Red Flags

--

“So, is she hot?”

“For the last time, Chase, it’s a ‘he’ and yes, ‘he’ is hot!”

“But Morgan is such a girl name,” Chase defended.

He ducked as both girls reached out to smack him upside the head.

“Dude! Watch the hair!”

Michelle purposefully stuck her hand out and gave him a noogie.

“Why? It’s not like you do anything to it.”

“Exactly! If I’m going for the just-got-out-of-bed look, then I just get out of bed and go.”

Lydia laughed at the two.

This felt right, being here with her best friends since before high school. She’d had a small fear that their chemistry together wouldn’t be the same after four-plus years of separation, but any lingering doubts were completely gone by now.

As the more talkative pair launched in to further discussion about guy hair styles (“Spikes are so eighth grade” “No way! I love spiking my hair. And so do the ladies…”), Lydia found herself wondering what Morgan would think of the group. She hadn’t made many new guy friends since Chase. Not because there weren’t any guys around, they just never went past group hang outs.

But Morgan, he had suggested they meet up outside of class. Of course, his reasoning was that since they shared two classes, it made sense to study together. Which reminded Lydia of something she’d forgotten to ask Michelle.

“Hey, Chelle?” she asked when there was a lull in the conversation.

“Yeah?”

“I forgot to tell you: Morgan wanted to meet up next week and go over our Chemistry notes, just to make sure we’re on top of things. I was thinking we could even make it a weekly thing.”

“Sounds good to me. Any day in particular?”

“Well, we were thinking Thursday after dinner.”

The tall girl got out her planner.

“Let’s see…Thursday? Yup, I can be there.”

Lydia smiled.

“Awesome.”

Now it wouldn’t be potentially awkward with just her and Morgan. Not that she didn’t mind hanging out with just him, but she felt it was still a little early in the friendship to be doing such things.

“Hey! What about me?” Chase whined.

Lydia rolled her eyes.

“Chase,” she said patiently, “would you like to come and study with us on Thursday for a class you’re not even taking yet?”

“Why, thank you for asking,” he replied, looking satisfied. “But I’m afraid I can’t. I signed up for Future Chefs of America and the first meeting is next Thursday.”

Both girls gave him incredulous looks.

“You? In a kitchen?”

“Why, think I can’t do it?”

“No, it’s not that we don’t think you can do it. It’s that we think—no, we know—that there’ll be no food left to feed your guests by the time you get out of the kitchen.”

“Who said I was cooking for guests?!”

Laughter filled the room and continued to echo throughout the night.

Lydia smiled to herself.

Yeah, this is right…here, together.

This is perfect…

--

By the time Thursday rolled around, Lydia’s prior nervousness at meeting with Morgan had all but disappeared. They often walked to classes together and had eaten at the dining hall several times, so she was growing quite comfortable around him.

Which is why when Michelle suddenly had to cancel on studying (“I’m so sorry Lyds! I completely forgot about my online quiz—and it’s due before midnight!”) she didn’t feel awkward in the least.

“So, do you mind if we go over the notes from Tuesday? I was kind’ve not paying attention.”

“Not paying attention?” Lydia laughed. “You were so dead to the world I had to yell in your ear to wake you up!”

Her study companion grinned.

“Well, what can I say. Sleep comes before lectures in my book.”

Lydia grinned, too, as she rummaged around in her bag for her notebook.

“Why were you so tired?”

Morgan shrugged.

“Oh, you know. The usual…my roommate invited me to this party one of his older brother’s friends’ frat was throwing; decided I’d go.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow.

“On a Tuesday?”

She was going to say “on a schoolnight”, but she didn’t want to seem that nerdy. Not in front of her “cool” friend, at least.

He merely shrugged again.

“Yeah. I guess they’re just like that.”

Adopting his mode of nonchalance, Lydia dropped the subject and passed her notes over to Morgan who started copying away diligently. For the few moments of silence while he scribbled, she looked at him, wanting to know more about why he was so different from the other guys she had met.

Sure, Chase and the others went to parties in high school, but their families hadn’t minded as long as school came first; so even now the thought of partying all night on a “schoolnight” just didn’t occur. Even her younger brother Lewis, wild-child though he was, or tried to be, probably wouldn’t do something that extensive.

Morgan caught her looking at him, and before she could look away or pretend to be doing something else, he grinned and gave her a wink.

Blushing slightly before turning away, all thoughts of differences in personality evaporated as she fought to keep from getting even more flustered.

--

As the semester wore on, Lydia and Morgan’s study sessions became bi-weekly traditions. Michelle was able to come by a couple of times, but since none of their classes were the same, it wasn’t on the top of her priority list. Chase never made it once, even though he and Lydia took the same History and Economics classes, due to his new club schedule.

Lydia also found herself spending more time with Morgan at the dining halls, since their afternoon classes ended around the same time and it was convenient to have dinner together. Michelle made it to the occasional lunch with just Lydia, and Chase stopped by for breakfast whenever he woke up on time, but the best time for the three friends was on the weekends.

It was right after mid-terms that Chase’s brotherly instinct kicked in – it took a while given his ADD-tendencies and busy schedule – and he became concerned about Lydia’s affiliation with a boy he had yet to meet and thus could not decide if he approved or not.

So it was only natural to him that on the first cancelled meeting of Future Chefs of America, he headed over to the learning center’s café to meet up with this new “boy” friend of Lydia’s.

He saw them before they saw him. He picked Morgan out right away, seeing as he was the only other person at the table with his brown-haired friend. Chase acknowledged that Morgan wasn’t hideously ugly, but he honestly could not see what all the fuss was about. Must be a girl thing, he surmised.

“Hey Lyds! Mind if I join you?”

Lydia looked up from her notes.

“Chase! Of course not; sit down,” she smiled and gestured to an open seat.

She looked at him quizzically as he got settled in.

“I thought you had your club.”

“Well, it got cancelled so I figured I’d stop by and say hey.”

Lydia smiled again.

“I’m glad you did.”

Then she noticed Morgan looking on expectantly.

“Oh! How rude of me. Morgan, this is Chase. Chase, Morgan,” she introduced the two boys.

Lydia missed the appraising looks both guys gave each other as they nodded in response to her introduction.

“Chase, right? Lydia talks about you a lot.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hm.”

Chase decided not to bring up the fact that Lydia talked about Morgan just as much, if not more. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about the newcomer.

They made small talk for a while—what major, which classes, any clubs—when Morgan said something that made Lydia laugh. This was normal enough in and of itself, but what caught Chase’s wandering attention, as he found the other boy quite boring and dull, was that the boy was touching Lydia’s hand as they both laughed.

The moment lasted no more than a few seconds, but red flags went up in Chase’s mind. He’d have to warn Lydia later.

“So, Chase. Didn’t you say you had somewhere else to be?”

Chase glanced at Morgan.

“No, actually,” he leaned back in his seat. “I’m pretty free. Oh, and I was wondering if I could catch a ride back to the complex, Lyds?”

The only person who missed the sour look on Morgan’s face and the smirk on Chase’s was the girl in question.

“Oh, sure, no prob.”

Satisfied with his work, the Asian boy shot another smirk at the male to his left before taking out his own notes to study.

--

On the way home from the learning center, Chase brought up his concerns about Lydia’s friend.

“Hey Lyds. Do you like that guy? Morgan?”

She laughed hesitantly.

“What, like, like like? No. But as a friend? Well, yeah. Like I like you, Mr. Park.”

The streetlights flashed by, illuminating the car in intervals.

“Why do you ask?”

Seven more flashes of light later, Chase answered.

“Because, I don’t like him.”

Lydia wasn’t expecting that.

“Really?” she asked, genuinely surprised. “I thought you two would get along.”

“It’s not that. It’s more like this…vibe, I guess. I don’t know. I just don’t really care for him.”

“Well, I appreciate your concern and that you told me,” she responded kindly, “but I honestly don’t sense that vibe, or whatever. To me he’s just another friend. Who happens to be a guy.”

Chase stared out of the dark window as they turned into the entrance of their shared apartment complex.

“What’s wrong?” Lydia asked. It was almost unnerving to have her usually overwhelmingly happy friend be so silent.

He didn’t say anything until they had reached his apartment building.

“Lydia,” he said solemnly as he stepped out of the car. “Promise me you’ll be careful with him, okay? That you won’t do anything with him that you don’t want to do. Or go anywhere you don’t want to be.”

She smiled.

“Thank you, Chase. I’m really don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but I promise I’ll keep my eyes open, okay?”

“Okay,” he accepted, still sober. “And you know you can always call me or Michelle if you need anything, right?”

“Well, duh,” Lydia grinned.

He smiled back.

“Goodnight, Chase.”

“’Night, Lyds.”

--

A/N: Okay, so that was way more of a bridging chapter than I wanted it to be. But what’s done is done. Unfortunately, no Milo! Boo. But if all goes according to plan, he’ll make his re-entrance in the next chapter (if not, then DEFINITELY in the following one).

Please review and let me know what you think! Your thoughts help me hash out the details for the remaining chapters.