Saturday, 28 March, 1987

The anticipation was more difficult to endure this time than the last, as there was more time to cover, and there was a different sentiment marking the two. The first wait was the space in between Tuesday and Thursday when I had to wait for the first meeting, and the second wait was in between Thursday and Saturday when I had to wait for the ice cream shop rendez-vous. The former was filled with more wondering and prospect about what the meetings could hold, about who I could become through them and the friendship that comes along with it, about breaking free from eternal boredom. The latter was filled with the knowledge that I am being welcomed into a friend group with no objections from any of the members, and that life is already turning around for the better. The problem is that I had to wait until Saturday for the better to arrive.

But now it is finally here, and all I need to do is take that final bike ride towards the ice cream shop. I inspect myself in the mirror to make sure that everything is presentable on me. I wear a pair of my plain blue jeans, nothing special about them, a random t-shirt from some organization whose purpose I have forgotten, and my bomber jacket like always. Even though there's nothing that I should be worried about regarding this typical outfit, I still find myself wondering what kind of impression it'll have on Mac and Juniper. But I can't be standing around all day, staring at myself in the hall mirror, so I force myself to break away.

I begin my journey towards the ice cream shop, taking less time than usual to gaze at my surroundings as I whiz past them. My only focus is the destination, which I reach after a quick bike ride.

The shop is small but friendly, and it seems to receive a lot of business no matter its size, judging from the good amount of customers ordering ice cream and sitting at the metal tables outside. I suppose that it is a good indicator of the quality of their ice cream.

Juniper and Mac are waiting for me around the fence to the patio, and upon seeing my bike swerve into view, they greet me with a wave and allow me to pull my bike near the fence so that it's leaning on it. We walk towards the entrance in similar stride, open the door, and experience the delicious smells of the ice cream cone batter and the ice cream itself.

"Despite having lived here for my entire life, I have not yet been to this particular ice cream shop," I tell them.

"You're missing out on something huge," Juniper says as she scans the menu to find something that I might like, as she no doubt has her own flavor already picked out. She recommends cake batter ice cream, and since I have had no prior experience with this store, I go along with it.

The ice cream shop clerk and my new friends greet each other as if they've known each other forever, which I guess they have, as Juniper and Mac grew up with this place as a prime hangout spot. After paying, we take our ice cream to the patio, where Juniper and Mac watch me to hear my thoughts about the taste with the same pride in it as the person who made the ice cream themselves. Their eyes are wide and shouting impatience and become even more so as I take my first bite.

The taste is so magnificent but so hard to explain, so the only thing that I can say is, "Holy shit!"

As I spoon another portion into my mouth, their faces relax into a laugh, knowing that I, too, have fallen under the spell of this ice cream shop.

"That's exactly what I said when I tried one of their new flavors, and I almost got kicked out by a mob of aghast customers," Mac recalls, still laughing.

Juniper obviously remembers the incident, as she shakes her head in disapproval of her brother's antics. "Mac has a terrible habit of not being socially appropriate," Juniper comments as she rests her arms on my shoulder, basically draped across me, in a whisper that Mac still distinctly detects.

"Let me do what I want. I'm older than you anyway."

One of Juniper's thick and sculpted brows shifts higher up her forehead, exasperated once more by her brother. "Is that your only defense?"

"I just don't think he wants to acknowledge the verity of what you said about him," I claim, smirking before scooping out a spoonful of ice cream to eat.

Mac flips me his middle finger, to which Juniper responds, "As I said, socially inappropriate."

Mac reaches out with a napkin from the pile near him to help me wipe away my ice cream mustache that I hadn't even noticed, but Juniper snatches it away and performs the job herself, and a strange expression of conflict swiftly dances across Mac's face for whatever reason, an expression that he shields by standing up far too forcefully to be calm and taking everyone's empty ice cream containers to the trashcan by the front door.

It could have been an accident that he pushed his chair back and stood up in that manner, but that is not how Juniper interprets it. "Wow, you're a bit pissy today, aren't you? Cool your jets."

I must have missed something essential in figuring out what happened, as Mac's random outburst makes no sense to me. Nothing happened, or nothing that I can recall. One moment Mac was fine, joking around with us, and the next moment he was upset. He looked jealous somehow, though I have no idea why he would be.

Mac turns back around to his sister, his visage showing that he is clearly pissy but not willing to admit it. "No, Juniper, I'm not pissy, rather concerned for our guest that you've got your hands all over him."

How is it that I of all people suddenly became the center of the debate between the two siblings? I didn't even contribute to the conversation right before Mac stood up furiously for no pertinent reason, and I don't want to be a part of this, and neither does his sister. Yeah, Juniper was far more tactile with me than new acquaintances normally are, but I don't really mind. Mac is taking more offense by it than I ever would.

Juniper rolls her eyes, crosses her arms. "You're so dramatic."

"I'm not being dramatic, Juniper," Mac counters. When he sees that his claim isn't working on Juniper, he gestures to me, a startling effect for me. "Ask Harlow if you don't believe me. Go on, ask him how he feels about it."

Juniper turns to me in that condescending action of ignoring the other person in the debate to instead talk poorly of them to someone else. "Harlow, tell him he's over exaggerating."

I throw my hands up as a sign of surrender. I don't want to cause any more bad blood between these two or cause them to have varying dispositions towards me, so the pacifist route is the best way to go. "I'm not getting involved."

"Which means he doesn't care," Juniper concludes.

Looking off to the side bitterly, Mac mutters, "I would care if I were being manhandled by someone I had only met a few days prior."

"Ah, I see the problem," I say, and Mac and Juniper are expecting an insightful reason as to why Mac is acting the way that he is, but I deliver a joke instead, a feeble attempt to create a more positive atmosphere and end the fighting. "Mac thinks I should be manhandled by someone I've known for longer. Like him, for example."

Juniper cackles, but Mac is not so amused, his mouth suspended in a silent gasp that typically follows a harsh comment. He's the only one not laughing, though I'm not surprised by it. I did just insult him in a way. Fortunately for him, he can recover quickly, and he does.

"Well if you're offering..." He feigns innocence, but that innocence is soon cracked by a smile as soon as I redirect my laughter from what I've said towards what he said.

"Aren't you a bit occupied with Charlie?" Juniper asks sarcastically, and I am left confused instead of giggling.

"Are they, you know, romantically involved?" I say the word as if it's a dirty one, but for me it's rather a dangerous one, one that blocks my chances of getting as close as I would like to Mac.

"No, but the way they act around each other certainly implies it."

From what I saw at the meeting on Thursday, it appeared as though it was Juniper and Charlie who had that kind of dynamic, but apparently it is not so. Once I attend more meetings I might understand that I was initially mistaken. Maybe the correspondence between Juniper and Charlie is still their common routine and there is another routine between Charlie and Mac, a routine that I have not yet witnessed.

Mac lays a hand over his chest as if swearing an oath to me and his integrity. "I think you'll find that I am a very faithful man who would not have agreed to this manhandling business if I were in a committed relationship."

I release a sigh of mock relief. "Oh, okay, I was getting a bit nervous there."

A wink and a dramatic kiss are blown to me. "Fret not, baby girl, for you are the only one that I would ever dream of manhandling."

"You're becoming just like him, Harlow, and I don't need more than one Mac terrorizing my life."

Mac extends his finger to point at his sister. "But now I know you definitely don't want to manhandle him any longer, so that's a win for me."

"Can we just go back to the apartment?" Juniper demands, having heard too much of our shenanigans. "I need to take a nap to soothe the headache you two are giving me."

We finally broke her with our homosexual banter. Mac and I exchange triumphant looks and prepare ourselves to stroll back to the apartment with a stronger sense of friendship tucked in our hearts.

~~~~~

A/N: they're becoming better friends i'm gonna cry

~Dak