What a Coincidence

Chapter Twelve – Part Two: Rants and Comic Books can Cure Shyness

(Mitchell's P.O.V.)

For the twentieth time, I read the same line in my book, trying to make it on to the next sentence, but with no such luck. The laughter coming from the kitchen kept distracting me. I looked up from my book over to the entrance to the hall, then back down again, feeling slightly annoyed.

It had been a week since Cody's boyfriend began living with us—a week since I had talked to Sunny about David—and things had changed so much.

The biggest change was Cody; I had never seen my brother so happy. Ever since Jonas started staying here, Cody hadn't stopped smiling.

The second change was how it was at home now. Before Jonas, things had been normally quiet even with the occasional times Cody had decided to blast his music. Now though, with his boyfriend here, I didn't think I'd had a moment of quiet other than at night when we went to bed. Jonas was either rambling on about goblins, origami frogs, or something equally as strange, or he was just doing something weird. Like, the other day I had caught him rearranging the towels in the bathroom by size, color, and, in his words, 'fluffiness'. Not to mention the fact that the second day he was here, we had made the mistake of letting him have soda. He became even more weird and hyper than he already was, with random, uncontrollable laughter that had lasted for four hours. By the end of the first, I had taken refuge in my room. I liked Jonas, but his oddness could get a bit much for me.

Not only had things changed at home, but with Sunny too. He was back together with David, and surprisingly, I didn't have a problem with that. I only thought of Sunny as a friend now—my best friend—and he seemed really happy that he was with David again. I also saw that David wasn't such a bad guy once I had gotten to know him, and once he stopped glaring at me, either. He and I were actually becoming friends. Same went for Hailey and me, to my astonishment. Sunny had been right about her not leaving me alone. She had started showing up at the bookstore almost everyday I was there, but she'd grown on me, especially after she let had me read one of the stories she had written—which I had secretly been wanting to read something of hers since I found out the about journal.

I was glad I had given both Hailey and David a chance, and had stayed just friends with Sunny. Things were going great that way. And to think, two weeks ago, I hadn't had any friends at all, but now I had three.

A burst of very loud laughter from the kitchen made me huff in aggravation. I snapped my book closed, realizing it was useless trying to read at the moment, and uncrossed my legs to get out of the chair I was sitting in. As I made my way to the kitchen, I tossed my book on the coffee table and glanced at the clock. Two-thirty—a half hour before I had to be at work. That gave me just enough time to see what Cody and Jonas were doing and then leave.

"Jonas!" I heard my brother's voice laughed as I was about to enter the kitchen. "Get your fingers out of there!"

My jaw dropped when I walked into the room. I gaped at them and barely managed to ask, "What the heck is going on?"

Cody and Jonas looked up from the counter and the big bowl sitting in front of them, both grinning widely and covered with flour. The kitchen was just as floury as them, with different food items spread all over the counters. A cook book sat next to the bowl.

"We're making peanut butter cookies!" Jonas told me.

"Looks like you're making a mess," I mumbled, looking around the kitchen in horror. Mom was going to kill them.

"We'll clean it up," Cody said, and then picked up the tipped over milk cartoon that was slowly leaking milk on the counter.

As he soaked up the milk with a towel, I saw Jonas's eyes flickered over to Cody. When he saw that Cody wasn't watching him, he put his finger into the bowl and got some cookie dough. Just as Jonas ate it off his finger, Cody looked over at him.

"Hey!" he said, giving Jonas a look.

Jonas just laughed at him, though, and stuck his tongue out at him. Cody started grinning and he took a step towards Jonas, looking at him with that look I had only seen people in sappy movies give each other. When he started kissing Jonas, I looked away, feeling slightly embarrassed for watching them in the first place. For some reason, I always felt that way when I caught Cody giving Jonas that look. It was like I was ease dropping on a secret that I wouldn't be able to understand even if I knew what it was.

Deciding I should leave them, I started walking out of the kitchen and eventually out the front door. Outside, it was chilly, even though it was very sunny, but it was the middle of October, so it made sense. Most of the leaves had changed by now, and as I passed by the park, I saw that the ground was scattered with leaves. I stared at the swings, wishing I had time to go sit on them for a little while and think. I had to get to work though, so I continued down the sidewalk toward Maria's bookstore.

Ten minutes later, I walked in, the little bell above the door ringing when I opened it. Maria looked up from the counter and I smiled at her, sending her a small wave. She smiled back, walking out from behind the counter.

"Hey Mitch. How's your weekend?" she asked as she got a box from the other room.

"Good," I told her.

"That's good," Maria said, carrying the box over to me. "Mind shelving these?"

"Nope." I took the box and began dragging it over to the middle bookshelf.

Maria smiled at me again. "Thanks. If you need me, I'll be in the back room."

"Kay," I said, already arranging the books with the author's last name starting with A on the shelf. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw her go through the door behind the counter, leaving me all alone in the front of the bookstore. It wasn't long, though, before I heard the bell above the door chime.

"Mitch?" Sunny's voice called. "You here?"

"Middle bookshelf," I called back, the asked, "David with you?"

"Yup," he said the same time David said, "I'm here," both of them sounding closer than before. I quickly glanced up to see Sunny and David standing a couple feet from me, then looked back to the books. However, I did a double take almost immediately after looking down, and gaped at Sunny.

"What happened to your hair?"

Sunny grimaced and ran his fingers through his hair, which was half the length it had been yesterday. It was now barely four inches past his shoulders.

"Hailey happened," he said bitterly. "She got gum in it."

"Oh," I said, trying not to laugh, but when I caught David's eye and saw that he was smirking, I couldn't help it. Sunny huffed and crossed his arms, glaring at me.

"Not funny," he growled darkly. "Do you know how long it took my to grow it that long?! Almost five years!"

I stopped laughing and smiled at him apologetically. "Sorry. You're right. But hey, it could be worse."

"Worse!? How could it be worse?!" he demanded, sounding slightly hysterical.

"She could've gotten the gum in it higher up," I told him. "And then you would've had to cut it shorter."

"He has a point," David said to Sunny, nodding. Sunny looked from him to me, his eyes narrowed as if he was suspicious of us. He was still set on being upset about it, but I could tell he was wavering. I smiled, knowing how I could resolve everything.

"Besides," I began, "it looks fine."

"Really?" Sunny asked excitedly.

"Yeah," I said nonchalantly, turning back to the books.

Sunny made a thoughtful noise then said, "Well…I guess it's all right."

"Oh, so you believe him when he tells you it looks fine, but when I tell you it's cute, you tell me to shut up. Thanks," David said, sounding slightly hurt.

"That's because you're biased," Sunny told him. "But thank you now…"

I heard the sound of them kissing, and I rolled my eyes. It wasn't because I was jealous; I was just getting sick of people kissing in front of me practically everywhere I went. There was Cody and Jonas at home, and then Sunny and David everywhere else. It was like I was being taunted. I felt like everyone except for me had someone…So, maybe I was just a little bit jealous.

"Can you two cut it out?" I asked, moving toward the section of books with the B author initial. "It makes me uncomfortable when you do that in front of me."

They broke apart, and David cleared his throat, giving me a sheepish look. "Sorry dude."

"I'm not sorry," Sunny giggled and then grinned at me. I rolled my eyes again, pushing past him to get to the C section at the end of the shelf. Sunny sighed. "I was joking, Mitch. Jeez! You're so uptight!"

I didn't say anything to him, which may have been a mistake. Sunny tended to start rambling when people didn't talk back to him. I looked over at David to see if he would help me out, but the look on his face told me that it was already too late. All I could do now was listen to Sunny and play along.

"You need to relax and let loose sometimes," he said. "Oh! I've got the perfect solution! You should go the party David and me are going to tonight. It'll be so much fun!"

"No," I said flatly, not even considering it. I didn't need to consider it.

"Why not?" Sunny asked, his tone suggesting he thought there was not a single reason for me not to go.

"Because," I began, "I probably won't know anyone there besides you and David."

"So? You'll meet new people."

I shook my head. "I don't like meeting new people."

"Oh my god, Mitch," Sunny said. "You're so shy. How do you ever expect to live like that? Being shy never gets you anywhere in life. It's like being antisocial, but instead of hating everyone, you're just scared. That's not good, Mitch. You should really stop being shy before you end up—"

I tuned him out and continued to put the books on the shelf. A minute later, however, I was distracted by the bell ringing again. My eyes flickered to the door, then back to what I was doing, but for the second time today, I did a double take.

The person who had just come in was a boy about my age, maybe a year older, with surfer-style bleach blonde hair. I gawked at him from behind the bookshelf as he made his way over to the comic books, taking in his appearance.

He had a pretty face with soft features that were the perfect balance between boy and man. Even from halfway across the room, I could see he had bright blue eyes behind his black-rimmed rectangular glasses. He was pretty tall and skinny looking, too. Overall, I thought he was really cute—really, really cute—and it only got better when I saw his shirt.

It was red, and on the front there was a rainbow with the words 'Taste my rainbow' over it. I grinned, feeling a bubbly sensation in my stomach for some reason, and because of it, I accidently forgot to tune Sunny out.

"How do you ever expect to get a boyfriend if you're shy all the time?"

I stopped staring at the blonde boy looking at the comic books, and turned to give Sunny a look, but he was too busy in his rant to even notice it. Shaking my head, I turned back to look at the boy, sighing a little in relief when I saw that he hadn't disappeared in the two seconds I had looked away. I watched him pick up one of the comics and begin to flip through it. Suddenly, I got an idea of how I could shut Sunny up.

"Are you even listening to me?" Sunny asked as I began to walk away. "Hey! Where are you going?"

I shook my head and continued walking over to the boy, my stomach doing excited yet nervous flips. Once I was standing next to him, I took a deep breath, then softly cleared my throat. The boy looked up from the comic book at me, and the bubbly feeling in my stomach got worse when I saw his eyes flicker over me, but I wasn't about to chicken out now. This boy was just too cute for that.

"Hi. I'm Mitch," I told him, smiling. "I like your shirt."

"Thanks," he said, now grinning back. "The name's Taylor. Nice to meet you, Mitch."

He held out his hand for me to shake, and without hesitation, I took it.

The End

Sequel! Sequel! Now go read the sequel! That is, only if you want to. It's called Piece of Cake, loves. And it's much longer than this story.

Much angstier, too.

Hmmm....

Lots of love to everyone who read and reviewed this!! MUAH!