Meeting a "friend"

Richard laid awake, his eyes rolling off to the side at the clock and noticing that it was just half past midnight. Everything in the house was quiet, his parents had gone to bed hours ago and the rest of the house was still.

He looked around the room from his point on the bed, taking notice at the bags and boxes by the closet. The afternoon had been spent going shopping and picking up stuff like extra clothes, hangers, bedsheets, even a computer, TV, a gaming system, and some books and materials for showering. It was a bit unusual to spend the time walking around with two people that he had only met this morning but, for all purposes, were now his family. XChange had made sure to make the adjustment to his pills, taking the DNA samples from both the man and woman sleeping downstairs and when he had been changed, it had altered his DNA down to the base level. He was, in no uncertain terms, their son.

Richard knew that there was a story behind the two and why he was here, although he suspected it would take some time to pull it from them. His new dad was nice enough, a bit mellow but he supposed that came with the territory of being a counselor at the hospital. You couldn't expect someone who had to talk with people in need of help and services to be gregarious and spontaneous. His new mom, for equal measure, was a preschool administrator and her energetic attitude and cheerful disposition definitely made it more obviously a good fit for them.

Still, when they had left him to do some shopping while they had run back to the car to drop off the bags, he couldn't help but notice several things that were immediately impacting him. There were more than a few girls his (now) age around and quite a few of them were subtly checking him out. He didn't mind, of course, but the feeling of knowing that there were girls out there and this was going to be his new life, one of female companionship, it struck Richard as a bit off. Still, when he accidentally bumped into one, he flashed her a smile and apologized for not watching where he was going. She, for her part, laughed it off but as she turned, he noticed the slightest of blushes and when he wasn't looking, she had whispered and pointed to her friends.

"Already girls checking you out?" his dad had whispered and Richard just nodded at that. With his parents moving things along, he didn't have a lot of time to looking around but when the girl and her friends were at the checkout lane, he managed to smile in her direction and she playfully looked away while her friend, pulling out her phone, snapped a pic.

Just as sleep was about to hit him, and the lull of the quiet night about to take over, Richard's new phone buzzed and he reached over to look at the text he had received.

HEY, THIS YOU?

He paused until he supposed that it was the girl who snapped his pic in the store. YEAH, WHO'S THIS?

YOU BUMPED INTO ME, YVONNE, IN THE STORE TODAY. JUST CHECKING TO SEE IF THIS NUMBER LEGIT

Richard blinked at that until he realized that her friend must've scanned his code earlier. Girls these days... NAME's RICHARD.

YOU NEW TO THE AREA?

SORT OF...JUST MOVED BACK TO THE AREA AFTER A FEW YEARS OUT WITH MY AUNT. LOOKING TO START HENDERSON IN A FEW WEEKS.

There was a slight pause before she replied. NICE! WE GO TO HENDERSON TOO, YOU'RE A SENIOR, RIGHT?

YUP!

There was a pause before Yvonne sent him a follow request on her IG. When he clicked on it, Richard got a smiley emoji response. SEE YOU AROUND!