FicWad

Part 22
Frank’s POV- ‘I know that you love someone but that someone isn’t me, or is this me?’
“Wasn’t too bad was it?” I say quietly into Amy’s ear as we exit the screen. I’m met with a blank stare that translates as ‘take that back or I’ll make you eat your own testicles, whilst they’re still attached to your body.’
“Charli come to the loos with me?” She asks and the two girls go off together, huddles probably tighter than necessary and jumping out of their skins when a cleaner comes out of a door just as they pass it.
“Poor things.” I chuckle to Mikey. He rolls his eyes, “They’re useless!”
“It was scarier than I thought it would be.” I admit and Mikey nods enthusiastically which lets me know I wasn’t the only guy who had been slightly freaked. Amy had been more than a little freaked. She’d held my hand in a vice like fashion through the entire film, even in the parts that weren’t really scary at all. Soon enough the girls are hurrying back over to us. Amy takes hold of my hand and I squeeze it slightly before leading the way out of the cinema and over to Frankie n Bennies.
We’re seated by some bloke around Gerard’s age who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. He does sneak a few too many looks at Amy’s boobs though so I glare at him and place a territorial arm around her shoulders as we sit down. Have to act my part. It wasn’t like Amy was complaining either, not about me anyway.
“He best not be out waiter or I will actually replace his f*cking eyes with meatballs.” This is greeted by laughs from everyone at our table, ‘holier-than-thou’ look from a middle ages couple near by and a scared look from the waiter who is now approaching out table to take drink orders. Thankfully it was a different one to the one who had seated us.
“I mean I don’t even have big boobs!” Amy continues ranting to Charli when the waiter leaves. I hope they don’t start a petition against pervy men or something. When she makes this statement everyone who hears obviously gets the urge to actually check out the size of her tits and the credibility of her words which in turn gets me and Mikey some pretty boggy looks when we follow our urges not so subtly.
“Guys are such nobs.” Amy informs me. The look I her eyes tells a different story but I decide not to point that out to her just yet, instead I make mindless conversation with Mikey while wondering when things had changed between us. Between me and Amy that is, not me and Mikey… eww don’t even go there. I suppose it was when Ray busted her lip. Thank-you Ray! I smile, probably at a really badly times point in mine and Mikey’s conversation that the girls seemed to have joined in on too. I gain myself a puzzled expression off everyone at the table by displaying my sudden surge of love towards Ray by a massive grin on my face.
“Frank stop grinning you look like a loon.” Amy says to me in her nice delicate way. Not.
“Thanks.” I roll my eyes but can’t wipe the grin off my face. It was that thing where the more you try not to do something the more you end up doing it.
“Ok well, at least hide behind a menu.” She says, shoving one in my face and I pretend to read it even though I already know what I want to eat.
The thing is that happy as I am at how things have progressed between Amy and me I have this niggling feeling in my stomach that something wasn’t as great as it should be. I mean sure, the bet, that makes things awkward as I have no idea what Gerard would do if me and Amy got together. Plus he would always be doubting my incentives for getting with her and the truth was bound to come out sometime. There was something else though, the way I was with her, I’m not me when I’m around her. I’m someone who seems lie he would make a good boyfriend. I’m a good friend. I make muffins. I don’t try it on with her every two seconds. I don’t want to.
Sometimes it felt like she wasn’t falling for me but who I pretend to be when I’m with her and when I’m that person it feels like the whole world could fall but we’d be Ok because things just seem better when she’s around. What if the real me makes an appearance? I’d be screwed.
I’m still deep in thought when the food appears, I realise that we must have ordered at some point and I’m glad to see that I gave the right order. We than the waiter collectively and dig in. The girls are taking occasional bites and then stopping to discuss something or give each other telepathic glances. Me and Mikey just concentrate on our food.
My mind begins to wonder again and I find myself going back to what I’d been thinking about earlier, about Amy not falling for the ‘real me’. If that was the case the why did I feel more like me than I ever have when I’m around her?
Shut up and eat.

Charli’s POV- ‘As her hopes and dreams descended down to her knees’
Frank’s being rather quiet. After Amy told him he looked like a loon for smiling so much (he did look a bit psychotic) he just sat staring at the menu and now him and Mikey are just wolfing down their food in not quite silence as me and Amy exchange worried glances and talk nonsense to try and fill the awkward space that’s empty of the boys usual over loud and over enthusiastic chatter. The boys finish and Frank continues to look as though the fate of the world hangs on his shoulders (oh Lord please no…). Me and Amy finish up and she’s looking so downtrodden that I decide to take action.
“I’m just going to the toilets you coming?” I direct at her and before waiting for an answer I grab her hand and walk with her in tow to the toilets.
Once inside we spend a few minutes reapplying makeup and I stay quiet to give her a chance to vent without any provocation. Sure enough, “I just don’t know what’s wrong with him…” She says, pausing in the middle of applying mascara, her hand is still raised at eye level as she speaks and stares at her reflection in the mirror critically. “I mean one minute he was grinning like a Cheshire cat and the next he’s turned into fricking Descartes.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” I mumble which at least raises a smile on her part. She finishes with the mascara then turns to lean on the tiled wall next to the hand drier while she waits for me. I go slowly on purpose to give her more time to clear her chest before we have to go back to the guys.
“It’s the whole hot and cold thing again and it’s doing my head in!” She finally explodes. “Hey, you don’t know that… he may have just discovered the meaning of life.” I suggest in reply to her earlier Descartes comment. I catch her eye and carry on. “He may just be thinking the whole situation over. Like evaluating how things are going and where he wants them to go.”
“I’d rather not be ‘evaluated’ thanks… I just… I though things were going really well, and well, I think I really like him…” at this she throws a worried glance at me as if expecting me to slap her for having feeling for him, I smile kindly and she carries on, “I just feel like maybe he’s chickened out and he’s trying to give me the hint to leave him alone. Like he’s realised how much I like him and how that compares to how little he must like me and decided to save me the misery and is just going to completely blow me off.”
“Have you seen the look in his eyes when he looks at you? Heck when your mere name is mentioned?” At her quizzical glance I continue, “That boy is never happier than when you are in the close vicinity. If you think your feelings are unrequited then you’ve clearly been living under a log for the last week.” She cheers up at this and leads the way from the toilets. “You and Mikey are doing well.” She says as we descend the stairs side by side. I smile to myself, his deep brown eyes flashing into my mind. “Yeah we are.” I agree. Hiding my Cheshire cat grin from her in case she shoves a menu in my face.