The gang had decided to take a night in Muggle London to do this thing called bowling, where you threw a heavy ball down a long slick ally at a group of pins and tried to knock them over. It was actually weirdly satisfying, though Ezra wished the clown shoes were optional. He had been doing pretty good, getting a strike and a spare on his first two turns. Beginner’s luck, maybe. They were celebrating the end of the summer, hanging out all together once more before it was time for everyone to go back to school for another long year. At least it was Sid and Circe’s
last year, though he would definitely miss them both. They had both become a part of his life for the past few months. He didn’t realize yet how much he was going to miss them, even Sid who was a jerk.
He had seemed a little happier lately, hanging closer to Janae than usual. Being less of a jerk. Ezra didn’t know what was up with that, but he was happy for the change in him at least. Ezra tried to not be too jealous of his friends getting paired up. He was frequently paired up, too, but it never lasted and it was probably all his fault. He liked too many people, always interested in something unique about
someone. Mostly, though, he liked Circe. He tried really hard to be respectful of her. She had told him once she didn’t like him as more than a friend, so he was careful to just be friendly towards her, but… sometimes she made it hard. When she looked at him the way she sometimes did, it made his heart ache. Sometimes when he was flirting with another girl, like Wini at the party, Circe would look at him like he’d betrayed her. He didn’t understand. He would rather have had her.
But he was too afraid to try again, too afraid of being rejected by someone he really liked. In fact, he almost never dated people he liked. He only ever dated people who liked
him. He didn’t even flirt with his own crushes, too afraid to ruin it with his stupidity. It was weird that anyone liked him, really. He was lucky that anyone would date him, and those girls were usually nice enough. The last time he had liked someone and even hooked up with them, he hadn’t been taken seriously. He knew that was his curse.
He wondered if Circe was still seeing that French guy. He was gone now, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t still a thing. He had tried to be nice to him, and he knew Jam did too… but he still didn’t know what he thought of him. He was nice enough, he guessed. But Ezra was admittedly biased. No one was good enough for Circe.
After a few gutterballs, Ezra approached Circe and tried to help her with her form a little. He came up behind her, putting his hands over hers and moving her hands into position. “Hey, Circe, try holding it like this.†He offered. He used his arm behind hers to swing the ball back. “Like this, then just let go…†He offered, hoping that might help. “Do you want me to show you?†He asked, letting her go, a light blush on his cheeks from having touched her at all.
The rest of the gang was conveniently gone, suddenly. Where had they gone? To get more sodas? He wanted one too, please!
@Circe Sutcliffe 
