"I just don't understand what's so scary about the guy..." I muttered out as I watched a girl literally run away in fright when she'd gotten too close to Oliver's table. He sat alone under the large window that took up the entire wall of the cafeteria. He picked at his food, looking down and nowhere else, as normal since his brother had a different lunch period and trust me, it was kind of depressing to watch Oliver sit there alone and antisocial.

I heard Katalina scoff, bringing me back to the conversation that I'd started, "He's creepy... I mean did you see the way he looked at Jovie?"

I rolled my eyes at her statement, she was talking about the girl who nearly sprinted out of the cafeteria as if she were trying to outrun a racecar.

"Oh, come on Kat, he looked confused. I guarantee that the only reason she ran away faster than Flash on a treadmill is the rumormill circulating around him."

Phoenix gladly wasn't in school that day, something with his family that I didn't care to know about and by the looks of it neither did Sidney.

We needed girl time and since Kat had took him up on the whole 'girlfriend, boyfriend' thing, we hadn't had much of it.

Frankly, they could've been selling drugs on the side and we wouldn't have known.

Sidney chose this as a time to join in and stop her staring at Luca who sat at the table across the cafeteria, "You can't tell me that you're not at least a little freaked out by him." She said, popping a fry in her mouth since she'd gone through the liberty of buying herself McDonalds and leaving us to binge on the mushy sweet potato fries that we'd gotten in the caf.

Safe to say that I was losing unmissed weight since school started.

I shrugged at her, grabbing at her French fries and dodging the hand that came swatting at me. Shoving the handful of fries in my mouth, I attempted to form a cohesive sentence, not really caring if it was unladylike, "He's just a guy, Sid. I mean, I know you have an irrational fear of guys but-"

Sidney cut me off with a scoff, "I do not!" She denied, her voice going up an octave and her eyes glaring at me snd my condescending tone.

Kat smiled innocently, before she but in, Sidney scowling at her before my chimichanga had even opened her mouth, "You've been avoiding Luca all week..."

I'd filled her in on the details of the incidents and since then, Kat had been picking on the whole Luca thing for a while.

"I am not avoiding Luca-"

I tsked while shaking my head, disappointedly, drawing her completely focused and denial clad attention back to me, "Hate to break it to ya, babe, but you are..."

Her head sunk down on the table as I let out a laugh at the way her entire head and most of her body was covered in her hair; I took the opportunity to steal a bite of her burger before her head resurfaced from the dark cloud of never ending black tresses.

"Wait, why are we even talking about this anymore?" Sid asked looking at Kat, obviously trying to divert attention off of her unreal romance with Luca that heed deviated towards.

Kat grinned, "We were talking to Em about Oliver," she said, bouncing in her seat before she nodded her head in excitement, "I'd think that you guys would be cute together if he didn't scare the crap out of you... We could've done triple dates-"

"Wait, hold on..."

"Holding on."

"Who said that I'm scared?" I asked, moving my head back and forth between then as I resisted the urge to laugh at their ludicrous assumptions.

Emerson Riley wasn't scared of anything, let alone a boy.

"Well, it's pretty obvious, Em. I mean, you looked like you wanted to urinate all over the floor when he looked at you the other day..." Sidney trailed off popping a fry in her mouth as she paid no mind to the disgusted look on our faces.

"Okay...Ew," Kat muttered, "Just freaking ew."

"I believe you mispronounced the word 'fuck. Just fucking ew'," I teased as I popped another one of Sidney's fries in my mouth, earning a smack on my thigh from the wavy haired pig.

"Ow! What the hell?"

Sid rolled her eyes, "Don't eat my damn burger, you bitch," she muttered, propping her legs up on my stinging thigh.

"I didn't-"

"Don't think I don't see that huge ass, dinosaur-sized bite." She said, shrugging as the burger was already halfway in her mouth.

I simply glared at her as she devoured her food.

"Anyways," she said when she came up for air, leaning back in her seat, "I think you're afraid."

"I'm n-"

Kat cut me off, "I think you like him," she said, twirling her hair and glancing from me to over her shoulder and back, "And I think that now's the time to make your move before Jacie Morgan decides she wants her man back. I mean, turn on that Emerson charm and you'll have him falling to your feet just like Ceaser."

I wasn't sure if she meant Julius Caesar or Ceaser Finnegan, my ex boyfriend but I knew that either way that I was opposed to the idea.

I glared at her proposition, "I don't like Oliver like that."

"Yeah right."

"I don't."

My constant denial must've sparked Sidney's attention because I'd briefly seen the gears turning in her head as she bit her tongue. And I knew it wouldn't be good.

And when the smile lit up her eyes and her lips turned into a cheesy grin as her black hair gleamed in the sunlight of the cafeteria, I knew she had a plan. I slid my hand over to Kat's tray, grabbing a strawberry and proceeding to pop it into my mouth.

And the words that came next were making me want to crawl into the figurative hole that I'd gotten myself in and pull a bunch of dirt overtop of me, "Fine, then you wouldn't mind a little dare..."

And this time I halted, freezing in place, the strawberry slipping from my grasp and landing on the table before rolling off, "W-what?"

Sid smirked, "You heard me."

"But-"

Kat gasped dramatically, her hands running through her hair and pulling them up into pigtails for no reason, "Is Emerson Riley turning down a dare?"

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shitnuggets, I hate you Kat. I hate you so much.

Hesitantly, I shook my head, biting my lip and trying to stop the swear from forming on my forehead.

Emerson Riley wasn't afraid of anyone or anything. Especially not any boy.

"It's okay if you're scared," Sidney mocked, laughing a little at my face.

"I'm not scared-"

"You sure?"

I nodded curtly, "Yes ma'am."

"Then in that case, I dare you to go sit at his table..."

I nearly fell out of my seat. Clutching onto the table, my eyes widened, as did her smirk, "What?"

"What? Too scared?"

Kat sighed, "Sid, maybe we shouldn't..."

We ignored Kat's protest, "I'm not scared it's just..." I trailed off, biting my lip at the gnawing nervousness, my eyes trailed over the entire cafeteria as I tried to prolong the inevitable. If I could just stall until the bell sounded, I'd be home free.

Kat tilted her head to the side, her denseness growing by he second, "It's just what?"

I'm serious, Kat. If it wasn't illegal, I'd shove a chair down your throat.

I licked my lips, attempting to speak but my voice came out silent.

Challenging Oliver in silence was one thing, sitting next to him was basically a death wish.

And suddenly an idea came to mind as my eyes trailed over to a familiar brown haired and blue eyed boy, a smirk settling on my face as I formed a plan.

Sid wouldn't be so open to a compromise.

And before I could think about her retaliation, I turned to my best friend before raising an eyebrow, "I dare you to ask Luca out."

Sid seemed to think about it for a second, "Fine then, I dare you to sit at Oliver's table and become friends."

No.

No, no way am I doing that. No way am I actually going to embarrass myself by talking to a guy that will probably ignore me.

Not happening.

Definitely no-

"Five bucks says you won't last a week," Sidney smirked as she reached in the pocket of her track pants and pulled out a crisp five dollar bill, slamming it on the table.

All in all, the hesitation was gone.

Kat bit her lip, her voice coming out soft, "Guys..."

I didn't listen to what Kat had said or the sound of the cafeteria, I just stared directly at the currency laying underneath my best friend's hand. With that I said the two words that sent my life in a spiral of chaos.

"You're on."

⌄⌃⌄⌃⌄⌃⌄

The cafeteria had gone remarkably silent, well except for the hipsters who really didn't care and the populars who could busy themselves with talk of the next football game. My feet brought me from the table all the way to Oliver's, hearing Sidney wolf-whistle behind me.

Oliver sat still as if he didn't notice the change in the rowdiness of the commons, he was sitting with his head turned downwards, his phone in his hand as he tapped the screen frantically.

"Hi..."

Oliver looked up, raising an eyebrow at me as if it were completely insane of me to come near him. And in a way, I was.

I resisted the urge to look over at my table to see Sidney's smirk and Kat's discreet watching. Sliding into the seat in front of Oliver, in which I'd be able to see my friends, I smiled.

"I'm Emerson..."

He just stayed quiet, his eyes showing a look of discomfort which he quickly masked with boredom, glancing down again, he typed a few more words before stuffing his phone in the pocket of his dark green varsity jacket from when he'd used to play football.

And his eyes... They were a sight.

I couldn't exactly tell whether they were grey or green, perhaps a mixture of both. I cleared my throat before drool could spill from the corner of my mouth.

Oliver Remmer was, well, hot.

And if I wasn't on a mission, I'd tell him exactly that.

My smile widened forcefully as I tried to focus on him rather than his looks, a friendship couldn't be based on that, "So... beautiful day isn't it?"

And that earned me a glare from those colorless yet colorful eyes.

I sighed in exasperation, my shoulders slumping as I grabbed the green apple from his tray, "Dude, I'm trying."

His face was still expressionless as he just stared at me, not attempting to get his food back.

Good thing because I was starving.

Biting into the apple, I busied myself with picking the little sticker off of the bottom so I was surprised when he spoke.

Letting out a grunt, he rolled his shoulders, a strand of hair falling in front of his left eye, "Who dared you to do this?"

I blinked, shocked that he was even talking to me before I stuttered out an incoherent reply, "W-who?"

"What?"

"Who said I um," i cleared my throat. I could feel myself growing embarrassed and another stutter coming up. Emerson Riley didn't stutter, so how could someone as challenging as Oliver Remmer change that?

I attempted to put on an indifferent expression, waving the apple around the air as if it would lessen my nerves, "Who said I had to be dared?"

"Oh please, why else would you want to sit next to the 'Pyschopath'?" He asked, smirking as if he had me all figure out, and in a way he did.

His smirk quickly vanished, causing me to question if it were ever really there as he stared at me, the amusement that danced in his eyes briefly, gone and replaced with the same questioning gaze.

So what did I do?

I lied so much that I feared nose would stretch out.

Pinokkio had noting on me.

"I wasn't dared-"

He rolled his eyes, "yeah and I'm not a social pariah." he mocked, narrowing his eyes at me as he stood grabbing his tray and pushing his chair in. Sneaking a glance at the clock on the wall of the cafeteria, I'd realized hat lunch would be ending in a few minutes.

I followed him to the waste disposal, "Is it so bad that I want to be your friend?" I'd asked as he placed his tray in the compartment after dumping it. Sending a small smile to the lunch lady, he turned.

With a glare, he left but not before shocking me with his parting words.

"Friendship isn't a word in my vocabulary."

And with that he was gone.

⌄⌄⌄