Troubleshoot Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Appointment

“You...wanna help me?” I ask the brunette sitting across from me, stunned that she'd say something like that so quickly, we had just been introduced to eachother like less than 5 minutes ago. And besides, what does she get out of this? She couldn't possibly care about my plight that much could she? And even if she did, what makes her think I would even accept her help?

“So do you space off like this all the time or just when talking to cute girls?”

“Ah, did I...I didn't realize! It's just, why?” I eventually force the burning question out of my mouth. She smirks.

“She talks about you all the time you know. Now keep in mind she's not talking about like wanting to suck your dick or anything. However, given enough time, she could.” Brooke vaguely spells out her plan to me.

“And that's, um, where you come in?” I clumsily question, being distracted by the image that was just placed in my head.

“Yes, it is. Hey! Stay with me here!” Her voice pulls me out of my...completely innocuous thoughts. She continues on.

“If that was enough to get you all hot and bothered then this is going to be more of a challenge than I thought...” she muses. I'm not sure if that was an intentional jab or just a case of her thinking out loud.

“So...you keep talking about helping but like...how exactly are you planning on helping?” I question, my curiosity getting the best of me again.

“We'll figure that part out later. As for now, it's time for me to do some research.” Brooke says cryptically.

“Research?” I question.

“Research?” I hear a much more feminine voice echo after me. I take a glance in the direction of the voice and see Amy sliding into the booth next to Brooke.

“Oh, uh, we were talking about science.” I blurt out as an excuse. Brooke sighs heavily before glaring at me. Clearly I said something dumb.

Amy glances back and forth between my nervous face and Brooke's annoyed scowl. It became increasingly clear to me that neither of us had a good poker face.

“You two are retarded.” Amy announces.

“But seriously, how did you get him to start talking to you already?” Amy aks while turning to look at the other girl. But before Brooke can answer she continues. “I mean, me and him were lab partners for like a week before he would even talk to me about anything that didn't involve science! I'm a little jealous, I think he likes you better than me.” she finishes while staring at me and starting to pout.

“Ha ha, I'm sure that's not true. Go ahead and ask him if you really want to know.” Brooke laughs off her friends hyperactive rant and shoots me a knowing smile. Amy's eyes light up and she begins to lean in closer to me. Her blues eyes shimmer like diamonds and I can smell the cinnamon from the drinks she had earlier. I can feel a blush start to spread across my face.

“You don't like her better than me, right?” she aks staring right into my eyes.

It takes me a second to gather my thoughts and answer. “N-no, of course not. I mean we've known eachother for a while and I just met her and-” but before I can continue rambling Brooke's voice interrupts. “What? You mean you don't like me?” she says, her eyes downcast.

“Oh, no! That's not what I meant, it's just ya know, we haven't been able to get to know eachother but I'm sure you're great and...and...” I'm distracted by Amy's reaction. I watch her try and fail to suppress a giggle, she leans back after that and starts to laugh a bit more loudly. Brooke seems to be back in high spirits since she joins her friend in the giggle-fest.

“Oh my god! Mickey you are just too easy!” Amy says through bursts of giggling. I sink into my chair, trying to hide my growing blush and mumbling “Yeah, you got me.”

Eventually I recovered from that embarrasing exeprience and the rest of the meet-up goes well. Most of it was just Amy and Brooke gossiping, and luckily no more teasing.

“I'm so tiiiiiired!” Amy announces.

“It's only 2 PM.” I say while rolling my eyes.

“You know I cat-nap!” she says defensively.

Before I can shoot back another snappy one-liner Brooke interrupts. “Micheal give me your phone.” she practically orders.

“Oh, um, ok.” I fumble for my words almost as much as I fumble for the Galaxy S6 in my pocket. “Here ya go!” I pass it over to the table. Immediatly her fingers glide over the screen. Before I can even wonder what she was doing she shoves it back into my hands. I guide my eyes down to the screen and see that I have a new contact, “Brooke <3”.

“Well this was fun, but I gotta run. Hopefully we can do it again some time. Have fun you two!” She says with a wink before she turns on her heel and walks out the door. As shameless as it was I was mesmerized by the way her hips were swaying and the way her jeans helped accentuate her a*s.

“Ugh, boys.” Amy's voice knocked me out of my trance. While she suddenly stood up and marched out of the coffee shop.

It all happened so fast that I could do nothing but stare blankly at the closing front door. Ok, weird. What got into her? I've never seen her act like that before.

As I get up and begin to walk out I get the distinct feeling I'm forgetting something. I look around and see the cashier staring at me intently. That's when it hit me.

They left me with the check.

As I walk through the doorframe to my room, mumbling something about next time I'm gonna be the one who's gonna dine and dash them (Or I guess drink and dash? It doesn't matter.) I take a look around at the borderline claustrophobic dorm room. There's not a lot there. Two disheveled looking beds, clothes strewn about, a pin-up girl calendar (Not my idea), a dresser with the drawers all open for no good reason, and a coffee maker that despite it's intention of keeping us awake during those late nights looks like it hasn't been touched since it was taken out of the box.

As I flop onto my bed the only thought I had was that Brian should really clean this room. I pull out my phone and end up looking right at my newest added contact, “Brooke <3”. She truly is strange, but she was certainly cute. And seemed to be interested in me, that's about more than I can say for pretty much every other girl that isn't named Amy. That's right, Brooke has some plan to get us together, that should be interesting. I doubt it's gonna work though, I'll probably mess up her plan or something. Or it'll work and Amy won't be interested anyway. I mean, we've known each other for 6 months now. I think that oppurtunity has past by now.

I sigh, the weight of my insecurities threatening to overwhelm me. Just think of Amy, about how much fun I had today talking with those two. It's ok if they were only talking to me becausese they felt sorry for me.

A frustrated grunt escapes my lips. I know that's not true. I can't even think happy thoughts properly! Why do I always feel so useless?! Why do I always feel like such a f*****g fail-

My thoughts are interrupted by the closing of my door. I glance near the door to see Brian walking in and just sigh again.

“You only sigh like that when thinking about Amy, your little date go south? I mean the actual date of course. You definitely wouldn't be sighing like that if she went south.” he jokes, slightly tounge in cheek but the question itself still being genuine. He's the only person I can talk openly about this stuff with, mostly because it's kinda hard to hide how you're feeling when you're shoved into what basically equates to a damn janitor's closet and told to live together in it.

“She tricked me.” I mumble, burying my face deeper into the pillow.

“Huh, never would've thought she had a dick the whole time. Tough break buddy.” he says. I shoot up and consider the pros and cons to throwing my pillow in his face. As I watch him pull his laptop from a drawer under his bed I calm down, realizing that if I break his laptop by accident then he'll expect me to fix it. So I begin to explain what I really meant.

“That's not what I meant, you a*s. It wasn't really a date, er I mean, not that she said that or anything but...ya know.” I clumsily get out. He takes a minute from setting up whatever he's doing on his laptop to stare at me, clearly showing that he doesn't have any patience for my sidetracking.

“Anyway, what I mean is that it wasn't just some quality one on one time with her. She invited a friend, saying that the only way to get me to meet one of her friends was to trick me.” I continue.

“I mean, she's not exactly wrong.” He calmly interjects, while going back to messing with his laptop. Clearly thinking back to all those times he would try to encourage me to go meet her friends, with me always saying I had to study or felt sick.

“Yeah, I know. But still...” I trail off, just a little frustrated, though I'm not sure if that anger was directed at Amy for doing what she did or myself for forcing her to go to those lengths in the first place.

“But anyway, who was it?” This knocks me out of my thoughts.He's now grabbing a Playstation 4 controller and plugging it into the laptop.

“Oh, um. Her name was Brooke. She was...nice.” I hesitate, not really sure how to describe her behavior towards me. I guess maybe flirty, but at the same time a girl like her would never go for a guy like me right? And she did say she was gonna help me get with Amy, so she doesn't exactly seem interested in keeping me for herself. I can't tell if she's overly confusing or I'm just dense, maybe a little of both.

“Nice huh? Isn't that how you described Amy the first time you met her?” He teases, the implication hanging in the air. I shoot him a glare.

“Anyway. I know her, she's cute, seemed a bit eccentric though. Takes the fact that she's a Psychology Major really seriously.” he says. Psychology major, huh? That would certainly explain a lot of her actions. Hmmm, maybe she just wants to help me out for education purposes then. Maybe she's gonna produce a book called “The mind of a submissive” or something after she's done helping me out. God I hate my imagination.

“Just don't let her wrap you around her little finger, Amy would get jealous.” he finishes. I sigh, can't he be serious for two seconds without throwing in a joke?

“I'll try to keep that in mind.” I say. I roll over, facing the wall, hoping to just relax for the rest of the night, seemed like that was gonna be hard though over Brian's button mashing, he must be playing Dark Souls again. Fate had other plans though as not two minutes later I feel my phone vibrate. Giving an irritated grunt I pick up my phone and see I got three new texts. Texts from...Brooke? Already? I raise a bit of an eyebrow and take a look at what she said.

'Building 251, Room 214.'

'Booty call'

'Now'

That made me sit up real fast. Was she serious? She couldn't be...could she? I feel my cheeks flush just thinking about it.

“Is something the matter?” Brian asks, clearly surprised by my sudden exciteability. I was already in the middle of putting on my socks and shoes.

“Yeah, it's fine. I just gotta go check on something. Don't wait up!” I hurridely explain as I grab a jacket and head out the door. I spend the whole walk there contemplating what is happening. So a hot girl who I just met asked me for a booty call? I honestly don't believe it for a second, but what do I have to lose by going? I don't think I need to re-iterate what I'd be missing out on if this all turns out to be real and I don't show up. Only problem is my sense of direction is s**t and I've never been to this building. I pull out my phone and bring up the map of the school I had saved. I scan it and eventually see Building 251. And thus technology has saved me again, I think to myself with a relieved sigh. After taking another look on the map I can see it's a bit of a hike there though, but still totally worth it.

About 20 minutes later I'm standing in front of room 214. With more than a bit of nervousness I lightly knock at the door, convinced that I'm doing something wrong even though she's the one who invited me. After a minute the door creaks open just enough to fit a person inside and I feel a hand wrap around my wrist and pull me inside.

Once I steady myself again my eyes focus on the only other person in the room, Brooke. As much as I hate to admit it my eyes didn't exactly focus on her face at first. But can you really blame me when she was wearing a night shirt? And when my eyes dared to look further down I noticed that her legs were bare. My eyes snapped up at about the point that my cheeks felt white hot. Does she know the meaning of modesty?

Brooke's lips had curled up into a mischevious smirk by the time my eyes focused on her face.

“You done?” She asks bluntly. I...attempt to blurt out an exaplanation but she just puts a finger to her lips, which gets me to shut up. She motions to a computer chair in the middle of the room.

“Sit, we need to talk.”