From the second I had committed enough to this idea to start driving in a general direction, I knew that this was probably in the top ten worst ideas I've ever had, if not top three. I thought that just maybe, if Miles could meet him, he would understand. I wanted to prove to him that Cian wanted me; that he wasn't using me like Miles had said.

            "Where are you kidnapping me too?" He asked. We had covered the mats of the car in mud. The Buick got this weird smell when there was any moisture in the air, very musty. I cracked the windows down an inch to air it out while I drove through the roads, still slick with last night's rain-snow. It was that weird time of year where it was constantly dropping below freezing and rain could become snow at any minute.

            "Just coffee," I replied quietly, already uncertain in this decision.

            We drove the rest of the way in silence, except for when Miles had attempted to roll his window down the rest of the way to smoke, and I had to tell him over my dead body was he going to smoke in this car.

            The parking lot was surprisingly full for a Friday during work hours, and looking inside it seemed like retirees. And sure enough, there Cian was whisking around hurriedly. He had a sway to his walk that told me he was moving to whatever jazz song was currently playing. Miles remained thankfully oblivious to all of this.

            Miles followed behind me, and the bell chimed over our heads as I opened the door. Cian was too busy to turn and look. We continued inside and I seated us at a corner booth that was vacant on either side.

            "This is a bit more public than I was imagining," Miles said under his breath.

            "Friends go to places like this. Lake and I came here to talk once."

            "You would be BFF's with Lake," he retorted, his voice thick with contempt. I think Miles hated Lake because Lake was who Miles never could be. Gay, out, unconcerned about his perceived masculinity, and unashamed. The masculinity part I think was key because the rest of those things could be said about Beatle, yet Miles admired Beatle and hated Lake.

            "He's good company; you should try actually giving him a chance and getting to know him sometime," I replied, trying to remain unbothered by him as he rolled his eyes and scoffed in response. Considering the situation, I was about to impose upon possibly everyone in this coffee shop, I needed to remain calm.

            I watched Cian from a distance. He swerved around every pulled-out chair, dropped fork, and standing senior with ease. He had a permanent smile on his face. His hair had fallen into his eyes a bit, but his hands were too busy to fix it. He eventually turned towards our table, and his face lit up when he saw me, but immediately changed to confusion as his gaze fixed upon Miles. Miles followed my gaze to Cian and slumped back in his chair, seemingly exasperated.

            "You've got to be fucking kidding. You know what, I'm close enough to walk home. Thanks for nothing." Miles stood up to leave but I grabbed his arm as he tried to walk past me, holding up three fingers.

            "Three minutes. I skipped school and went down there for you, and I gave you three minutes. Give him three minutes. If you want to leave in three minutes, I will take you home. Or wherever you want to go," I quickly corrected.

            "Fine." He roughly yanked his arm from my grasp and tentatively sat back on the bench, his eyes trained on Cian approaching the table.

            I could see the excitement in Cian's eyes as he approached, but his fingers playing with the tie on his apron gave away his discomfort. It was obvious to me now that this was a mistake, but it was too late. We were already here, and he had already seen us.

            "Hey," Cian said, stopping at the side of the table. He was looking at me and I was looking at him, but I could feel Miles' glare burning into my cheek.

"Skipping school? Or did you just put on that god-awful uniform to come down here and offend everyone's eyes?" Cian joked with a smile, and I let out a small chuckle in response.

"Maybe a bit of both," I replied.

"Friend of yours?" Cian asked, nodding towards Miles. Miles has his hands clasped together on top of the table with his gaze now focussed down at them, as if they were the most interesting things ever.

"Miles," I replied.

If Cian was at all shocked, he hid it well. He simply nodded, smiled, and replied, "Ah, yes. I've heard a bit about you from Bailey. It's nice to meet you."

"That feeling is one-sided," Miles responded curtly. Cian bit into his bottom lip with his teeth, stifling whatever was trying to come out. I shot him an apologetic look meanwhile I kicked Miles' foot from underneath the table.

"Well, hopefully I make a better second-impression then," Cian said, unbothered. He pulled his small notebook from his apron and flipped to the next available page; his attention still fixed on Miles. "So, what are we having?"

"I'm not staying," Miles replied.

Cian raised an eyebrow in response and turned his head slightly towards me. "Are you staying?"

"I was planning to," I replied. Cian nodded and started his way back towards the counter, presumably to make my usual drink and possibly to plot how he would murder me for putting him in this uncomfortable position.

"Would it kill you to not be a complete asshole for five seconds?" I asked.

"How old is he?" Miles asked with a hint of disgust, unphased by my question.

"Why do you suddenly care?"

Miles started tapping his fingers against the table, as if playing the same two imaginary piano keys. But he was making intense, unwavering, and very uncomfortable eye contact with me. I looked anywhere but back into his eyes.

            "A year older than you," I replied. Miles was a year older than the rest of us. I didn't know the exact details of why. The vague story he gave me was that he was sick as a kid and missed a year of school, so he was held back.

            "And what the fuck have you told him about me?" I saw the moment of hurt pass his eyes, the thought that I had shared his darkest secrets with the person who had just tried to take his coffee order.

            "That you are my friend. That's it," I replied. I wanted to add the part about how I was in love with him, but that would imply Miles was gay. And I really didn't know which piece of information Miles would be more hurt by me sharing - that his mom hits him or that he likes dick.

"Why?" Miles asked, simply.

"Why did I tell him that we are friends?" I asked.

"No, why did you bring me here? What do you want from me?" He looked hurt, angry, defeated. But he still hadn't made a move to leave the shop.

I thought about it for a moment. "I wanted you to see him. To see that he's not the person you made him to be, he's good. But also, so you can recognize the face that will be kicking your ass if you try and make a move on me again."

"Oh yeah, the guy who practically rolled over a minute ago is going to kick my ass." Miles laughed and I reached up to place a hand on my cheek to try and hide the redness that was spreading across them. Part of me felt relief that that was the part he was contesting, that he wasn't denying trying to have made a move on me.

Cian came walking back as Miles was in a one-sided staring contest with the side of my face. He placed a white mug of coffee in front of me which such force that a bit splattered over the edge.

"I've got my hands full right now until Jeanette comes in at 11, but if you're still around, I will talk to you then," he said to me. "And again, it was nice meeting a friend of Bailey's," he said to Miles, who bit his lip and simply nodded, although his expression was far from agreement. Cian barely had finished speaking for a second before someone was calling him over for a refill.

I picked up the coffee and blew on it, and Miles trained his eyes out to the parking lot beyond the window.

"Tell me what you wanted to talk about," I said.

"I don't...." Miles trailed off, clenching one of his hands in a first. "It was already too much. What I had going on was already too much. And you just had to add to it, didn't you?"

"That wasn't... that wasn't what I wanted to do." My chest hurt like he had just chipped a piece of my heart away.

"Don't fucking lie. You wanted to hurt me." With that, Miles finally started to move to leave. He looked hollow behind his eyes, staring through me. "But you made one mistake, thinking I actually cared enough to give a shit about you or him."

I wanted to stop him, but I didn't- I couldn't. He was right. I wanted him to hurt, like he had hurt me.

I should have just left right then. I should have gone back to school and pretended nothing happened. That it was just a normal day. But I felt like I couldn't move. I watched Miles walk away until he was out of sight.

"I'm not mad at you," Cian reassured me once we were both sitting in his car, raindrops covering the dash. I was shivering, partly from the cold, but mostly from the anxiety. "But a heads-up text would have been nice. It's obviously a wee bit weird. It was one thing just knowing that this guy existed, but bringing him to where I work?"

I could tell it was a question and I should be answering with an explanation, but I didn't have one.

"I know you have these," Cian cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable, "deep feelings for him... for whatever god forsaken reason because I have no effing clue but, I understand that, and I don't expect them to just go away. But just because I understand that doesn't mean I want to see him with you. It's much easier to be okay with it in concept than in front of me."

"I get it," I replied quietly, almost a whisper over the rain. I didn't need the explanation, I already felt the regret eating away at me, wishing I could re-do this whole day.

"Are you hungry? I'm starving," he said.

"A little," I replied. He started up the car, the vents immediately blowing cold air into my face because it took a good while for the heat to start up in his car. Driving away from a coffee shop with delicious baked goods to go to a fast-food drive-thru felt like a sin, but Cian had made it known that he had tried everything at Carol's 5 times over, and I knew he didn't have a long enough lunch for a sit-down place. I knew he probably had his lunch packed and sitting in his bag somewhere in a backroom of Carol's, like usual. But I had thrown an unsuspected wrench in his plans. More like I drove an 18-wheeler through the window of his plans, honestly.

"Harvey's or Wendy's?" He asked.

"Since when do you have Harvey's kinda money?" I asked jokingly, and he laughed in response, breaking a bit of the tension. He started to reverse the car out of the spot.

"A good point. That's really what I look for in a place, a value menu," he said.

When we got to Wendy's he stayed true to that sentiment and ordered for both of us off the value menu, and when we got the food, they had ignored the only thing Cian had asked for and put ketchup on his burger anyways. The first thing he had me do after leaving the drive-thru was pull the bun off his burger to check for ketchup.

"Do you want to go back?" I asked, wishing I could offer him my burger instead, but it also had ketchup.

"No, I'm not that picky. But I will just eat it with a sad face and imagining a better, ketchup-less world," he joked.

"What is with the war on ketchup?" I asked. He even had asked for mayo and mustard packages for his fries. It was truly unnatural.

He turned back to the main road, I assumed driving us back to Carol's parking lot to eat, to make sure he wasn't late back from his lunch if there was traffic.

"It's actually with tomatoes as a whole."

"But you got tomato on your burger!"

"It doesn't count when it's in a sandwich," he said matter-of-factly as he stopped at a red light and reached into the grease-soaked bag on my lap to steal a fry.

"You did not just call a burger a sandwich," I said, stealing the fry back from his hand and eating it. The light turned green, and he had to continue driving.

"It's one of my many apparently controversial opinions."

"As long as it ends with food categories and doesn't extend to conspiracy theories, I think I can live with it," I replied. I positioned the bag towards him, and he took another fry, and this time I actually let him eat it.

We breezed past Carol's, and turned towards him, confused. "Where are we going?"

"You are going back to school. I don't want any part in this skip-day. I'm attempting to be a good influence by feeding you and dropping you off, as much as I'd love to see your face in that corner booth," he said.

            When we pulled up to the school, we ate quietly and quickly in the parking lot, not wanting to make him late back to work, but also fearing being seen by a teacher, as I knew the bell was about to let out for lunch and everyone would be leaving the portables.

            "Will I still see you later?" He asked.

            "Do you still want to see me later?"

            "Yes, but please don't bring anymore friends along today." He laughed and kissed my cheek, which turned me bright red.