(Guys this does NOT mean that I haven't seen anyone else' votes and comments. I just had to pick two, otherwise each and every chapter is dedicated to ALL of you ❤️) ❤️

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SPOILER ALERT'

"Haha. Stupid. It can't be," I whispered to myself as I strode back and forth in my room.

Can it?

No.

It was probably just in the spur of the moment. Obviously.

I mean the way Candy looked at me in the park couldn't have meant anything. Right?

"Psshhh. What am I even thinking. That's absurd!" I chastised myself loudly.

Oh come on. This was overthinking. I was reading too much into stupid things.

Why was I even thinking about it anyway? It wasn't as if I felt something different. Obviously not anything totally weird like the sudden tickling in my stomach or....

Uh-uh. Restricted territory.

I felt nothing. At all. It was perfectly normal.

My feet produced soft thudding sounds as my pace kept on increasing with the weird thoughts in my mind.

My eyes were trained on the wooden flooring along which I paced back and forth, without even being aware of my surroundings.

"Should we do something? She's been at this for about twenty minutes straight," a feminine voice reached my ears but faded just as quickly when another thought came into my mind.

Did Shelley put something in my drink to make me feel queasy?

Oh my God.

"Let's wait for another two minutes. This is funny."

Maybe that's her master plan. To make me feel weird things so that I don't participate in the competition.

Yup. That's it. It's all Shelley and not because of any absurd reason that I might possibly feel something for-

Eject. Thoughts eject.

"She's grinning like a monkey on sugar rush. We should do something." Another voice said but my mind wasn't focussing on it at that time.

Shelley was so obviously mad at me. Yes.

"Hallelujah! I figured it out!" I grinned which as if I'd finally solved the mystery of why there was no one of the same size as Cinderella for the shoe to fit in the whole friggin' town.

Don't tell me you never thought of that!

Now that I think about it, I -

"AAAAAAHHHHHH," I shrieked as I felt cold water trickling down my clothes, making me shiver like vibrating machine.

Holy mother of-

I snapped my head up to see where the magic water came from and found Sam, Nate and fudging, sugar-nutting best friend of mine holding a big bucket in his hands.

All three of them held different expressions.

Sam was somewhere in between worrying and trying to control her laughter.

Nate was standing there confused yet amused. (That rhymed!)

And my dear devil-headed, the sole root of all problems on this earth, best friend was laughing like a hyena on drugs.

I narrowed my eyes, my shivering ceasing as I gritted my teeth and stomped over at him.

"You!" I spoke, pointing my finger and jabbing it on his chest.

His laughing reduced but he still kept an amused expression on his face.

"It's all your fault." I muttered, with my eyes narrowed into slits.

"My fault? You were the one who were pacing back and forth as if trying to figure out how you escaped from the Monkey Island!" He retorted chuckling.

"Monkey Island? Seriously? Is that even a place?"

"It is," he gave me a flat look.

I started laughing until I realised that he didn't join in.

My eyes widened. "Are you serious?"

"And you call yourself a geek," he deadpanned.

"Whatev- Hey! Don't change the topic," I jabbed him in the chest.

"And what exactly is the topic?" Candy raised an eyebrow.

"The topic is that-," I trailed off.

"That-?" He prompted.

-that I don't know why but you made me feel things that I didn't want to.

"T-That you're an idiotic baboon."

He looked at me weirdly before raising his eyebrow.

I wasn't going to tell him that something stirred inside me last night when he held me close to him. It was something weird. Something that made me go weak in the knees.

What was it? I don't have a clue. And I really wish that it was because Shelley mixed something in my drink or something.

"Uh. Forget it. Oh look Sam and Nate are here. Let's not bore them?" I changed the topic and turned towards the people in question.

"I'm not getting bored at all," Sam mused, making me narrow my eyes at her.

"Anyways, what're you guys doing here?" I asked, turning to Nate.

"We were on our way to have ice cream so we thought that we'd pick you up on our way there."

"Yeah and then we found our best friend on the verge of pulling her hair out because of I don't know what," Sam finished.

I perked up on the word 'ice-cream' and ignored rest of the statement.

"Then why are we still standing here? Let's go get some icy goodness!" I yelled, marching ahead with a fat grin plastered on my face.

When I noticed that the rest of them hadn't moved, I gave them a questioning look.

Rubbing the back of his neck, Nate spoke up. "No offence, but you hair- uh is kind of all over the place."

He gave me a sheepish grin as he scale arched the nape of his neck.

When I didn't move, Candy spoke up. "What he means is that your hair looks like an exploded version of a nest and you look like shit."

How sweet.

I rolled my eyes at him before trudging to the washroom to tame my hair which I hate to admit did look like an exploded version of a nest. And on top of that I was wet.

Awesome.

******

"Hey, how about we go for a movie?" I asked Sam, Nate and Candy as we sat in the shop, stuffing our mouths with ice-cream.

"Which movie?" Sam asked gulping down her Mont Choco Chip.

We were all sitting in a small ice cream shop named "Kim's Ice-Cream" which was quite known for its ice cream.

Candy got three scoops of butterscotch (as usual), Sam got Mint Choco Chip and Vanilla while Nate and I settled for my favourite; Chocolate Fudge.

"How about Maze Runner: Scorch Trials? I've been waiting for since forever. Plus who doesn't want to see a hot guy in action?" I answered in a dream-like voice as I thought of Dylan O'Brien.

"Oh Definitely. Have you seen Ki Hong Lee? He's one hot guy," Sam replied, fanning herself as if the hotness of both the actors was radiating off her thoughts.

"Don't forget Thomas Brodie-Sangster," I butt in.

"Oh please. You can't daydream about him," Nate spoke up, surprising me.

Sam stopped fanning herself and turned to Nate, raising her eyebrow.

"And why can't I fan girl over Minho?"

Nate seemed to be at a loss of words. I could practically see the gears in his head turning wildly as he searched for a good answer. "Uh, I-because he's Chinese? I mean uh-"

Sam narrowed her eyes at him.

"First of all, that's racist, second of all, he is Korean and I can dream about him as much as I want and third of all, have you seen Chinese people? They are hot!" Sam replied and started fanning herself again.

I stifled my chuckle as I observed the grumpy look on Nate's face.

Did he like her?

I didn't realise that I was starting at Nate until Candy tugged at my forearm, with an equally grumpy expression.

"Stop staring at him. It's creepy," he spoke before continuing to stuff his mouth with ice cream.

Grumpy much?

"So it's decided. We're going for Scorch Trials," Sam declared and I whooped while both the boys groaned in sync.

"Let's go get a doze of sexiness!"

With that, we all exited the shop.

We hopped into Nate's car and began our journey. I was really excited for this. I had been waiting for the second part to come out since last year. The first book was amazing.

For me, Thomas and Minho were my favourite characters. And Chuck. Although, I really didn't want Chuck to die.

My thoughts came to a halt when Nate stopped the car outside the movie theatre.

Sam and I exchanged giddy grins as we hurriedly jumped out of the car and nearly skipped towards the ticket booth.

"Four tickets for Maze Runner: Scorch trials, please," Sam asked and I took out my wallet to pay.

Nate stopped me from taking out money from my wallet. I turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll pay."

"No," I deadpanned, causing Candy to chuckle.

"But I'm the guy here," he replied.

"I think I already knew that," I retorted.

"Then why aren't you letting me pay?"

"Why aren't you letting me pay?" I asked the same thing.

"Because usually guys pay for these kind of things?" He looked at me as if it was common sense.

"Do you have a man crush on Dylan O'Brien?" I asked.

"No," he replied, his eyes wide in horror.

"Are you here to watch Thomas Brodie Sangster and Ki Hong Lee in action?"

"Uh, no?"

"Then shut up and let me pay," I replied and paid the cash lady for the tickets.

Taking the tickets, we proceeded inside. The fresh aroma of popcorn filled the air, making my mouth water.

"Keep it in Piggy, I'll get you something to eat," Aaron ruffled my hair, chuckling as my stomach growled.

My cheeks turned Crimson at that. "Shut up."

I stood there with Sam when she turned to Nate. "And what are you doing standing here? Go get me some nachos and Coke!"

I nearly doubled over as I saw Nate's expression. He looked like a deer caught in headlights as he scrambled to bring what Sam asked for.

"Now let's go find good seats."

****

"I want to cry and at the same time punch the living daylights out of a certain someone," Sam groaned, annoyed.

(

Even I was annoyed as hell. I mean did it have to be-? Was that really necessary?

I was juggling between whether to cry or be angry at someone. Same as Sam.

I didn't expect the movie to be an emotional roller coaster. But on the plus side, Dylan was hot as ever.

"Sam, let's not fuss about what happened. Let's just take a moment to re-live the moment we both witnessed some hot ass action," I sighed dreamily.

"Remember the part when-," Before Sam could complete her sentence, she was cut off by Nate.

"Okay. Enough. If I hear how 'cute and hot Dylan and Ki Hong-whatever' are, I'll stick your lips with permanent glue."

"I'll borrow it from you," Candy piped in and I elbowed him at that.

"What?"

"Say that again and I'll be the one sealing your lips," I muttered so that only Aaron could hear.

He bent down and placed his lips near my ear before whispering,"With your lips?"

I immediately came to a halt, my body freezing. My eyes widened to saucers as I realised what if heard.

Obviously it wasn't what I heard. Right?

Oh my god. Shelley's drink hasn't worn off. What do I do?

Nate and Sam realised that is stopped and turned to look at me questioningly.

"Why did you stop?"

"Why are you red?"

Both of them asked in sync. At the second question, I blushed even more.

"N-Nothing. Let's just go," I quickly mumbled and sped towards the car. While passing Candy, I caught a smirk that etched his face oh-so beautifully.

Wish I could punch that off.

I quickly got into Nate's car and rubbed my cheeks furiously. Calm down.

The shutting of the door brought me to reality. I glanced to my right to see Candy sitting there with a smug look, lost in his daydreams.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Why are you sitting here? Where is Sam?"

He turned to me with a grin. "And why can't I sit here?"

"Because- Because...Argh! I hate you," I groaned and slumped back in my seat. He just laughed.

That poop-eating devil.

The rest of the ride home was annoying to say the least.

Sam kept asking me why I was so 'jumpy' while Candy just kept his irritatingly cu- uh annoying grin plastered on his face.

The moment Nate stopped the car, I was the first one to leap out. I heard Candy laughing his ass off and that just made me blush.

Why in the food-pooping world did he have to go ahead and say something stupid?

I opened the door, breathing out an aggravated grunt. Ugh! Why the hell am I so flustered?

I was about to shut the door, when Candy stuck his foot between the door and the door-frame.

"Now what?!" I groaned.

He chuckled and motioned for me to open the door. I did that, grumpily, muttering a string of colourful words.

He chuckled at my face.

He held out something. I looked at his hand confused. It was some type of cloth.

"What am I supposed to do with it? Wipe tables?" I asked, the sass queen in me making an appearance.

He rolled his eyes and unfolded the cloth which turned out to be his soccer jersey.

My eyes widened at the blue jersey with '2' and 'PELT' written in yellow.

"This, my dear Muffin is my soccer jersey," he replied.

"Oh, I thought God has gifted me with a pair of eyes to see," sarcasm dropped from each word.

Definitely the sass queen.

"Congratulations. Now that we've established that this is my jersey, let's get to the next step. You are going to wear it tomorrow at my competition tomorrow."

"Bossy much?"

He groaned and I let out a triumphant grin. "Okay wait. Let me rephrase. My darling Muffin, will you please do me the hoboes of wearing my jersey tomorrow?"

I grinned. "Let me think. Maybe. But why are you giving this to me? Aren't the girlfriends of the players supposed to wear these?"

"If you've been living under the rock, let me inform you, I don't have one. So you're gonna wear it."

"But what if Shelley doesn't let me enter the stadium? You know the whole 'nerds and the popular' thing," I questioned, still eyeing the jersey.

"You scared of her?" He asked raising his eyebrow.

"Not really," I answered.

And that was the truth. I was scared of the attention she brought with her and not the witch herself.

"Okay then. Be there on time."

"But-"

"No buts. Goodnight Muffin," he gave me a dimpled smile.

I smiled back. "Goodnight Candy."

But before I could shut the door, he quickly leaned down and pecked my cheek.

My head snapped up in surprise, my eyes wide. I saw him wink at me before getting into his own car and scramming off.

Needless to say, I was as red as a tomato.

Oh God!

Why was it a let's-turn-Ali-into-a-tomato day?

*****

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