve her well there are a dozen others in line to replace you. They're fine as casual hook-ups, but if I'm ever going to get serious with a girl, I'd probably just choose a six. She'll be so grateful, she'll worship the ground I walk on and she won't give me any attitude."

Jake's logic baffled me as usual. "Why would you date a six if you can have no-strings-attached sex with a ten?"

"Exactly." Jake grinned. He was about as profound as a wet puddle on a rainy day. Then he said something that was so out-of-place I wasn't sure I heard correctly. "But I sometimes get it for a second when I look at you two. You just seem really...good together. Whatever it is that you do, you're probably doing it right. And I don't mean sexually."

"Fighting a lot really isn't the worst thing," Dylan muttered. It had quickly become a contest to come up with deep lines. "The worst thing is you don't even care enough to fight anymore."

"That can't possibly be the worst thing, either," Jake said. "I'm not even in a relationship but I can think of so many..." He stopped whatever perverted thing he was about to say when he realized Dylan wasn't responding the way he wanted him to.

"You want to talk about it? We're not going to say anything nice, but if it helps..." I offered, even though I knew he wouldn't say anymore.

"We'll be fine. I guess," Dylan said, and I was relieved because if he started going into details I really wouldn't know what to say. That was always Janet's job, to offer expert consultation. We offered beer and that was about it.

"You and Syd always pull through," Jake said. That was the extent of niceness we were allowed to show for each other even though we really were buddies.

"Yeah, come on," I said. "Who doesn't love...hot chocolate?"

Jake burst into laughter the same time I did. Dylan glared at us for a second before he joined in.

I left thinking about all the worst things in a relationship which were left unsaid that afternoon, and I wondered if incompatibility was one of them. I thought of Flora, her putting fun before responsibility, her tendency to look for excitement and I for comfort, and I thought I'd worry, but miraculously the confusion stayed only for a second. It vanished just as quickly as it appeared.

We were in love with each other. That was the hard part. If even my friends could see it, certainly we had enough of it to make up for everything else.

***

I waited with impatience, watching my friends flirt with the cheerleaders in West Brighton. They weren't even that hot. We just played against their basketball team and won, and I was very eager to get back.

I should have taken the school bus with the rest of the team. Ever since Jake got his Jeep a while back he was interested in driving everywhere, and Dylan and I hitched with him so we could trash talk, but consequently I was stuck waiting for my ride.

It was one of Jake's routines, hitting on the cheerleaders of the opposite team. He was quite good with them and they were privately cheering for us by halftime. He called it networking. Over a year ago he had the misfortune of messing with the wrong girl who slashed his tires and broke his car window, and it taught him a valuable life lesson: honesty is the best policy. Since then he always told the girls straight up about not wanting to get tied down, and ironically it only made him more popular. It's the same way a finger itches to touch a button with a warning sign don't press beside it.

They fantasized about being able to fix him, when really there was nothing to fix. Jake was very proud of the way he was.

I got why Dylan liked it, too. Since senior year he had become our new captain, and when they gushed about how great he was he got this glow on his face. Maybe he didn't get this kind of admiration from Sydney often. She knew too much about him; the weakness, the insecurity, the tantrums, but in front of West Brighton's fresh-faced cheerleaders he was the badass captain of the winning team. I knew Sydney meant a lot to him, but all the fighting and breakups had got to wear him down.

The new girls offered an exit. He could flirt and tease all he liked without any real danger and he could get his ego back.

I wasn't running a business like Jake did and I didn't need any exit. I just wanted to get back to my girlfriend. I wished they'd hurry up and get the numbers they want, exchange social media accounts, take a photo or something. We had reached the entrance of the school, and they were all lingering.

I glanced down at my watch. It was a little over six on a Saturday night; if we rushed back I could have dinner with Flora.

"You're very quiet." I was hanging back several steps and spacing out when one of the girls walked up to me. She had curly blonde hair falling in tendrils around her face.

"I'm just..." not at all interested "...a little tired."

"Okay. I'll give you my number right now and save you fifteen minutes of flirting."

I forced out a smile to avoid being antisocial. "Thanks. But I have a girlfriend."

She shrugged. "We'll just talk then. Or are you not allowed to talk to strangers?"

My girlfriend is the spokesperson of talktostrangers.com, I thought. She didn't care at all. "No, but I'm not very interesting to talk to." I was just being honest, but this line seemed to give her the wrong impression of me challenging her.

"I'll see what I can do about that." She tilted her head slightly and studied my face. "I'm not really a stranger though. Haven't we met before?"

"Have we?" She did look vaguely familiar. "Maybe during one of the games?"

"No, privately. I think you were half-naked and passed out on a pool table. They were there too." She pointed at my friends with her chin, and a distant night of us chugging down tequila shots came back to me. I cringed inwardly.

Jake walked over, a group of people following him like his backup dancers. "Hey, we're talking about getting something to eat," he said, grinning. "They promise to show us the best burritos in town."

"It won't be like anything you've tried before," the brunette beside him said.

Jake and Dylan both looked at me, conveying a silent message that they really wanted this.

This is not the time to be lame, Jake telepathized.

Don't ruin this for me, Dylan telepathized. I need three new sevens to distract me from the old ten.

"Sure." I ignored the queasy feeling in my stomach. I quickly justified my action. 1. This wasn't a one-on-one date. 2. I was only doing this for my buddies. And burritos. 3. Flora was cool and she wouldn't mind at all.

I'll just quickly text her and tell her about this.

"I'm glad you decide to join us," the cheerleader with the curly blonde hair fell into steps with me. "It'll be fun."

I'll make sure I sit next to someone else during dinner, I was thinking, when a car horn blasted shrilly a few feet away. Everybody jumped. If the horn could talk it would be cursing. I turned to the sound and what should I find but Flora's silver Mercedes.

I blinked. "Is that my conscience or is that really Flora sitting behind the wheel?" I asked Jake.

"It's Flora and she's looking majorly pissed," he confirmed.

She honked again.

"You should probably go," Dylan said. There was alarm in his voice. Flora had always been the perfect girlfriend, and cutting off our conversation this way wasn't her style.

Was this even possible? I got caught red-handed the first time I attempted to do anything remotely disloyal. I slid in the passenger seat and she glared at me with narrowed eyes. "What was that about?"

Flora was seldom this mad at me. She didn't even know my evening plans yet and already she looked ready to kill.

"We're going to grab a bite together, I mean, everybody," I said. "I was just about to text you."

"You didn't look like you were about to text me."

"I was...I swear."

"You were planning on letting me eat dinner alone?" Her eyes were wide with indignation. "I was waiting for you to get back but here you are, busy flirting with cheerleaders."

"I'm sorry. That was a poor decision, but I wasn't flirting."

"I recognize flirting when I see it. I invented flirting. You were staring intently at her face like you just reunited with your lover from a past life."

"I was trying to remember where I've seen her before."

"Oh, the famous where-have-I-seen-you-before line." Her eyes flashed. "She's Claire, by the way. You met her a year ago when I brought her to that party at Dylan's house."

I nodded. "Yeah-"

"Claire is the biggest flirt I've ever seen," she went on. "If I'm at level Persian cat, she's probably at level black panther."

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. Even when she was mad at me, Flora was incredibly cute. "She's not important. It's just about getting food to me. Besides, I need a ride from Jake and I don't want to be a buzzkill."

"You mean with your IQ you can't figure out a way to get back without him? It's only a 30 minute ride."

"But they were all expecting me. I was under peer pressure."

"Since when do you care about peer pressure?"

"Oh, come on, I thought you wouldn't mind," I pleaded. "You know me. I told her right away I have a girlfriend."

She looked out of her car window, distraught, and with an exhale she flicked her gaze back to me. Her eyes reminded me of Marlon Brando in Godfather, and I could read she wanted to tie bricks on me and throw me in a river. "The more aloof you are the more turned-on they'd be."

"But what was I supposed to say?"

"How about 'sorry, but you're just not hot enough'?" she snapped. I waited, and sure enough, a second later the edge of her eyes crinkled up and she smiled despite herself. Flora was always adorable like that, amusing herself in the middle of a fight.

"Yeah, that's a really good line," I said. "Hey, do you think I should have it tattooed to my palm? If anything like this happens again, I can hold up my hand and I don't even have to open my mouth." I practiced holding up my hand and she laughed.

"Come on, forgive me," I said, deciding to strike while the iron was hot. "I really wasn't flirting and I just wanted to get something to eat. That's all."

Flora sighed. "I hate seeing other girls come on to you."

That wasn't the Flora I knew. She'd just laugh it off and tease me and tell me how lucky she was. "Why? You used to be proud of it," I said carefully. I didn't really get why she was so mad in the first place. She always encouraged me to be nicer and she was exactly the kind of friendly cheerleader to chat up the other team.

She chewed on her bottom lip and her eyes softened. "Yeah, you know what bugs me the most? It's how mad I'm about the whole thing even though I know it's nothing. This is probably some male-bonding thing for you and I know you're just hungry."

"I am! I'm honestly just going along with Jake and Dylan, and they were going to take us out for burritos." I nudged her, taking my chance. She looked more forgiving now. "Burritos, Flora. I can't say no to cheap salty food, you know that."