This is the eighth part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, and Part VII before continuing.
Britney and Sarah were at the student union and had just sat down with their ice cream when Blaine walked in. Sarah was trying to think up an excuse for him to join them when Britney surprised her by turning around to wave and shout, “Hey, Blaine! Come join us!”
Sarah was mortified, but it was too late. Blaine had heard Britney (the whole student union had probably heard her) and now he was headed their way and there was nothing Sarah could do about it now.
“Hey,” Blaine said as he approached.
“Hey,” Sarah said. She noticed Britney shoot her a look, but did her best to ignore it.
“Ice cream, huh?”
“Study break. What brings you here?”
“I have about 20 minutes between my last class and rehearsal, so I just came to grab the fastest dinner possible.”
“Well, ice cream is fast,” said Britney. “I mean, it’s already made.”
Blaine chuckled, then seemed to consider it. “What the heck. I’m not above having ice cream for dinner.”
“Hear hear!” said Britney.
“OK, I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere,” he said, looking directly at Sarah.
Sarah just smiled back, but Britney said, “Oh, we won’t. We have too much ice cream here to go anywhere anytime soon.”
As he trotted off to get his own helping of sugar and cream, Sarah kicked Britney under the table.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For being so obvious. What were you thinking calling him over here?”
Britney’s eyes widened and her head leaned forward as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I’m obvious? Did you ever stop to think how I knew he had walked in without seeing him?”
Sarah froze, replaying the scene in her head and realizing for the first time that Britney had already started waving and shouting as she was turning around to look at Blaine. How had she known he was behind her?
“It was that stupid look on your face,” Britney said. “You went all gooey and I knew right away who was behind me.”
Sarah blushed.
“OK, now you’re blushing. He’s going to come back here any second, see you blushing and batting your eyes at him.”
“I never-”
“You absolutely do. And you’re worried about me giving you away?”
Sarah shut up, chastened. “What do I do?”
“Maybe try talking to him like a normal person?”
Sarah wondered how to do that as Blaine pulled up a chair at their table and dug into his ice cream.
“You’re codirecting The Tempest with Professor Klein, right?” Britney said after a few moments had passed and Sarah had still failed to come up with anything “normal” to say.
Blaine nodded as he shoveled ice cream into his mouth.
“How’s it going?”
It took him a few minutes to swallow his mouthful so he could say, “Good,” before returning to shoveling ice cream into his mouth.
“Wow,” Britney continued. “Enter any eating competitions lately?”
Blaine nodded.
Britney’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? I was joking. What kind of competition?”
Blaine waited another moment to finish his mouthful of ice cream before say, “Actually, I kid you not, it was an ice cream eating competition.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I swear.”
Britney and Sarah both laughed.
“Did you win?” Sarah said, mentally patting herself on the back for finally thinking of a way to join the conversation.
Blaine shook his head, but held up one hand with three fingers.
“Third place?”
He nodded.
“Out of how many?”
He stopped to think about it, or maybe he was just finishing his mouthful of ice cream before he could talk again. “I can’t remember,” he finally said. “Around 20 or so.”
“Wow, that’s pretty good.”
He shrugged and kept eating.
Sarah despaired. This was going nowhere.
She looked at Britney who looked back at her and shrugged.
When Blaine finished his ice cream, Britney said, “Hey, Sarah, aren’t you heading towards the theater department after this?”
Sarah shot her a confused look, but then it clicked when Blaine looked up at her and said, “Really? Want to walk together?”
She smiled at him and said, “I’d love to.”
“Great. Are you ready? ‘Cause I gotta get going.”
“I’m ready,” she stood up and grabbed her bag, and as soon as his back was turned, she mouthed a “thank you” to Britney.
To be continued…