5th floor Common room, Friday afternoon

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

Preparing for the camping trip later this evening, River was examining her food supplies in the kitchen. There was fruit, she had some cookies and pie left from Wednesday's baking and she made sure to bring enough water. Having packed all this in a bag, River sat down on the couch and watched the weather forecast.

[open, of course]

Comments

[by137.livejournal.com]

"Well, would I be getting anything other than blame?" A.J. asked. "That hardly sounds like a very good offer, Annette."

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Giving him a look as she tried not to laugh, she asked him, "Like what sort of anything other are you talking about, A.J.?"

[by137.livejournal.com]

"Well," A.J. said, tilting his head at her with a grin, "another kinda-date won't work, because we were going to do that anyway. And anything else in that direction might get my face punched in by that mysterious boyfriend of yours, so....I....I'm not entirely sure. I'll think about it."

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

She thought she better tell him now, "Yeah, about those not kind of date things. I can't be doing them anymore. He assures me he doesn't really care but I know he worries a little. He did say that." She shrugged and looked down cause she had really enjoyed their pizza outting. "He also said that the guys I go out with non-date on are scared of him anyway."

[by137.livejournal.com]

A.J. looked at Annette with his mouth twisted slightly to the side for a moment. "Errr, he..." He wanted to say that that sounded like bullcrap, especially since Annette was always mentioning how much she needed things like their pizza date, which, to him, meant something wasn't getting done right on her boyfriend's side of things, but....he didn't want to insult a guy he didn't even know, either. "Just because he worries a little, you can't go out and have a good time? I mean, I can't blame him for worrying, at all. I mean, if I had a pretty girl like you, y'know, but, um...well..."

He frowned. He wasn't doing this right. He shook his head a little. "Nah, that's okay. If you're not comfortable and he's not comfortable, that cool. I just..."

"It's cool. Fun while it lasted, right?"

...God, he sucked at lying.

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Annette blushed at the compliment and felt really bad, really bad. What was she supposed to do? And how could she just sit around and do nothing or not have any fun? Sure, she had fun with Dick when he came to her room, but they didn't much do anything together as a couple. He did ask her to go camping with him so she supposed that was something. She should be a good girlfriend and just be there whenever he wanted to see her.

"Thank you, A.J," she said softly. "And...it's not really about not being comfortable. I guess it's just the right thing to do, or not to do." But she looked sad about all of it.

"So, we can still hang out, right? I mean you're in here and I'm in here and we're having fun, right?"

[by137.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. Rejection from even platonic not-dates. Real fun. He started to wonder if this had more to do with an easy way of getting out of spending time with him than it did the boyfriend.

"Definitely," he said with a small smile. "And it's a small school, so there will probably be lots of hanging out...times."

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Crap! Crap crap crap!

"A.J.?"

[by137.livejournal.com]

A.J. tilted his head toward her, looking over through a few strands of floppy hair in his eyes with a small grin, a little forced, but mostly accepting.

"Annette?"

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

She leaned towards him as well and blinked softly, meeting his eyes, "I really like you."

[by137.livejournal.com]

A.J. found himself only able to hold the matched gaze for a little bit before he pulled away slightly, sitting back up. This just wasn't fair. Why did girls always do this? "I like you, too, Annette. You're a real good friend, even if we just met, like, yesterday."

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

"We didn't just meet yesterday. We met at the welcome party," she said, grinning, remembering their playful banter.

[by137.livejournal.com]

"That long ago, huh?" A.J. asked lightly. Ah, nothing falling back on light humor to just kind of ease crap like this. "Time flies."

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

"I know it, geeze. Been forever and a day now. I'd be surprised if you didn't know everything there was to know about me," she winked. "Come on, tell me, what's my favorite color?"

[by137.livejournal.com]

"I know we talked about pink for your room," A.J. said, thinking a little bit, "but then that seems to obvious, so I'm going to go with blue."

Like her eyes. God, A.J., don't go thinking about her eyes at a time like this, you loser.

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

Her eyes lit up and she laughed, "Yes! You got it right!"

[by137.livejournal.com]

"Really?" A.J. let out a small, surprised laugh, and then said, "Well, duh. Of course I did. I know everything about you, remember?"

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

"Oooh, that's right, you do," she teased. "Feels great, doesn't it? Knowing everything about me?"

[by137.livejournal.com]

"Sure does," A.J. said with a deep sigh, leaning back against the couch with his arms folded behind his head. "Specially since you don't know anything about me."

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

"I...know you can dance really good and that you like it," she said, leaning back and mimicking his exact position.

[by137.livejournal.com]

"The fact that I dance good, yeah, but everyone knows that," A.J. said. "Whether or not I like it? I'd like to see you prove it."

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

She looked over at him, "You danced with me and didn't like it?" Um. "I mean would you have danced with me if you didn't like to dance?"

[by137.livejournal.com]

A.J. waved a dismissive hand, after deciding that trying to be clever or debating about this could wind them up right where they were a moment ago. Which...was not somewhere A.J. wanted to be. "Semantics.

[misshargrove.livejournal.com]

"Oh." Okay. So. No more dancing. That was too bad cause it was the best fun ever.

Annette leaned her head back and looked up at the ceiling.

[by137.livejournal.com]

Well, looks like he wound up right where he was trying to avoid anyway. Huh. Figures. A.J. sighed softly to himself for a moment before shifting, sitting up, leaning in. "All right, all right," he said. "You caught me," he whispered. "So I do like dancing. A bit. But don't tell anyone, got it?" He gave her a small smile, just so long as she didn't look so disheartened. What Annette said earlier was still gnawing at him, yeah, but he'd get over it. He had Corey to worry about first before worrying about any of the girls here...Although the girls here really were something...