How To Get a Boyfriend 101

7 : Saturday

"'Step Seven: Be spontaneous! Don't just randomly show up at his door, especially if he never gave you his address—yet you somehow know it anyway. Instead, surprise him! Get him something sweet if his birthday is coming up, or bring a few sweets to school and hand them out exclusively, letting him be one of a small group of people receiving them!'" Blake reads aloud. "You know where his room is and probably memorized his daily schedule, right?"

I lower my head shamefully.

"I'll take that as a yes."

I nod and bite my lower lip as I think. "I'm not even going to see him today; it's Saturday."

Blake raises his eyebrows and comes closer. He playfully places a hand under my chin and forces me to look at him, then brings his face close to mine, like he's about to kiss me. I'm not even fazed, because I know what's coming next.

I've known him too long.

"Knock knock."

I sigh. "Who's there?"

"The food delivery guy."

"The food delivery guy who?"

"It seems like you're missing a few raspberries." He blows a raspberry at my face and giggles, leaning away again.

Spit flies. Super sanitation. Doctors all over the world are quaking; Blake is a master at hygiene. I make a face and wipe my face, getting the death droplets all over my sleeve. Who knows what diseases Blake could be carrying? He resembles a squirrel enough to be as rabid as one, what with his puffy cheeks and slightly large front teeth. He, however, does not have a bushy tail. How unfortunate.

"Blake Turner, someday I'm going to dump a bucket of spit on your head for every time you've done that with absolutely no context."

He sticks his tongue out at me, and is probably about to say something, when his phone rings. He gives me the "wait a second; the person calling is more important than you" hand gesture and picks it up.

"Yeah ... Oh, really? ... Cool! ... Yeah, I'm sure he'd love to ... Tomorrow works, yeah ... M'kay ... See you tomorrow, then!" He hangs up and turns to me, then rereads the passage from the book. "We've been invited to Jason's room tomorrow. You can save both today's and tomorrow's tips for tomorrow."

I groan. "What should I get him, then? Cookies?"

"Cookies are good," Blake thinks aloud.

"Not for you, dummy, for him. As a 'thanks for inviting me' kind of thing."

"Duh, but am I not allowed to like cookies?" Blake says, throwing me a smirk.

I sigh. "I completely agree that cookies are a glorious creation, but, please, help me out here. What should I get him?"

My airheaded best friend decides to say, "Aren't you getting him cookies?"

Cookie Monster. Confirmed. Blake is a rabid squirrel, and he's also Cookie Monster. Rabid Cookie Squirrel Monster. No. I'll have to find a better way to phrase it.

I sigh again. I've been sighing a lot recently, and I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

In the end, we decide to get him cookies. Or rather, Blake decides, and I don't have the energy or willpower to argue, so I just sigh and go along with it.

I need to stop sighing. One day I'm going to sigh so hard that all the air in my body leaves, and then I'm a blob of mushy body fluids and parts... ew. I need to break this sighing habit, pronto.

And with that thought, I sigh again. I'm so not in the mood for breaking a habit. Ugh.

I sig- no. I stop myself from committing the heinous crime and just place my precious money on the counter to buy the gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, egg-free, sugar-free, (probably also cookie-free at this point) school-safe cookies. This girl, Emily, runs a fantastic bakery in the middle of town.

Hopefully, the school-safety-ness covers any allergies that Russell has, because (obviously) I'm aware of every allergy that Jason has. I've also started a strange habit of avoiding the foods that he can't eat, just to practice before we get into a relationship. Which we probably won't do. But it gives me hope to cling to.

So, yeah. I'm not weird at all.

No, not at all.

Aha!

Squookie Monsbid is what Blake is... and it reflects his chaotic personality, too.