Soooo, this chapter is pretty much superrrr long. I don't know if you'll like it completely, but a lot of stuff happens in it. I could cut down some stuff if that's a good idea. I don't know. Feedback?
Inter-Species Relationships
When Friday came, after what felt to Blue like about a thousand years, she and Teddy snuggled into Teddy's room, since Alec had refused to leave his perch and Kendall was surprisingly accommodating to Blue and Teddy and offered to sleep in Blue's room. Teddy warned Blue that might be because Kendall was either a straight guy or a lesbian and he'd never figured out which, and Kendall might be slightly attracted to Blue. Or just friendly and extremely socially awkward, which Teddy believed to be the real reason, no matter how creepy Kendall could be. So it was that Teddy and Blue dressed up in their best pajamas and sat around on the floor of Teddy's room, trying to decide what to do first.
“I've never had a sleepover you know,” Blue stated, matter-of-fact.
Teddy gasped, bolted upright, and declared they would have to do a number of things, “First, we will...paint our toenails...? Because even I am not feminine enough to paint my fingernails. Then...Gossip. Then...Blanket fort. Then...Truth or dare, followed by more gossip. Then we will play some sort of game involving boys.”
“Yay!” Blue cheered, “I always wanted to do those things...”
Teddy then went on a search to find fingernail polish, though Blue was understandably shocked Teddy didn't have any in his slightly less sparkly pink than Blue remembered room. After Teddy tracked down some nail polish, apparently borrowed from Rashida, he painted Blue's toenails for her. Unfortunately for him, Blue wasn't very good at sitting still and twitched her leg so many times Teddy just painted her foot and called it good. For some reason Blue wasn't “trustworthy” painting Teddy's precious toenails, so he opted out of that one. They then had to move on to gossip. Because that's basically what slumber parties are for, according to Teddy.
“Sooo guess what I heard?” Teddy asked, and Blue gasped.
“WHAT?”
“The math teacher...He had an affair...with an eighty year old woman.”
“Oh ew!” And so they worked their way through their first round of gossip, until they figured it was time to build a blanket fort. They had to pool their resources for this one, and split up door to door to find people with blankets and pillows they could use.
Blue ran into her own room while Teddy knocked on Malik and Kip's door. Blue noticed some strange talk between the three of them until Teddy returned with an extra blanket and two pillows. They didn't get a lot of other help from others, most of them claimed to be “using” their blankets and pillows “to sleep” because it was “past midnight” or something. Whatever that meant. Blue was pretty sure they were just grumpy and probably had to pee. Sometimes she was mean to people when that happened to her. Niceness was the number one cause of weak bladders. At least, Blue was pretty sure, since all the nice old people she used to know seemed to pee quite frequently. The mean ones never seemed to pee, so...Well, Blue was grossed out thinking about pee until Teddy pulled her back to his room.
They made a magnificent blanket fort then and hid out underneath it for some time, where they decided to throw out the schedule and go ahead and gossip at the same time.
“Sooo what's going on with Radish and the Alien?”
“Dating I think,” Teddy replied, “but not facebook official. Apparently Radish has some religious hang-ups in relation to their relationship.”
“You say that word sometimes and I'm still not sure what it means,” Blue replied slowly.
“It's like how you're Jewish,” Teddy attempted to explain.
“I thought that was called 'race' or 'ethniii something,'” Blue replied.
“Yeah,” Teddy replied, “Judaism is both a race and religion though.”
“Oh,” Blue mumbled. “Maybe I'll never understand.”
“Yeah, that's just fine,” Teddy stated, “so how's Shelly? I haven't heard about him in a while.”
“HER,” Blue corrected with a glare. “Shelly is transgendered, and she would prefer to be called a 'she.'”
Teddy smiled at Blue, “Yeah, all right. How is she?”
“Well she's doing pretty well,” Blue replied. “Sometimes I think she likes Scamps as more than a friend. They stare at each other a lot like they're talking...I figured they have a forbidden romance, so I had a long talk with Shelly about inter-species relationships...But I don't think she listened.”
“Yeah, those are pretty bad,” Teddy stated, “I mean, with an inter-species relationship between a horse and rhino might make some kind of horse with a horn on it. And no one wants one of those.”
“WHAT-NO-I-WANT-ONE!” Blue shrieked.
Teddy smiled at his friend, “See? Don't be so quick to dismiss them...Though I can't say I would support an inter-species relationship...”
“Yeah, but since I love Shelly I guess I should be supportive of her, huh?” Blue mumbled. “And Scamps used to freak me out, but now I get the feeling Scamps would be my best line of defense if another zombie apocalypse happens.”
“That's probably true,” Teddy shrugged.
“I have a question,” Blue mumbled, then stared into Teddy's very blue eyes.
“Yes my darling?” Teddy asked, and Blue scowled.
“Kip isn't really an alien, right?” Blue asked, blinking a few times.
“Nah,” Teddy replied, “as far as you'll ever have to know he's not.”
“Doesn't that mean he is?” Blue gasped, and Teddy shook his head.
“He's not, don't worry,” Teddy insisted, and Blue sighed.
“Thank Uni,” Blue said, “not that I don't like aliens or anything, because I don't mind them I guess, but if him and Radish get married and have babies I don't want them to be half-alien. That'd be a tough life for them.”
“I see your point,” Teddy replied thoughtfully.
“Are there any other friends we have who are in weird relationships?” Blue asked, poking at the top of their blanket fort.
“Gerda and Hakan, I'd say,” Teddy stated. “Weird.”
“I don't think that one's that weird...But it is inappropriate that they share a room.” Blue nodded to agree with herself.
“Yeah,” Teddy replied, then predicted Blue's next question, “and no, I still haven't caught them sneaking in there to do anything inappropriate during the school day.”
“Good,” Blue stated, scowling slightly. “Anyone else? Like who else are our friendsss?”
“Well, in our acting class we're just missing Austin, who you think is named Ginger. I think she might actually have a boyfriend who goes to a different school. Hammy and Reg, I guess. Those two are...”
“Awesome for each other,” Blue filled in, “but your boyfriend is an evil assassin.” Teddy stopped and stared at Blue then.
“If I admit you're right will you stop bringing it up?” he sighed at last. Blue was so flabbergasted with excitement she just started twitching and left her mouth hanging open for a few minutes, until it dawned on her what that meant.
“He's going to come after me soon!” she shrieked. “I need to hire a bodyguard!”
“No, he's supposed to assassinate—,”
“OH MY UNI, who could protect me? I don't know anyone with more muscles than your terrifying boyfriend! OH MY UNIIII!”
“Me...,” Teddy mumbled, shifting slightly uncomfortably.
“WHAT DO I DO?” Blue gasped, and Teddy smiled at her.
“Ask Malik,” he suggested, “he'd work hard to protect you. Remember his six-pack?”
“Oh yeah,” Blue replied, eyes filling with delight at the memory of Malik shirtless.
“Speaking of Malik,” Teddy muttered, trying to figure out how to phrase his question, “how do you feel around him?”
“Safe and happy and warm right in my belly,” Blue replied without missing a beat.
“Good,” Teddy said. Blue didn't figure out why that mattered, but they gossiped for a while more until Blue's eyes shut on their own and she just couldn't stop herself from falling asleep.
The rest of the weekend Blue spent trying to catch up on missed sleep, and wondering if Teddy was plotting weird things, since he was acting strange. Monday rolled around, and nothing had really changed between them, despite their late-night gossiping, as Blue had expected it to.
On that particular Monday, Blue stumbled through her day until Improv, where Hammy skipped into the classroom, a grin plastered on his face. “Let's start...Heehee...Let's start class!” he apparently couldn't keep the smile down.
“I'll take this bait,” Teddy stated. “Why the ridiculous amount of happiness?”
Hammy grinned at Teddy, before waving his hand around in the air too fast for anyone to see what he was trying to show them. “I'm engaged!! Oh my God that's the best thing I've ever said in my life I'm so in love with that man!”
“And such a little girl,” someone side-remarked, and Hammy shot the boy a serious glare.
“You. Will. Leave. My. Room. Of. Happiness.”
The boy rolled his eyes, but replied, “Nah. I'd like to hear how this big engaygement came about.”
“OK,” Hammy replied. “It's the best thing ever, so be prepared for that. Mind BLOWN!” He jumped onto his desk and sat on it to make himself more comfortable, “OK, so, as some of you know, Reg, my now fiance's, parents came to visit us from England this weekend. We cleaned up the house and everything and I was really nervous and everything. Everything went all right, and all that. So Saturday was Reg and I's two year anniversary, though, and his parents were still around and stuff and things...I didn't really know why he chose that weekend to have them visit, but now I think I understand. ANYWAY! So on Saturday night we had a date at this fancy restaurant for our anniversary, so I got all nice and dressed up and went to meet him at the restaurant, since he was out with his parents during the day. So I got to the restaurant, told them about my reservation and whatnot and went and sat down. So then I sat there and waited for Reg to show up. I sat there for so long it felt like an hour, but since I was so eager to see him I figured it was less. When I looked at my cell phone clock I noticed it was actually an hour and a half later than Reg was supposed to get there. I figured I was either being stood up on my two-year anniversary date, or Reg did something stupid and was lost somewhere, and I neglected to notice I had two voice mail messages. So I decided to give him another half-hour, and then I was going to go home and cry to Today—er, Miss Allberry about how heartbroken I was. After that half-hour came and went I stood up and went to leave.
“As I was walking out, I ran into someone who was soaking wet. I was tearing up by that point because I was upset that Reg would screw something up that was so important, and I was in mood to be run into by someone who felt like he'd been river diving.
“'Watch where you're going,' I sniffled, and the man gasped. Oh, I'm paraphrasing here, by the way.
“'I AM SO SORRY!' he shrieked in an adorably British accent. 'Can you ever forgive me? I swear I have a good reason.' I didn't even consider who he was though, I just kept walking, thinking that apology was a little much for just running into me. I exited the restaurant, but he followed me. 'Hamilton, I love you so much please don't ignore me.'
“'Oh,' I mumbled, as it occurred to me he was Reg. I looked up into his eyes and he looked sooo guilty and remorseful I decided to give him a chance to explain himself. So he started this ridiculous story that was so Reg.
'OK, so my parents and I were out shopping like you know and all of that. We were buying your anniversary gift, because I wanted their help to pick it out. So, we got it all picked out and ready to go, and I was walking out of the store we were in with your gift in my pocket.' I noticed he was wearing a tuxedo when he said that. A tattered, pretty much completely ruined tuxedo. Anyway, he continued on, 'But then this vicious mutt of a dog came out of nowhere and stole it! He bit straight through my pocket. I don't know why he attacked me like that, but he ran off with my pocket and with the r—gift. So I chased after him, because that thing was important and expensive. I followed him so far that I was panting, and sweating, and he ran into a bog! A bog! I stumbled through some pokey bushes, tore my tux, and ended up immersed in swamp water, but I stood back up and kept chasing that stupid dog to a creepy swamp house. The dog went through a doggy door, so I knocked on the door. No one answered, so I climbed through the doggy door after the dog, which was a tight and awkward fit.'
“So then he went on, 'Inside was empty, but I saw the dog scamper into the basement, and then I followed it, but my foot went through one of the floorboards. I spent a long time trying to climb out of there, and once I got out I went down and finally caught the dog. This weird little old lady apologized to me from in the corner. Said her dog was trained to kill love and she was trying to break him of the habit. I told her that wasn't a real thing and left to come here. I ran the whole way and would've called you but I ruined my phone in the water. I told my parents to call you though, and they promised to leave a message and explain the situation. Didn't they? God, I hope they did.' I looked at my phone after that and nodded to tell him they did call me but explained I hadn't listened to the voicemail or noticed them call. We'd been walking for a while as he explained this story, and we eventually arrived at this really pretty spot by the lake in town, where you could see everything. I decided to forgive him for being an idiot, since he's really not clever enough to make up a story like that. I was still curious about the gift he'd worked so hard to get back, but he refused to tell me about it until we got to that pretty, relatively deserted place. Then he spoke to me really softly, and I almost meltedddd.”
Hammy grinned to himself and shut his eyes, “So he said, 'I know I look like shite for this...I had this night planned out perfectly, but it went so terribly. I can't wait to do this, though.' Then he knelt down and I almost died because I was so happy. Then he pulled this box out of the pocket that hadn't been torn off of his tux, and he held it up and said, 'Will you marry me?' And so I jumped up and down a little bit and hugged him and told him, 'Of course!' He gave me the ring and it was so awesome. Not a woman's ring, like I might have expected from him, but pure gold with a pair of diamonds in it, and our names inscribed in it. It is the most awesome thing ever. So then we kissed and, you know, it was so awesome that night. I was soooo happy. So we went home and told everyone, except Reg's parents already knew and they're awesome and they made me feel like I had real parents again and then I crieddd!” he probably only added the last part because he'd started crying again. “Happy tears...”
The class sat quietly, a relatively small class much like Miss Allberry's, and the boy who'd spoken before stated, “Gayest story ever.” He laughed, “But congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Hammy gushed, wiping his eyes. “I just needed to tell somebody.”
Jennifer, Malik's partner for their two-person improv scenes spoke then, “I hate to rain on your parade but same-sex marriage isn't—,”
“If you hate to rain on someone's parade don't do it,” Malik snapped. “That's an awesome story, Mr. Paddington, Hammy...When slash where is the wedding going to be?”
“We're going to get married in a couple months,” Hammy said with another brilliant grin, “In England. They won't recognize it here, but in England they have Civil Unions, which to them I guess is closer to marriage than it is here. And since Reg has dual citizenship I like to think that also gives me dual citizenship.”
“Congratulations, seriously!” Teddy cheered, and he and Blue ran up to the front of the room to whisper. “We're invited to the wedding, right?” Hammy nodded to them.
“Of course. I hate to say it, but you're some of my closest friends. All of you are invited,” he announced to the room. “But it's in England, so I understand if you don't come.”
“Yeah,” a couple people agreed, “might be tough.”
“We'll be there,” Blue insisted, pointing to Teddy, herself and Malik. For the rest of the class period they just talked to Hammy about his wedding plans and were all pretty excited about it, even if he might not be legally married for a while. After class was over Teddy told Malik and Blue he needed to go talk to his boyfriend, so the two of them went to Malik's room to hang out together for a while. Blue noticed something weird between them, though, since Hammy's story, and was actually a little relieved Kip and Rashida were also hanging out in Malik's room that day.
“No way!” Rashida gasped when they told them about Hammy and Reg's engagement. “That's pretty awesome for them, I guess.” Kip nodded and shrugged.
“I'm indifferent, I guess,” he stated, “great for them, but still illegal here.”
“Yeah,” Malik agreed, “that kind of sucks for them...So I have a question about the two of you...You're dating, right?”
They looked at each other for a moment, before Rashida replied, “Yeah. But we don't want a ton of people to know. My parents might not be so keen on us dating. They're pretty traditional...”
“We do really like each other and everything though,” Kip explained, “we're going to tell our parents eventually.”
“I know what religion you are, Rashida,” Malik mumbled, and Rashida nodded. “But what are you, Kip?” he asked, as Blue tuned them out and thought about Uni charging around through a forest with her new boyfriend called Pega.
Kip blinked a couple times, then stated, “I follow the ethereal words of our one true ruler Higlork.”
Malik stared at him for a minute, trying to decide if he joking, until finally deciding to just move on. “And your parents wouldn't approve of...that?” Malik mumbled, and Rashida nodded with a light chuckle.
“Yeah,” she replied. “They wouldn't approve of that.”
Malik sighed and snapped his fingers to try to bring Blue back to reality, and Blue grinned at him as she reeled in her daydreams. “Uni and Pega might be getting married someday too,” she said. “Even though Uni is a unicorn and Pega is a pegasus, they're sure they can work it out. Because Inter-species relationships can work out sometimes,” Blue explained, “like with Radish and Alien, since that's an obvious difference. And Hammy and Reg, since Reg is British and Hammy is an ex-Amish...And lots of other people. Even Shelly and Scamps,” she finished with a gleeful smile. Malik smiled at her in response as Kip spoke.
“It seems like love is in the air, as they say,” Kip said with a shrug.
“Yep,” Rashida agreed. For a while the four of them just talked about random things, until Teddy ran into the room, looking absolutely frazzled.
“Oh my God!” he yelled, and Rashida and Kip glanced at each other.
“Should we go?” Rashida asked, and though Teddy shrugged, she took it as she and Kip's cue to leave, and pulled her boyfriend out of the room. Teddy flopped onto Malik's floor as they left and leaned against his bed.
“What happened?” Malik asked, as he and Blue both shifted so they were sitting at better angles to him.
“He admitted it!” he shouted. “He admitted he was a f—”
“Beep!” Blue interjected.
“—ing assassin!” Teddy finished.
“Oh my God,” Malik mumbled, “what happened?”
“Well, I went to visit him because I was wondering what the hell we've been doing in this relationship of ours, and then I asked him if he was an assassin, he said yes, held up a gun to my head for a minute, told me he couldn't kill me because he accidentally fell for me, but he was leaving and never going to come back, so we broke up. And I'm pissed!” Despite his protests of anger, tears started falling from his eyes, and he whimpered and covered his face.
Blue and Malik sat in silence, until Blue loudly declared, “I KNEW IT!” Malik gasped very loudly, and pushed Blue into a corner of the room and told her to think about what she'd done. So Blue did think about it, but all she could think was that she should really watch out for that Steel Kilmeistah, in case he came after her next, since she'd certainly never struck his fancy like Teddy had.
“What reason does he have for assassinating you?” Malik mumbled. “I mean, not to be rude, but wouldn't it be 'murder' in your case?”
“Shut up you dickface!” Teddy retorted cleverly.
“He's a potty mouth when he's upset,” Blue stated to the wall. “Don't worry, I'll get the beep next time.”
“Can't you just let me have this f—“
“Beeeeep.”
“—ing assassination thing? It makes sense, you just don't know why!” Teddy shouted, wiping away what had turned into angry tears. “Just tell me this sucks and you feel bad for me and shit!”
“Oh, missed that beep,” Blue stated to the wall very seriously. “I'm very very sorry, I won't let it happen again.”
“I'm really sorry Teddy,” Malik mumbled. “That was inappropriate of me as your friend. I'm sorry for what happened. That sucks. Would you like a hug?” Teddy nodded, and leaned forward to hug Malik, as Blue got up from her corner with a declaration that she loved hugs. So the three hugged for a moment, before Teddy gave them both serious looks through his tears.
“So since my relationship just shattered into a million sucky pieces, I'm going to be frank with you. You're into each other. Don't start dating right now, though, or I'm going to be upset with you both,” Teddy stated, and shut his eyes, causing him to miss the looks that passed between Blue and Malik, Malik of slight embarrassment and Blue of confusion.
“That's a little selfish,” Malik stated through a blush.
“Oh my God I just got you over the hurdle you've been standing behind and dancing around for weeks, be grateful,” Teddy snapped, then leaned his head back into the couch. “FINE God you have my permission to date! But I reserve the right to be whiny and angry about it! I'm going to my room to vent to Kendall since we're terrible buds!” With his declaration, Teddy stood and left the room, leaving Blue and Malik all alone.
“That was awful,” Malik stated softly.
“Yeah,” Blue agreed. “What did he mean, though?”
“Huhhh?” Malik replied, looking at Blue with a light flush.
“Something about you and me?” Blue asked.
“Yeah, he-he was saying we could go out...?” Malik mumbled. Blue still looked confused, so he went on, “Like on a date...?”
“But why would the two of us go on a date?” Blue asked, and Malik looked momentarily horrified.
“N-never mind! Let's do something else,” he said, standing up and running for the door. Teddy was outside, Kendall by his side, staring at the door. Malik and Blue both gave him similarly sad looks, and he grinned at them.
“Company in my misery! Let's go play some violent video games to release our upset-ness!” Teddy said delightedly. Malik and Blue nodded, and Teddy invited Kendall to play as well.
“No,” Kendall replied, “I'd rather just watch...”
So the three of them went to play a violent video game while Kendall watched, and Malik and Blue were both surprised by how good Teddy was at the game. Eventually they quit and retreated to their rooms. Teddy decided to do his friendly duties then, and tend to each of their rooms to figure out why Blue and Malik both looked moderately upset. He started out with Blue, despite the fact that he certainly loved having company in his misery.
He knocked on the door and waited for it to open up, and was surprised to see Alec open the door instead of Blue. “Welcome to our room, Albrecht,” Alec said slowly, then muttered under his breath, “don't touch anything.”
Teddy walked over to sit on Blue's bed, where she was sitting and petting Shelly, much like the turtle was a cat, as it furiously struggled to get away from her. “Blue, what happened?” Teddy asked, as Alec went back to his computer to do something.
“It's just, I...I just wanted him to say 'Cause you are so awesome, lovely, and super cute, Blue,'” Blue replied, and Teddy tilted his head to side.
“In reply to what, exactly?” Teddy asked, and Blue sighed.
“I asked why the two of us should go on a date,” she explained. “I just asked him so he would tell me he liked me...”
“Yeah,” Teddy replied. “I get where you're coming from, but I would probably take that as a rejection if that was me. You need to tell him you really do like him...One more thing I'm going to say...Do not break that kid's heart. He has been my best friend for years, and though you're my girl besty, he's my straight guy besty. That's a sacred bond that shouldn't be broken. And I can't stand seeing him hurt. Because he's so fricking nice.” Blue nodded as Teddy continued, “And I promise he really does like you that way. And you like him that way, don't you?”
“I do,” Blue admitted.
“So find a way to apologize for pseudo rejecting him, and tell him that,” Teddy said with a smile. “Now I need to go talk to him...I love you, Blue. Don't worry, he's pretty understanding. Everything will be fine.” Blue nodded and gripped Shelly's shell tightly as she pondered what she should do. Teddy left her room as she stared at her Uni poster and wondered what Uni would do.
Teddy ran off to his other best friend's room then, knocking on the door in case Malik wasn't alone in the room. Malik opened the door fairly quickly, and Teddy let himself in and jumped onto Malik's bed.
“Blue is an idiot and you know that,” he stated plainly. “She can make this up to you...” Malik looked at Teddy with a sad face, and Teddy smiled. “Let's just be sad together tonight. Once you two start dating you're going to have to deal with even more stupidity like this.”
“Once we start dating?” Malik echoed.
“I promise you will soon,” Teddy replied, as Malik crawled onto the bed next to him. Teddy leaned against Malik and made an unhappy face. “So can I be sad about breaking up with my boyfriend now?” Malik nodded, and the two spent the rest of the evening being sad together, like Teddy planned.
The next morning, Blue had a super awesome plan. It was super awesome. She got dressed in the closet again, and this time Alec didn't even care. He didn't ask if she was being attacked or point out they had a bathroom attached to their room, as he normally would have. Apparently he'd gotten used to Blue's strange behavior, just as she'd gotten used to his.
Once she was looking super pretty in her new skirt and leggings and long sleeved shirt and boots, she ran out of her room to head to class with Miss Allberry. As she sat in her seat in class Miss Allberry told them all about how Hammy had asked her to be his best man, and she was totally flattered and really happy.
Blue interrupted her with a raise of her hand, “I have something really important!”
Miss Allberry stared at her, “Something very important what...? To say? To do? To be?”
“To say slash do,” Blue declared, standing from her seat and walking to the front of the room. “Now as some of you know, when you feel certain things, it means you're attracted to someone. Like if your heart hurts when you accidentally upset him. So I accidentally upset somebody really important to me, and though I would like to say it was Teddy since that would be funny, it was Malikkkkkk. So, Malik, I drew you this picture to make up for it and tell you I want to go on a date with you. Will you go on a date with me?”
“I would love to, Blue,” Malik replied with a smile, standing up to go look at the piece of paper Blue was holding up. He stared at it and tried to figure out what it was, so as not to hurt Blue's feelings. Unfortunately, it looked like a duck sitting on top of a horned mountain (which he'd learned through experience was a unicorn) next to some kind of flying fish-like thing with an octopus on it.
Blue saved Malik the trouble of guessing and explained, “See that's you sitting on Pega, and there's me sitting on Uni.” Malik nodded and smiled at Blue. “And I signed it with a heart. Cause you're my ca-ca-crush.”
“Oh Blue,” Malik laughed, “let's sit down. This is shockingly embarrassing.”
“Wait, go out with me tonight?” Blue asked. “I'm going to cook, the cook ladies and men said I could.”
Malik smiled in a way clearly showing a slight fear for his life, but agreed, “That would be awesome, Blue.” The rest of the class was happy, Blue decided, but she was too busy thinking about her very first date ever that was going to happen that night. Suddenly her stomach started doing crazy flips and she was worried she was going to get sick. So she tried to focus on something else, until she got to improv class and Teddy told Hammy about Blue and Malik's date, since he figured he ought to. After class ended that day Blue was still just thinking about her date, and Teddy stayed behind to talk to Hammy about “stuff,” as he called it.
Blue was a little upset at him, since she was counting on him to help cook, but she got to work on dinner as soon as she got a chance. By six o'clock she'd had a few practice rounds and finally perfected her macaroni and cheese, so she brought the pan of it up to Malik's room, which Kip had promised to stay out of.
The look on Malik's face as she poured some macaroni into his bowl, which she'd stolen from the kitchen, made something inside her chest go “lub-dub” and so she smiled at him. The whole time they ate was strangely silent, since Blue had never been more nervous in her life, but after they finished eating Blue challenged Malik to a game of War, which somehow turned into Slap Jack when Blue forgot the rules. Malik didn't seem to mind, but insisted they stop playing after a while.
“So Blue,” Malik mumbled, and Blue's heart was once again doing weird things because Malik was sitting really close. “I really...I really like you, OK? Teddy told me that's why you asked me why we should go on a date. I can't help it, and I don't want to help it. I thought I would ask you two things. One. Will you be my girlfriend?” Blue's face got all hot and she worried she had a fever, but she nodded emphatically, “Two...Can I kiss you?” Blue stared at Malik, and then she got lightheaded, and really happy. She nodded again, so Malik leaned close to her and pushed his lips against hers lightly, causing her to grin at him, sigh, and bury her head against his shoulder.
They certainly would have done more kissing if Teddy hadn't burst in the room at that very moment and insisted that he had waited long enough and he was lonely, since, “Hammy left, and talking to Pablo is fun and all, but now that I'm single he hits on me even more than he did before and maybe I just want to be single for a little while since I had a gun held up to my head yesterday.”
So Malik and Blue did their friendly duties and welcomed Teddy into the room despite what they wanted. Blue found herself blushing again when she felt the comforting presence of Malik's hand on her own, and the three spent the rest of the evening together, though a few things had certainly changed between them this time.
