Walking through the long junior hallway, Steve observed the fields and houses hidden in the trees in the distance just outside of the frequent windows littered across a side of the hall. The trees were very lightly bowing and rustling in the distance as a middle-aged woman was out in her backyard tending to her garden as packs of puffy white nimbus clouds roamed by above. The weather looked amazing as spring looked like it was giving way to the reign of summer. Turning the corner from one busy hallway to his own senior hall, Steve made his way to his locker where Garrett stood already, busily packing his backpack with what few materials he needed. “Hey, hurry up man! I gotta meet Missy across town in like 20 minutes, so get your stuff and let’s go dandelion!”

“Alright, hold on Romeo, I just got here…” as Steve quickly dumps his stack onto his locker’s top shelf and places two large books in his backpack before zipping it up and heading out the door with a speed-walking Garrett. “What’s the rush, isn’t she just getting out too?”

Without losing any stride, “No, she got out during senior period. She’s one of the lucky ones,” he trailed off. Steve recalled that there were some seniors that left school early if they were so lucky to have a study period for their last class of the day. Wasn’t very fair. “But,” Garrett’s voice recollecting Steve’s attention once again, “she said she wanted to spend some time together today at her house,” he smugly glanced over at his friend with a wide grin, before paying his due attention to the high school drivers before him.

“Oh, so you think you’re going to get some quality time just because she want’s to hang out with her? What, are her parents out of town or…” Steve mocked, chuckling until his friend’s grin returned at his friends guess. “Ooooh, so that’s how it is. Nice.”

“Maybe not too nice. I may have to drop you off a little way from home…” he admitted, glancing over for a moment.

“Hah, how far are we talking about?”

“Say… Spring St.?”

Steve broke into a surprised laugh or two before trying to respond. “Spring St.? Damn dude, you’re paying up one of your ‘Wing Man Cards’ in quite the original manner. I applaud you. I guess. Ass.”

“’Wing Man Cards’? What the hell are you talking about, it’s like 4 blocks away from your home!”

“Bull! That’s a good solid two miles from my house! I’m almost walking as far as I would from school! Why didn’t you text me last period? I could have grabbed a ride with my sister and her friend, or someone” Steve questioned, a hint of anger in his voice.

“Hey, I’m sorry man! I didn’t realize it would be so far away for you, OK? At least you don’t have much homework to do, or like it matters all that much,” he argued, trying to regain his suddenly tarnish track-record of being a considerate friend. “Besides, you’ll have all of this undistracted time to text your boo!”

With Garrett’s little jab at the end, it seemed appropriate for Steve to jab back. Connecting with his rib, Garrett let out a loud “OOF” and began laughing, as Steve pulled his fist back just as fast as he had playfully hit his friend, retorting with a brilliant verbal flourish; “Ass.”

A few moments later, the car pulled up to the corner at Spring St. and stopped at the sign. “Hey, at least you don’t have to tuck and roll!” Garrett jested as his friend exited and stood on the cracked concrete.

“Heh, it’s fine dude, thanks for the ride. Now go get some.” And with that he closed the door and patted the top of the car before walking down the street in the direction of his home. Garrett merely grinned out the window and quickly drove off after lingering far too long at the stop.

‘Wasn’t too bad of a point to at least text while he walked,’ Steve thought. Reaching into his tight jean pocket, he grabbed his old phone and flipped it open, glossing over to the messaging app before typing in Garrett’s name, writing ‘Ass’ and hitting send. Within moments, he got a response of ‘But im ur ass :)’ giving a good few moments of comical pleasure before Steve was left again to looking around to spy anything interesting on his long journey home. It wasn’t long before he actually acted on Garrett’s real advice and texted Alesha. ‘Might as well,’ he thought since they hadn’t established in all their fun when they’d hang out. She texted back shortly ‘Um I dunno. Y, can you not wait 2 put on ur pink collar?’ Steve shrank an inch and went a slight shade of red at Alesha’s response. ‘No, I figured I should know when to give an excuse to my mom for when my deviant friend felt like keeping me nude in her bedroom’. The texts were coming and going quite quickly before they finally accept tomorrow after school as an acceptable time. Concluding this, Steve texted back ‘Good, at least that will make my day a little better.’ All he got back from Alesha was ‘?’ Steve sighed, remember he hadn’t told anyone about his ‘detention’ yet; ‘ I have to spend lunch helping Mrs Adams since she accused me of being disruptive. Im lucky she didnt see you shrink me, no thanks to you’. His phone vibrating soon after ‘LOL! u dont want 2 play with mrs adams? what do u think she wud do if she knew?’ Steve looked up and off into the distance, contemplating the possibility that he had so effectively put out of mind that Mrs. Adams had seen him shrink. He hadn’t thought of what she would DO with him, merely how afraid he was that another person may have found out. Unfocused on anything but his steady pace on the sidewalk, avoiding any sticks that had fallen in last week’s high winds, he gave it a moments fantasizing before texting back ‘I really dont want to know’. And just as he had sent his message out, seconds later, a response too long for such a short interlude came to his phone; ‘I bet she wud prbably make u her techrs pet n put u in her drawer maybe evn hve u rub her ft aftr taking u home n her purs’. Steve gazed at her response and just sent ‘youre weird’ before closing his phone and putting it back into his fist before it vibrated a final time with ‘yea sorry’ and then pushed it down into his pocket as he rounded the corner to his home street.