"Come on! Move it," Sam groaned as she tried to pull me from the couch.

Tough luck buddy, I'm in a committed relationship with it.

"Are you suggesting that I disregard my loyalty towards my favourite couch?" I exclaimed in mock horror.

Sam rolled her eyes and slumped beside me while I got comfortable wriggling deeper into the softness of my all time favourite place to relax.

This was by far the best piece of furniture I had the privilege to own. It was a big couch covered with soft artificial fur that was awesome to snuggle into.

The best part? It was a pull-out bed.

Yeah, so I was pretty serious about my relationship with it.

"What's going to make you get up from that couch?" She asked, eyeing the area where I sat.

She was probably planning to either push me off it or devising a plan to get drag me out.

Either way, she'd require quite a lot of strength for that because there wasn't any chance of separating me from my love.

"You know what? I give up," Sam groaned.

I grinned at her loss and relaxed. Alas no one was going to hinder our relationship.

I watched as Sam dug her pockets for her phone and pressed a few buttons. My relaxed posture grew uneasy as I observed a mischievous smile slowly etching onto her face.

"What are you smiling like that for?"

"Nothing. I was just chatting with Aaron," she said not looking up from her phone. She still had a smile on her face.

I don't know what made my jaw clench up but I found myself sitting a but straight.

"What are you both talking about?" I tried to remove all the grumpiness from my voice.

She glanced at me and grinned as if she knew something I didn't.

"And why do you care?"

"Well, you both are my best friends so I should be a part of whatever the discussion is about," I voiced out, getting really curious as to what they were talking about.

"Well, you didn't tell me about your date with Nick so I won't tell you about what we're talking about either."

"Hold on. How do you know about that?"

Sam turned to me raising an eyebrow. "Got a problem with me knowing about that?"

My eyes widened. "I didn't mean it that way."

"Then you just need to know that I'm not happy with you hiding it from me."

I groaned. "Okay. Tell me how I can make it up for it."

She grinned triumphantly and that's when I realised what I'd gotten myself into.

I face-palmed myself when she announced the compensation of 'not following the BFF code'. She wanted me to part ways with my beloved couch.

"Do I have to?"

"Yes. Now get up."

"But why. Can you first tell me what we're going to do?"

She grinned and a wicked smile took over her face. She went towards the door and opened it.

"Come on loser. We're going shopping!"

And she had to quote Mean Girls on my misery.

*****

"How does this look?" I asked Sam once I changed into a floral tank top.

She put on her thinking face and examined my top. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully before giving a somewhat satisfactory grunt.

I inwardly sighed in relief before masking my relieved face with an overly cheery expression.

"Awesome! Let's buy this then," I said a bit over-enthusiastically and made a move to get out of the changing room when Sam caught my fore arm and dragged me right back.

I groaned. "What now?"

"You're going on a date. Your first one ever and you want to go casual? I'm not allowing that so you better get your ass back in and try these dresses."

"No. No dresses. Do you want me to concentrate on my date or my dress during the date itself?"

"But list-"

"No. If you want to play dress up, you gotta do it my way or I'll just go in my sweats," I said cutting off her protests.

She tried to argue back but I shot her a challenging look which finally made her back down in defeat.

She slumped and put down the pile of dresses she had bought with herself.

"Good. Now list-," I was cut off when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.

I paused my sentence and dug in for my phone. Candy must've been out of practice by now. And now he wanted to torment me.

I rolled my eyes at the thought.

I look at the screen and I didn't know what I was feeling. It wasn't Candy.

"Why are you frowning? Is something wrong?" Sam asked and that's when I realised that I had my eye brows furrowed.

"Uh-no. It's Nick. He texted me something," I replied and opened the text, ignoring the growing disappointment in me.

I thought about it. The first thing that came to my mind was that I hadn't given Nick a cute, short pet name.

And then my eyes widened. Tomorrow?

But I didn't have much to do since I think I had enough practice for my singing too.

So I typed in a 'No Problem' and contemplated on sending a emoji.

Should I send a winky face? Or just a smile? Should I even send one?

Ah! The great dilemmas of life.

"Why do you look like a person contemplating whether you have constipation or diarrhoea?" Sam piped up.

I scrunched up my face in revulsion. "Ew Sam. Could you not, please?"

"Well, answer it at least!"

"Nick shifted the date to tomorrow rather than day after so I was just typing in the response," I replied.

At this Sam widened her eyes,"He what?"

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. What was there to freak out in that?

She was clearly on the verge of hyperventilating while no doubt planning someone's funeral alongside.

"What's got ants in your pants?" I asked curiously as she jumped up and down, looking for something.

"I-uh. Why is he preponing the date? Tell him no," Sam replied which confused me even further.

"What are you even saying? Why would I do that and I already told him yes so I'm not changing my answer. Plus I don't have any problem going on a date tomorrow," I answered and examined the top I was wearing.

"Uh. I'll be right back. I need to make an urgent call," she said and literally ran out of the changing room.

What's up with her?

I was about to go follow her when my phone started ringing. I pulled it out and saw the caller ID. It was Nick.

With a small smile on my face, I picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hey Kitten, what's up?"

"Right now?" I asked with a mischievous smile.

"Yeah."

"Well, nothing except a bunch of sparkling lights that are now beginning to hurt my eyes," I answered.

He laughed a throaty laugh. "Alright. So I called to tell you that you should wear comfortable clothes tomorrow. We're going to have a lot of fun on our date."

I grinned as small jitters spread across my body on the word 'date'. "Sure."

"Okay so I was-," he started but I stopped listening to him when I spotted a very familiar face through the glass windows of the shop.

"-so then she fell and I had to-"

"Uh huh," I kept answering without paying attention.

I squinted to see if I was seeing clearly.

What was Candy doing here? And is that a girl with him?

"-so it's fine and all and I was just going to get a cake-"

"Hey Nick? I-uh actually right now I'm in the changing room of a shop so I'll talk to you later?"

"Yeah. No problem. Bye Kitten," he said and I hung up almost immediately.

I quickly changed out of the top I was wearing and wore my t-shirt before exiting the store.

I was walking a bit haphazardly and since my eyes were in front, I didn't see someone coming from my side and eventually I crashed into the person.

"Watch it, freak!" A very familiar voice shrieked.

"Shelley?"

Why was everyone in this mall today?

Shelley glared at me before bending down to pick up her fallen stuff.

Feeling a tad bit guilty (only little-as little as the dust particle on your left eyebrow) I bent down with her to help her.

I picked up a small box and my eyes widened at the logo of TechEarth on it. TechEarth was a very expensive, wait- scratch that- the most expensive and overpriced store of electronics where you could find everything but at huge costs.

My eyes snapped up to Shelley's who snatched the box from my hand and pushed past me quickly muttering a few swear words.

I shrugged it off and returned my gaze to Aaron who now had three giggling girls with him.

My jaw involuntarily clenched as I neared him.

"Ca-Aaron?" I called out, but no one paid attention.

Candy had his back towards me and the girls had their hands with tacky jewellery latched onto his arm. The red head was running her hand down his chest.

I gritted my teeth in annoyance. I stalked over to him and violently tapped on his shoulder.

He annoyingly shrugged my hand off.

My jaw dropped at the action. I was about to go all ninja on his ass but I controlled my inner kick-ass ninja when I realised that he didn't know that it was me who tapped.

So eventually I grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face me (which admittedly took a lot more strength than I anticipated)

"Muffin?" He asked, surprised.

I gave him a sarcastic smile in return. "Who else?"

He opened his mouth to say something when the irritating voice of one of the trio resonated in my ears.

"Bitch, leave him alone. We came here first,"the platinum blonde sneered.

I clenched my jaw and faced her. "Oh, does it look like he is offering a 'first come-first serve' service? And before you stupidly answer that, I'll inform you that it was a rhetorical question," I retorted.

"Who do you think you are?" The red-head who latched her hand on Candy's chest asked.

My eyes travelled to the place where her hand was and I could clearly feel the red clouding my eyes.

She better get those claws off my Candy.

"I'm his best friend," i answered with a warning tone in my voice.

"I don't give a shit," she replied.

That's it. I balled my hands into tight fists before retorting.

"Then why don't you go visit a doctor for your constipation?"

Her face turned red and I heard muffled laughter from my side. I turned slightly to see Candy with his fist covering his mouth.

I tried not to let my lips twitch as I returned my gaze to the angry trio.

"Listen. I don't care if your friends with Aaron here, but it's okay now. Mistakes happen and now he doesn't need your ugly presence so you can scoot," she sneered.

I rolled my eyes at her lameness. I turned to Candy and raised my eyebrow. "What're you doing standing there like statue? Choose a side."

He moulders his face into a thoughtful expression. "Hmm. Where do I go? One side I have three extremely hot girls who are ready to spend some quality time with me. And then there's this chipmunk on the other side."

My jaw dropped. Chipmunk?!

"You know what? You spend that quality time with those three ogres while this chipmunk is going to her cute little wonderland," I huffed and turned around to leave.

I had just walked two steps when a hand caught onto my arm and pulled me back with enough force to make me stumble.

Candy draped his arm around me and turned to the ogres. "Sorry ladies, but I can't have my chipmunk mad at me. Ciao!"

The three gir-ogres gaped at Candy.

"You're choosing that thing over us?" The redhead asked incredulously.

"Yeah. Now that we're clear, you can go back to your manicured worlds. Thank you for your time," he said, bowing down for the thank you.

When they strutted off, I turned to glare at Candy. "Chipmunk, huh?"

I punched his stomach (it hurt!) and stormed off in the opposite direction.

I heard footsteps behind me but I didn't dare turn. I was trying suppress a smile and I don't even know why my lips were twitching.

A hand grabbed onto my shoulder , making me stop. I turned with a blank expression, ready to reprimand Candy for annoying me.

"Listen Ca- wait, Nick? " I asked, surprised to see my date for tomorrow standing there with a smile.

I briefly looked around to see where Candy had gone and found him getting scolded my an old woman for crashing into her.

I pushed back the chuckles that were forcing their way through my mouth and faced Nick.

"What're you doing here?" I asked.

"Well, I wanted to see you so I called up Sam who gave me your location, quite unwillingly," he answered.

"Oh."

"Yeah and plus my stupid cousin wasn't shutting up about starving to death and all so I came with him to feed his growling stomach," he added.

I laughed as he pointed towards a black-haired guy who was coming towards us.

"Hey. I'm Taher," he extended his hand for a handshake.

I shook his hand. "Alyssa," I smiled

"Oh so you're the famous Alyssa he doesn't sh-OW!" Taher turned to glare at Nick you was giving him pointed looks with a tinge of red on his face.

I was about to reply when a voice cut in.

"Nick, what's up?" Candy piped in from behind me.

"Oh hey Aaron, nothing I was just here to prepare for the date I'm taking Alyssa on," he smirked as if he knew something I didn't.

Candy clenched his jaw a bit before returning his calm expression. "Oh that reminds me Muffin and I have to go," he said draping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me in the opposite direction.

"But whe-"

"Shh. Just come," he said and pulled me along.

"At least let me say bye," I said to which he stopped.

"You wanna say bye? Here," he turned me around and in an overly sugary, high-pitched voice he yelled-

"Oh Niiiick. Buh-Bye!," then turned to me," There I said it for you. Now let's go."

I didn't know whether to be annoyed or laugh at his antics but my dilemma was soon diverted when my phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Allie? Hey I have to go, actually Nate is sick and there's no one home. I'm sorry"

"Hey, it's okay. I am with Candy. You go and take care of him."

Once we bid our goodbyes, I turned to Candy. "What's up your ass? Why were you being so rude to Nick?"

"No reason."

"Ah! So you do agree that you were being rude."

"It's nothing Muffin. It's just-He knows that I- and still he has the nerve to- UGH! Forget it. Let's concentrate on more important things," he said diverting the topic.

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Help me find a good shirt for my date," he replied.

"Your what?"

"My date," he repeated and I gaped at him.

"Who are you taking? What will you be doing on the date? When are you going? Where are you going? Why are y-," I stopped mid-sentence.

"Wow. Aren't you curious?" He chuckled and I felt my cheeks go warm.

"I mean- uh- shut up," I said, my face burning.

"Well, I won't tell you where I'll be taking her but yeah, my date is tomorrow and so I need something new to wear. Help me?"

I didn't like the sound of her but I just pouted. "Why don't you wear anything? Like that blue polo shirt you have? Why do you have to buy a new one?"

"Woah. Calm down Grumpy Cat. I just wanted to buy a new shirt anyways, that's different that I'll get to wear it on my date as well," he answered.

"Wait-your date is tomorrow?"

"That's what I just said."

"Even my date is tomorrow," I told him as I remembered the change of plans.

Candy looked genuinely surprised. "Wasn't it day after?"

"No, actually Nick called to change the plan."

Candy's jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists. "That little piece of-"

"Hey- what happened?" I asked, a bit worried.

I placed my hands on either of his shoulders and forced him to look at me.

Candy seemed to calm down under my touch. He took a deep breath and let it out. "Nothing. Let's just shop."

"You sure?"

He looked at me and his eyes softened. "Yes, Muffin. Now let's get going. I'm guessing you need to buy something too?"

"How'd you know?"

"Well, unless you came here to slay a dragon..."

I punched his shoulder lightly. "Funny."

"That I am. Now let's go. Then later we can go for ice-cream and I'll let you overload yours with chocolate chips, this time," he smirked.

My eyes lit up. "Yes! You almost never let me do that."

"Come on. Let's go!"

"Woohoo," I whooped and he laughed, ruffling my hair.

"You didn't just do that," I said in a warning tone.

"Oh my bad," he said ruffling it again.

"You better start running because I don't know about the dragon, but someone else will get de-capacitated for sure," I warned playfully.

"You won't catch me, YOU EVIL CHIPMUNK!" He laughed before taking off with me right behind.

******