Effortless

Twenty-one #2

Benji assumed that I would agree to help him out, but he was sadly mistaken.

First of all, I was on the bottom of my siblings' favorite people list, so they wouldn't want me of all people to find a present for them.

Second of all, I didn't want to pick out the perfect gift for them when they've never so much as acknowledged my own birthday.

"What?" Benji’s head jerked back. "But you have to help me, man."

"Can't you ask someone else?" Ricky butted into the conversation again.

Benji kept his eyes on mine. "It is my closest friend and girlfriend's nineteenth birthday, I cannot fuck it up. Please, baby Richardson? Just help me this one time."

I cringed at the nickname while Justin thought it was the funniest thing ever. Hanging out with Benji would piss my siblings off even if it was to buy them a gift. Benji knew that, so it was only adding to my confusion of why he was so insistent on getting my help.

I didn’t want to do it. However, it was an excuse to be out of the house. Knowing my aunt was home made me want to stay as far away.

"If you quit calling me that stupid name, then fine."

"I'll join," Justin said casually.

My head tilted. "I don't seem to remember inviting you. Weird, right?"

"Yeah, I was hoping that it could be just me and Eli," Benji backed me up.

"Wouldn't it be better to have multiple people looking for the perfect gift for your perfect girlfriend , Benjamin?

" Justin stressed the words ‘perfect girlfriend’ with wide eyes. "Six eyes are better than four. Also, I’ve been needing to get some new shoes, so it’ll be helpful to catch a ride from you. I won't even be in your way."

If looks could kill, Benji would have murdered Justin with his eyes. Seeing how comfortably Justin was speaking to Benji made me raise a brow. They were strangers, or at least I thought they were. The way they were speaking and the expressions they made told me otherwise.

Benji’s eyes narrowed. “Fine.”

"Ricky, can you come too?" I asked.

It was one thing for Benji and I to go to the mall together, but adding Justin to it was a huge dampener. I needed one more person to balance things out.

"No,” said both Ricky and Benji at the same time.

My first thought was to get on my knees and beg Ricky to come, but I knew how bad of a mood he had been in lately.

He wouldn’t want to spend the afternoon following us around.

My friend gave me a sorry look as his eyes began to wander left.

I followed his gaze to find that he was watching Javier as he walked with his lunch tray in hand.

Since Javi and Diane broke up, Javier stopped sitting with the large group that he hung around before.

I didn't know if it was because he was being the bigger person by taking himself away from the group to spare the awkwardness between him and his ex-girlfriend, or if it was because those people were more Diane's friends than his.

Regardless, it didn't take long for Javier to find a new table to sit at. Everyone was eager to have him and Paxton join their group because everyone still loved Mr. Perfect.

"Ask Javier," Ricky whispered in my ear. He was about to pass by our table.

I shook my head firmly. "I can’t do that."

Benji leaned over the table. "I agree, do not invite Javier."

Javi was a few seconds away from passing up our table and I was panicking.

I wanted to ask him, but I was scared. What if he didn’t want to join?

What if he thought that I was weird for asking him?

We weren’t friends. He wouldn’t willingly go anywhere with me if it wasn’t for some type of school thing.

I made a quick decision. I picked up an apple slice off my plate and chucked it at Javier. It was an impulsive decision, a childish one that I should have thought about before doing.

The slice hit him square in the chest and he jumped. Javier glanced at the apple slice on the ground before turning his eyes to me.

"Can I help you?" he asked with a sense of silliness behind his voice.

"No, you can be on your way," Benji said with full irritation.

Javier ignored Benji. "What did I do to deserve an apple slice to the chest?"

"Sorry," I said as I nervously laughed. "Do…do you want to come with us?"

Ricky and Justin chuckled at my lack of exposition in the question.

Benji did not. He was not being subtle about not wanting me to ask Javier to join us.

Quite frankly, I didn't give a shit. I liked Benji, but his attitude toward Javier was pissing me off.

Javier, albeit arrogant at times, was a good person and I hated to see someone treat him otherwise.

It was okay for me to pretend to hate Javi, but it wasn't okay for anyone else to dislike him.

I cleared my throat. "Alright, so you obviously don't have to if you don't want to. Well, you probably won't want to because why would you? We’ve never done anything like this before and—"

"Ten years later and we're still waiting for you to ask the question," Justin said impatiently.

I rolled my eyes but understood that I needed to get to the point. "Did you, um, maybe wanna come with me to the mall later?"

My words were fumbling in my mouth and I couldn’t stop fidgeting.

Fuck, why did I constantly get so worked up around Javier?

I used to have no trouble saying what I needed to him no matter if the words were kind or rude.

Now I couldn’t ask him a simple question without practically foaming at the mouth.

I had said 'me' instead of 'us,' so I felt the need to correct myself. "Well, I mean us. I know that it's last minute and that you don't know Benji or Justin all that well. I just...I'd like you to come anyway. For me, I guess."

In a way, not having many friends was a good thing.

I never felt awkward or nervous about asking Ricky, Bella, or Kailey to do things with me because I knew that if they said no, it was for a real reason.

It was not because they didn't want to be around me and weren’t telling me that out of fear of hurting my feelings.

Not that I blamed people for not wanting to be around me. Hell, I didn't want to be around me.

So, it made me nervous to go out of my comfort zone and invite people who I was not close with to hang out with me. If I started to truly grow fond of someone and then it turns out that they didn't feel the same way, it would sting more than if they had hated me from the start.

I made people dislike me from the beginning because that was better than them getting to know me and later deciding that they didn’t enjoy my company.

It was easier for me to never get to know new people because then I couldn’t care about their opinions of me.

I was starting to become too fond of my rival to not care about his opinion of me.

So when Javier took a minute to answer my question, I immediately regretted ever opening my stupid mouth. I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out because rejection was painfully embarrassing.

But as he stood before me with his lunch tray in his hands, he sent a warm smile my way. The words that came out of his mouth next made me feel warm inside.

"Anything for you, amor."

Amor?

It was safe to say that all I could think about for the rest of school was going to the mall with Javier. Benji and Justin coming along was irrelevant. How drawn I felt toward my rival was a confusing feeling that I had no idea how to navigate, but I was trying.

The ride to the mall was awkward. We had all piled in Benji’s car and no one spoke at all.

Benji put on music, but it didn’t get rid of the tension and awkwardness.

He insisted I sit in the front next to him while he drove and his arm rested close to mine on the console.

So close that my arm would occasionally brush against his when the car hit a bump in the road, even though I was trying to keep my distance.

All of this for a present for my dickhead siblings was ridiculous.

Birthdays were a big deal to most people.

Many would count down the months, weeks, and days leading up to the day of their birth because it was so looked forward to.

Benji wanted me to help him find the perfect gift for the twins.

We all knew that he was a bad gift giver, but I was the last person he should have been asking for help from.

He knew that I wasn’t the best person to help yet he insisted that I did. Honestly, we were mostly here to get Emerson a gift. He was bad at gift-giving in general, but he always did worse with his girlfriend.

"Do you think Emmy would like this?" Benji asked me.

He was holding a sparkly pink tank top with rhinestones all over it. The glitter made my eyes burn and it looked itchy. It was hideous to say the least. I could have crafted a better tank top.

I made a face of disgust. “No."

Benji pointed to another tank top that looked the exact same, but teal instead of hot pink. "What about that one?"

"No," I repeated in the same tone as before.

"That one?"

"Are you actually going to look for a decent present for your girlfriend?" Justin asked with a huff. "Or are you just going to point at random tops and ask if it looks good?"

Benji rolled his eyes. "Don't you have something better to do? I thought you came here to look for things for yourself."

"I did."

"Then go do that." Benji browsed the shirts on the rack next to us. He must not had realized that those were children’s shirts. "And take Javier with you."

"I'm not going with him," both Justin and Javier said at the same time.

This was such an unlikely group of people forced together. No one ever had more than a surface level interaction with each other prior to this, at least not to my knowledge. The common denominator here was me.

"Maybe we should walk around and look instead of picking the first thing we see." I suggested.

Benji nodded in agreement. We went from store to store and looked through every clothing option and it took forever.

I didn't enjoy shopping that much. Being in the mall for a little while was fine, but once it passed the two hour mark I was tired of walking and ready to be done.

We had only been looking for forty minutes, but it felt like an eternity.

We entered what felt like the hundredth store and made our way straight to the clothes.

Benji was set on only getting Emerson a new top.

Meanwhile, he had already gotten Easton clothes, a coupon to his favorite pretzel place, and new shoes.

When I questioned Benji on why he bought Easton more things for his birthday than he did his girlfriend, he said it was because Easton was easier to shop for.

Javier and Justin were in the front of the store checking out some things for themselves which left Benji and I alone. No one else was back here but us.

My eyes scanned the racks, but my eyes darted when I felt a hand on my lower back. My head turned to Benji and I raised a brow, suddenly uncomfortable. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I haven’t seen you in a while,” he said simply.

I took a side-step away to create distance between us. “Yeah, no more than you usually do.”

“We could change that.”

I stood idly before him. “I mean, you know the twins don’t like us hanging out.”

Benji took a step forward and his hand moved behind my ear in a gentle, lingering motion. “You can’t let them run your life.”

What the fuck?

Perplexed, I let out an uncomfortable chuckle. “You’ve never wanted to hang out with me before.”

“No, I have. I was…” he paused. “I was afraid that you didn’t want to be around me.”

“It’s not that, it’s just you’re my sister's boyfriend. My brother's best friend.”

Somehow, we ended up in a corner with my back pressed against it and Benji in front of me. The music coming through the speakers in the store accompanied with the chatter from customers around us wasn’t loud enough for me to focus on it instead of how Benji’s hand was resting on my waist.

“I know,” he said softly. “You’re a hard person to get around, Eli. You know that?”

I carefully pushed him back with my palm. “You’re weirding me out, Benji.”

He frowned, though his hand made no effort to move. “I’m sorry.”

Was Benji coming onto me or was I crazy? It had to be the latter, because the thought of someone like him hitting on me was too far-fetched.

"By the way, congrats on second place in the competition.”

His eyes stared holes into my face and I wanted to run away from him. Was this why he had been acting so different lately? I couldn’t make sense of anything going on.

“Thanks," I muttered.

“In all the years we’ve known each other, you have never been by my place. Did you know that?” he asked. “You should come see it sometime..”

We were still standing in the corner of the store because my body wouldn’t let me move.

My limbs wouldn’t let me move despite how much I wanted them to; I was frozen.

I was not scared of Benji, but I was hesitant about how to proceed.

The last thing I would have ever thought was that Benji could have a thing for me.

Honestly, I still didn’t believe it. The only thing I knew for sure was that I felt uneasy, but I did not want to make a big deal out of it if I was misreading his actions.

“Ayo!” Justin called from behind us with Javier. "Do you like corndogs?"

Suddenly Benji wasn’t so close to me anymore as he shook his head at Justin. I let out a small breath of relief, the suffocating feeling vanished.

"Who doesn't like corndogs?" Justin asked with utter disbelief.

"Me," I replied blandly.

Justin slapped a hand on Benji’s shoulder. “Well, good thing Benny Boy does. Let’s wait in the long line together and grab some.”

“Don’t call me that,” Benji said dryly. “But fine. Eli, come with us.”

My eyes landed on Javier’s. He was already looking my way with a hint of worry behind his eyes. Now that I thought about it, he had been watching me since he interrupted Benji and I.

I fidgeted with the hem of my hoodie. “I’m good. Javi and I will find a table.”

Benji didn’t seem all that happy with my answer, but he didn’t have a chance to protest before Justin yanked his arm and dragged him again.

Javier and I followed the two, but we kept our distance. The back of his fingers brushed against mine as we walked shoulder-to-shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked after a beat.

I put on a smile. “Yeah.”

“What was Benji doing?”

I sucked in a breath. “Just talking about the twins and stuff.”

Javi’s hand gripped my shoulder, causing us to stop in our tracks. People around us had to maneuver around us because we were standing in the middle of the walkway. “You tell me if some weird shit happens.”

“It’s Benji, I know him. Nothing—”

“Elias,” he warned. “You’ll tell me. Yes?”

My heart fluttered in my chest. “Yes.”