"I call shotgun!" I yell as we step outside. Everyone else around me groans apart from Ethan, who actually smirks.

It's Saturday and all of us are headed to the movie theatre because of David's free tickets. Ethan's a lot less sick than he has been this week and even Ella's coming along. She seems to be in a terrific mood but I don't really wanna ask her why because I have a feeling it's to do with the whole Josh situation.

"I don't wanna squeeze in the back!" David half wails. "Can't we take your car too Anthony?"

Anthony strokes Janet's cheek, totally lovey-dovey and also oblivious to his friend. "We can't."

"Why not? There'll be more space."

"We wanna save the environment and shit."

David glares at me and I blow him a kiss. Ethan throws a lollipop at me and sticks his tongue out while I glare at him.

We get into his car and drive towards the movie theatre. I start annoying Ethan by telling him about my love for trees, because you know, we wanna save the environment. He ends up turning up the radio to drown me out. Janet sits on Anthony's lap while Ella and David exchange awkward conversation.

When we get to the theatre, everyone wants to watch the new action horror movie. I am a wimp who enjoys cartoons and show tunes, so this is a very bad idea for me.

Luckily it turns out the action horror they all wanted to watch is sold out. The only thing left is a cheesy Jennifer Aniston romance film that my mom and I wanted to see together next week.

I sit on the aisle seat, next to Ethan with my big ass popcorn and some skittles, ready to enjoy the corny romance that is about to unfold in front of my eyes. It's super easy to get lost into the movie and pretty soon I'm oohing and laughing along at the jokes and nice romantic vibes.

"Jesus Christ, Alisa, what's so good about this movie?! You're literally squealing every time that Darren dude comes on screen!" Ethan whispers furiously. I guess my emotional investment in the male lead was louder than I thought.

"Well, he's hot." I summarise.

"Hotter than me?"

"Can't talk. Watching."

He gasps and picks up a handful of my popcorn. Instead of eating it, he throws half of it at my face. Surprised, I pick some out of my hair and throw it back again but it hits Ella. She frowns and takes a handful of her own popcorn, throwing it at Ethan who ducks. It hits me.

Soon enough, we're all throwing popcorn at each other. Well, everyone except me. I'm trying to watch the precious movie but Ethan's distracting me by stealing my popcorn. I end up giving him the whole tub and heading to the bathroom.

There's a lot of popcorn just clinging to my hair and a little butter on my chin. I manage to get everything out and clean my chin the best I can without rubbing off all of my makeup. When I leave the girls bathroom, Ethan's standing by the door, on his phone. He also lacks any traces of popcorn or butter on him.

"You can't be checking up on me after you broke up with me." He says, rubbing his eyes. I clear my throat and he sighs, spotting me. "Listen, Nicole, I've gotta go. Bye."

Despite the fact we can both hear someone speaking over the line, he hangs up. "Hey. What are you doing here?" I ask.

"You never told me if I was hotter than Darren." He says.

I roll my eyes and shove him. He laughs and the two of us head back towards the theatre where all our friends are waiting.

Unfortunately, they're being escorted out of screening, all of them covered in butter, sugar and popcorn.

"Alisa! We gotta go, someone complained." Ella says to me.

I sigh and run a hand through my hair. I guess my mom and I are coming back here after all. "O-."

"Excuse me, do we know you?" Ethan says. He puts his arm around my shoulder and brings me close to him all of a sudden.

"Ethan? What?" I ask, confused. He glares at me and I decide it's in my best interest to let him do what he wants.

"Oh come on, Ethan, stop playing games. We're being kicked out." David says, sighing.

"Sorry but me and my girlfriend are going back in to watch Kelly get with Darren." He says a matter of a factly. Before anyone can say anything, he walks past the security guards escorting our friends out. When he gets to the doors, he turns back, aware that I haven't followed.

"Are you coming, dear?" He asks me and stretches out his hand.

I look at the expecting and disbelieving faces of my friends and suppress the impending grin.

"Of course, darling." I say and walk past them all, giving them a wave. To keep up the pretence, I take Ethan's hand and we both go into the theatre.

"Darling. Nice touch."

"Learned from the best." I say as we find seats away from the ones we were at before.

"Who, me? Aww shucks."

"Not you, idiot. Jennifer Aniston."

It only strikes me that the others probably had nowhere to go after Ethan and I come out of the movie theatre talking about Darren and Kelly. They're standing around Ethan's car with bored looks on their faces.

"Who are they and why are they on my car?" He asks me blankly. I burst into laughter.

"Dude, please don't keep this up. I can't deal with another bitch fit from Ella." David says plainly. I think that's the meanest thing I've ever heard him say.

Ella looks furious. "Shut up Daniel! Can we go now, I wanna go get some Starbucks."

"My name's David!" He throws his hands in the air.

I clear my throat. "I call shotgun!"

Everyone groans while Ethan and I get into the front seats. We load ourselves into Ethan's car and get going to the mall. Ella mentioned that she wanted to go to the mall earlier so we caught an earlier showing of the movie. It's only around six thirty now and I feel super weird because I'm so used to watching movies in the evening.

"Yo, 'Leese. You got any plans tomorrow?" Ethan asks me out of the blue.

"I'm working." I say slowly. "Why?"

He shrugs but doesn't answer me. Nor does he look at me but I'm pretty sure he's starting to blush.

The group splits up when Janet and David start geeking over a video game. Anthony tags along with them and the rest of us go to Starbucks.

"Ethan, what's your favourite colour?" Ella asks him on the walk over to Starbucks, twirling some hair around her finger. He raises his eyebrow at me but answers her.

"Green, I guess." Then he glances at me. "Or blue? I don't know, maybe a mixture of both. Why?"

She smiles secretively and gasps as we get to the doors. "Is that Jessica and Josh?! Oh my God, guys, we gotta say hi!"

"Do we?" Ethan mutters but the both of us ignore him as Ella leads the way over to the table. I follow reluctantly and he tags behind me, humming a song.

"Hey guys!" Ella says, grinning. Jessica gasps while Josh glares at Ethan who brushes it off like it's nothing. "It's so good to see you here."

"Elli!" She and Jessica do air kisses with one another while we watch. Then they clear space around their table that just so happens to contain three more chairs. How convenient.

"Come on Ethan, treat me to some coffee." Ella says as soon as we've all settled down. Before he gets a chance to say anything, she takes his hand and drags him to the counter. I contemplate yelling for her to tell him to get me a strawberry frappe but figure I'll just text her the details instead.

"So Alisa!" Jessica says when I've sent the text. She smiles at me. "It must be so great to see your childhood crush and best friend dating now!"

It takes me way too long to decipher her statement. I decide that I'll work one part at a time. "Ethan wasn't my crush as a kid. I hated his guts."

"Oh we all know there's a thin line between love and hate!"

"Not when you're ten." I say blankly. Then I realise the whole sentence. "And dating?"

Josh pouts. "She told us they were casually dating." He says, sounding furious. "How did she get over me so quickly?!"

Jessica rolls her eyes. "Relax, Joshy, you got over her quickly too."

"But she was at his house! They're already having sex and she made me wait months!"

I can't believe what I'm hearing.

Luckily for me, a strawberry frappe is placed in front of me. I look up and Ethan looks annoyed but overall okay while Ella's grinning like a mad woman. She sits next to Jessica and they begin discussing a girl named Cynthia's shoes. He shares a look with me and gestures at my phone where there are two messages there, the first of which tells me I owe him five dollars. The second asks me why Ella's acting so weird.

Feeling super unsure and kind of weird, I message him asking if he and Ella are dating. He chokes on his drink and Ella has to thump him on the back a few times before he's back to normal.

"You okay baby?" She asks protectively. He looks at her weirdly and I try my hardest not to laugh. There's my answer.

"Yeah, I'm... I'm good." He says, glancing at me. I just sip my frappe.

Ethan messages me back saying that they're definitely not dating.

"Hey, do you want a muffin, Ethan?" I ask. He looks up at me, confused and I will him with my eyes to say yes. He eventually nods and stands up.

"Ooh, scandalous." Jessica comments, smirking. "The potential boyfriend and best friend sneaking off together?"

"Potential boy-"

"Come on Ethan, I owe you five dollars." I drag him back to the line while he begins to piece everything together.

We stand in silence for a few moments. "Ella told Jess I'm dating her." He concludes.

"You're a lot smarter than you look." He messes up my hair. "Hey!"

"Why would she do that, though?" He rubs his chin and focuses on the back of the person in front of us. "The two of us barely talk?"

"Well, you are currently desirable number one and she's trying to get back at Josh. So just go along with it for now, I want her to be happy." I say without much thought. I instantly regret it when he begins grinning.

"You think I'm desirable, huh?" He nudges me. "Alisa thinks I'm cute."

"Shut up. Which muffin are you going to buy me?"

He gasps. "I'm not – fine, I'll get you a blueberry."

I grin with glee.

When we get back to the table, Ella looks quite a little bit uncomfortable but I wink at her and she relaxes. She fusses over Ethan a little bit and he lets her, acting like they're at the awkward almost couple phase. I sit back, watch and listen, feeling a little left out. Ethan and I are normally bosom buddies but seeing him act like that with Ella is just super weird to me. I do notice that he's getting more and more annoyed as the whole escapade goes on though.

By the time my muffin's finished and everyone's done with their coffee, they've almost convinced me that they're a couple. Jessica yawns.

"Well, Joshy and I are gonna go watch that Jennifer Aniston movie tonight so we'd better get going." She says. I pick up my frappe, ready to finish it off.

"Ethan and I were just gonna have an early night." Ella pinches his cheek. I guess that's the last straw for him because he sighs loudly. "Babe? What's wrong?"

He looks around and clears his throat. "I think we should break up."

Unfortunately, I begin to choke on the remnants of my drink. He thumps my back almost automatically until I start breathing normally again. When I've finally dried the tears out of my eyes, I look around to see everyone's reactions.

Ella looks gobsmacked. Jessica has this fake looking shock on her face but she's half smiling and Josh looks downright overjoyed. Ethan on the other hand looks tired but vindicated.

"Alisa, you wanna go get the others?" He asks me, standing up and leaving. I look between his retreating figure and Jessica who is beginning to fawn over Ella and make my decision.

"Ethan! Slow down!" I stand up and follow after him. "We have to wait for Ella, you're giving her a ride!"

He stops and I advance towards him, noticing how tense his shoulders look. "Listen, Alisa. If you wanna spend the rest of your life being stupid and playing stupid games with Ella, then it's fine by me. But next time, don't drag me into it."

"Oh come on, I-"

"No, you come on. That was some dumb shit back there and I can't believe I went along with it. I'm a dumbass."

"You just wanted to help a friend." I try to make him feel better but it's apparently the wrong thing to say because he rolls his eyes and turns away from me. "Ethan, I'm sorry you had to go through that but it's over now! You pretty much just –"

He begins walking away from me and I have to jog so my short legs can keep up. "Shut up Alisa." He says shortly.

I shut up. Then, fed up, I stop walking besides him and watch him head through the mall by himself, disappearing through the crowd. He doesn't seem to notice I'm not with him which just agitates my annoyance. Feeling hurt, I head back to Starbucks where Ella is waiting outside with a big frown on her face.

"Where is he?! He just ruined my reputation! My plan is in ruins!" She exclaims.

"He went to get the others." I mutter, running a hand through my hair.

She growls. "Damn Alisa, what do I keep you around for?! You can't even do damage control right."

What?

"What the hell, Ella? I just –"

"Shut up, Alisa, help me find them." She says, looking at her phone. I take my own phone out of my pocket and take a deep breath.

Then I decide that I am way too nice. So I put my phone away and start walking away from her, feeling the annoyance pile on waves. I hear Ella call after me a few times but decide to ignore her as I get to the entrance of the mall. Instead of going to wait by Ethan's car, I figure I'll make my own damn way home and head towards the bus stop.