"You have a crush on Mafia dude?!"

Will flinched at the volume of Cecil's voice. His words practically echoed across the lunch room. "Can you shut up?" he hissed. "And that is NOTHING like what I just said."

"That's what I heard." Cecil shrugged, twirling the straw in his juice box. "You save this guy. You think he's hot. You see him at school. Find out he's Mafia dude. Still think he's hot."

"I- that is completely inaccurate. And can you STOP calling him that?"

"What? Mafia dude?"

"Yes! He doesn't like it. His name is Nico."

"Nicooooo." Cecil drawled. "Hmm. Nicoooo. Not as fun as Mafia dude."

Will decided that if he talked to Cecil for one more moment, he might actually punch him, so he turned his focus to Lou Ellen. "Okay. What do you think?"

Lou Ellen shrugged. "I really hate to say it, but I agree with Cecil. You have a crush on the guy."

"I have no such thing!!" Will sputtered. "So I think he's cool. What's there about it?"

"You gave us a detailed description of what he looked like, sounded like, acted like, and smelled like." Lou Ellen replied dryly.

"Mhm," Cecil said through a mouthful of chips. "Like the ground after it rains and pine trees."

Will flushed. "I'm an observant person! And even if I did have a crush on him, what would it matter?"

"Uh, duh. You're Spider-Man. You can't like someone who's in the Mafia." Cecil said.

Will wanted to reach across the table and choke Cecil, but knowing him, he probably would've just made a weird joke out of it. "Don't say that so loudly!!" Will whispered. "It's called a SECRET identity for a reason. And again, he's not in the Mafia!!"

"Did he ever actually say that he wasn't in the Mafia?"

"Um, no, but it was implied-"

"So I'm right!" Cecil leaned back in his seat victoriously.

Will buried his face in his hands and sighed.

Lou Ellen spoke up again. "Will, it doesn't really matter if you like him or not. It matters whether you can accept how you feel, and not push it down or deny it."

"You're one to talk," Will mumbled. "You and Cecil-"

"This is not about me and Cecil!"

"But it could be." Cecil said, grinning at Lou Ellen.

Lou Ellen shoved him without even looking. "ANYWAYS, what I'm saying is, you need to confront your feelings. Talk to..."

She trailed off, her eyes fixed behind Will. Will looked over his shoulder, following her gaze, and saw Nico. He was wandering kind of aimlessly, fiddling with his jacket cuffs.

"Is that him?" Lou Ellen hissed to Will.

"Um. Yeah?"

"Ask him to sit with us!"

"WHAT? No!!"

"Don't you like him?"

"I mean, yeah, but-"

"So ask him to sit with us! What's there to lose?"

"There's a lot to lose, Lou Ellen! What if I do something wrong or say something dumb, and then he thinks I'm weird, and doesn't talk to me, and everything is terrible!"

Lou Ellen and Cecil shared a look. "And you say you DON'T have a crush on him." Lou Ellen said.

Will tried to think of a retort, but came up empty. He shoved himself up from the table. "Fine. I'll ask him to sit with us. Don't be surprised if he declines after seeing Cecil."

"What did I do?" Cecil yelled after Will.

Will felt like he was going to throw up as he walked over to where Nico was standing. He finally made it over, and Nico looked up at him with a blank expression.

For one horrible moment, Will was certain that Nico was going to call him something horrible, or punch him, or just ignore him altogether. But then Nico broke into a small smile, and Will felt warmth wash over him.

"Uh, hey," Nico said. "Will, right?"

"That's me!" Will responded, and immediately regretted saying. Why couldn't he just act normal around Nico?

Nico let out a small laugh, and they stood there in silence for a moment. Will felt like he was going to explode.

"So, um," Will said. "My friends and I, we were kinda wondering if you wanted to sit with us? If that's okay with you?"

Nico half smiled and shrugged. "Sure. Yeah."

Will wasn't really sure what reaction he had been expecting out of Nico, but he felt a bit underwhelmed by his response. Still, he was glad Nico didn't reject the offer.

Will shifted on his feet. "Okay. Cool. We're right over here, just, um, follow me..."

Will led Nico back to the table, where Lou Ellen and Cecil were watching them with great interest, grins plastered across their faces. Will wondered whether they were aware that Nico could also see them and that they PROBABLY weren't making the best impression.

After Will and Nico situated themselves on the bench, Lou Ellen spoke up, a gleam in her eye. "So, you're Nico? We've heard a lot about you." She said, trying to act as casual as possible.

Will shot her a warning look, and quickly glanced at Nico to gauge his response. Unfortunately for Will, Nico wasn't a very expressive person. He was sort of just looking at Lou Ellen, with a sort of confused look in his eye.

"Really?" Nico said. "What exactly would that be?"

Will knew exactly what was going to happen, but he was too late to stop it. In a second, Cecil had shot to his feet and leaned across the table. "We heard you're in the Mafia!" He said excitedly.

Will kicked him under the table. Cecil yelped and toppled back into his seat.

Nico groaned. "God. You too? I'm not. How did that even start? Just because I'm Italian?"

Will cut in before Cecil could say anything else. "We're not sure how the rumor got started. We've been trying to stop people from spreading it around."

Fortunately, Cecil picked things up quickly. "Oh, yeah," he added. "I just said that to make sure you're not in the Mafia, just in case."

"Really?" Nico asked doubtfully.

Cecil nodded. "Of course. If you WERE in the Mafia, the rumors wouldn't be rumors anymore. They'd be truths. And we support the truth. But not rumors. So I had to ask."

Nico looked like he had no idea what Cecil was talking about, which was fair. "Well...thanks for that consideration?" He said, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards into a confused smile.

"No problem," Cecil responded, shoving pretzels into his mouth that Will was pretty sure he had stolen from his lunchbox.

Their lunch table fell into silence, which usually wouldn't be too much of a problem, but with Nico there, it was excruciatingly awkward. Well, at least for Will. He gave Lou Ellen a sort of "please help" look. She nodded and turned to Nico.

"Getting back to what I was saying before Cecil so rudely interrupted, we've heard a lot about you from WILL. And don't worry, it's all very good things." Lou Ellen said, smirking slightly.

Will felt his face flush. He wasn't sure how this was supposed to help him. Maybe Lou Ellen had interpreted his "please help" look as a "please embarrass me in front of the cool new guy" look. Whatever the case was, he wanted to die.

"Oh," Nico said. "Such as?"

Lou Ellen shrugged. "Oh, the usual. You seem cool, you're nice, you smell good, all that."

Will silently prayed for the ground to swallow him (or Lou Ellen) up right then and there.

"That's...good," Nico said slowly, as if he wasn't sure he believed what he was saying. "At least I've made a good impression on someone at this school."

"Oh, you've made a VERY good impression on Will." Lou Ellen said, twirling her dark hair around her finger.

"I'm right here," Will mumbled. "You don't need to talk about me like I'm not."

Lou Ellen shrugged. "Oops. You've just been so quiet, I forgot."

Will glared at her.

She smiled at him and stood up from the table. "Cecil, come to the trash cans with me. I need to throw away my stuff."

Clearly understanding Lou Ellen's motives, Cecil stood up and walked after her, leaving Will and Nico alone at the table.

Will looked up at Nico, his cheeks still pink. "Sorry about them."

Nico shrugged. "It's okay. They seem nice."

"They seem hellbent on embarrassing me." Will grumbled.

"That's not true. Why would they want to do that, anyways? We hardly know each other, what do they gain out of embarrassing you?" Nico said.

"I don't know." Will said, despite the fact that he very much did know.

They sat quietly for a moment, before Nico spoke up again. "Do you really think I smell good?" He asked, slightly smiling.

Will tried to think of a response. Luckily for him, just as he opened his mouth to answer, the bell rang. Despite how absolutely cliche that was, he was immensely grateful for it. He waved a very quick goodbye to Nico and darted off into the crowds of people leaving the lunchroom.

Somehow, Cecil and Lou Ellen managed to find him. "How did it go?" Lou Ellen whispered.

"You're terrible. I'm not validating you with a response." Will mumbled back.

"Oh, what? Excuse me for trying to help out a friend." She rolled her eyes. "He's obviously into you. I'm just trying to speed things up."

"He is not obviously into me! He probably doesn't even like guys. And if he does, he wouldn't like me." Will shot back.

"Are you kidding me? He likes guys. And he likes you. Did you even see him?"

Cecil nodded in agreement to this statement. "Yeah! He was blushing, and smiling, and shit. At YOU."

"He was not blushing," Will protested. "And smiling is normal. It doesn't indicate a crush on someone."

Lou Ellen shrugged. "Yeah, whatever you say. But in a month, when you're making out with him, you better remember to thank me." With that, she disappeared down the hallway, Cecil at her side.

"GROSS!" Will yelled after her. Still, he couldn't help but feel some hope at her words. He did like Nico, to some degree. He wasn't going to deny it. But he knew he couldn't get his hopes up. Despite his friends' encouragements, he knew Nico was way out of his league. And if Nico ever found out ANYTHING about him, things that he kept secret or tried to hide, what would he think of him then?

Will didn't want to think about that. So, as was becoming typical of him, he pushed it out of his mind and walked towards class.