"Wendy."

"What?" I groan, rolling over on the bed and burying my arms under the cold underside of the pillow.

"Why is there dude on your bed?"

"Huh?" The room was more dim than when I had fallen asleep. Wren stood on the side of the bed, eyeing Vincent, who is fast asleep.

"You're lucky Dad's not home yet."

"Oh crap. I forgot he was there."

"Why is he there exactly?"

"He came over to give me something I forgot to take back on the trip. He was looking at my room and accidentally fell asleep." Well, Vincent didn't do it accidentally, but I wasn't going to tell Wren and make her even more curious.

"Then why are you on the bed with him?" Wren asked, almost teasingly. "You know what? I don't want to know. Well, when Dad gets home and sees him, he probably won't leave alive."

"You're right." I sit up and inch closer to Vincent, who's laying on his stomach with the left side of his face pressed on the pillow. Gently, I start to poke at his arm. "Hey, Vincent. You should get up." He rolls over onto his back and his eyes stay shut. "Vincent-"

I don't know why I didn't already expect this. Of course, Vincent pulls me onto to him, without knowing that Wren is in the room. And as always, my struggles to escape is never successful. I keep looking awkwardly towards Wren, embarrassed. Wren doesn't say anything and leaves the room laughing under her breath.

"Vincent! You idiot. My sister was in here!" I scold once Wren was gone.

Vincent starts to open his eyes and his mouth curls up into a playful grin.

"What? I can't even hug my buddy?"

"I've never seen you hug any of the guys like this," I scoff.

"You wouldn't know. You're not at our sleepovers," Vincent jokes. For a moment, I forget that I'm still spread on top of Vincent. I quickly sit back up and Vincent doesn't stop me or pull me back down. Instead, he pushes himself up to sit.

"Vincent, you can't hug me. People will misunderstand. I would misunderstand."

"What do you mean misunderstand? We're buddies," he coos.

"I'm serious, Vincent. We wouldn't want people to think our relationship is anything but a simple, friendship."

Vincent doesn't respond and looks closely at me with his eyebrows knit together. Did I say something wrong?

"What am I saying? I mean look at me," I laugh, "No one would think that."

There's a long pause before Vincent starts to speak, "Wendy, I think you're-"

"Wendy! Why is there motorcycle in the front?" Dad is up the stairs and at my door in a flash. He opens his mouth to talk when he sees me, but shuts it when he spots Vincent sitting on my bed with me. "Who's this?"

"He's Vincent. The classmate I told you I'm tutoring," I nervously respond.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Lee."

"Nice to meet you too," Dad replies slowly.

"We were just studying for a biology quiz. That's okay with you, right?" I try to quickly make up an excuse. Though, it's a lame and dumb one because there no biology notes or textbooks in sight. "I mean, we just finished."

"Sure..." Dad leaves without another word with his eyes on us until he gets too far down the hall.

"Is your Dad okay?" Vincent asks.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's just shocked I have a boy over for the first time."

"I'm the first boy you've had over?"

"Yep."

Vincent turns away, smiling to himself. Maybe he thinks I'm a loser who never had a guy over.

"I'm relieved," he sighs.

"What?"

"Nothing."

I eye him suspiciously, but Vincent avoids me by looking at random things on my desk.

"Wendy, did you eat all of the food?" Dad calls from downstairs.

"Sorry!" Vincent smiles at the idea of my excessive eating habits.

"Order pizza. Oh, and some breadsticks with wings," Dad shouts before I hear the t.v. click on with the hollers of sports fans and discussions of announcers.

"You can stay for food if you want," I suggest.

"Sure," Vincent agrees without hesitation. He slips off somewhere as I go to order pizza on my phone. Once I finishing placing it, I go downstairs to see where Vincent went. I find him on the couch next to Dad, discussing whatever sports game is on. The scene is too bizarre for me to process, so I quickly leave to the kitchen to get some water. Usually, Dad would say hi to Vivian, Olivia, and Evelyn when they would come over. That would be about it besides asking if we were hungry or if they were going to spend the night. However, he seemed so engaged with Vincent it weird.

Periodically, I would stick my head out of the kitchen to check up on them, and they would be watching the game while critiquing the play or players. I didn't understand anything since I don't know the lingo, but they seem to be into the same things. Wierd.

The door bell rings and I go to check on the door. Now, even Wren is on the couch with them, talking. Weirder. I pay the delivery guy and juggle two boxes of pizza, three boxes of wings, and a bag of breadsticks. Vincent gets up to help me and I set it onto the coffee table in front of the couch. Once Dad gets into a game, he's not leaving that couch until it's over.

Since the food is in the living room, I'm forced to hang around unless I want to keep walking back and forth. I sit on the floor and Vincent changes his seat from before to one that's closer to where I am. Wren sits in the other sides, leaving my dad in the middle of the couch. They throw a bunch of football terms around and I don't understand anything that's going on.

Quietly, I munch on food while scrolling aimlessly on my phone. I would usually check my texts from my friends, but there any. There hasn't been any. Yet, I can't help but keep refreshing the page in hopes one will soon pop up. Maybe I should send something. What would I send?

Me: Do we have a biology quiz coming up?

I refresh and refresh and refresh. Read. There isn't reply, not from a single one of them. It said Olivia was typing, but nothing was sent. She must've changed her mind.

"Wendy?"

"Huh?" I jerk my head up to see Vincent peering over my shoulder.

"You okay? You've been looking at the same screen for fifteen minutes now."

"Oh, yeah. I just spaced out." I quickly close out of it and set my phone onto the table. Grabbing another breadstick, I shove it into my mouth. I look blankly at the screen, trying to cancel out the noise of the t.v. for a ring to come from my phone. The game ends, and nothing.

Surprisingly, Dad invites Vincent to come again next week to watch the game. I'm even more thrown off when Vincent actually agrees. Vincent goes out towards his motorcycle and I follow him out.

"You don't have to come if you don't want to," I say.

"Of course I want to come again. That was fun. My family doesn't do stuff like this."

"They don't?" I asked, shocked about how he could've found watching a game on t.v. while eating pizza exciting. We do this every week. If it wasn't for the fact I eat everything on weekends, we wouldn't have to eat so much delivery and take out.

"My dad is always at work. My mom and sister don't like these kind of things. They're usually off doing their own thing. I'm not interested in getting red nails and a new skirt, so I don't come with them." Vincent laughs, but his eyes look downcast.

"Well, anyways, thanks for returning my octopus."

"Thanks for the new wallpaper for my phone."

"Wait, what?"

Vincent pulls out his phone and taps around for a it before putting it back into his pocket. He slips on his helmet, hops onto his motorcycle, and starts the engine. My phone rings and I quickly pull it out. My friends finally texted me.

Nope. Just a text from Vincent when is he literally two feet away from me.

"What the heck, Vincent." It's a picture of me sleeping.

And no, I don't have my hairs in perfect waves draped over my pillow. My eyes are not covered by the curtains of my feathering eyelashes. My lips are not fixed into a rosy pout. My cheeks are not pressed gently against my pressed hands. I don't look like the princesses movies make girls to look like in their sleep. My staticky hair is sticking out to make me look like a pine tree. My arms or contorted as they spread across the bed with my neck trying to hold up my dangling head, which is about to fall off my pillow. My eyes are crusty and my mouth is slightly opened with drool seeping out.

Vincent pulls away laughing as I look at my phone in horror. I start to shriek at him, but he is gone before I can do anything about it.

"Night, Sleeping Beauty. I'll see you tomorrow!" he says, still in hysterical laughs while he drives off.

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