"Sooooo." I say to Lyle while grabbing an apple from the fruit basket. Lately, I've been trying to eat more fruit, I eat tons of vegetables but never fruit.
"Sooooo what?" He asked.
"How was the afterparty with Kate?" I haven't seen him since that night of homecoming. He never texted or called me and told me how it was. I was actually hoping he would, but didn't. Can't help but be curious.
"It was...alright I guess." He said shrugging his shoulders not sure of what else to say.
"Just alright?" There's more to the story, the pause, hence that there was more. Once I got all my food we headed over to an empty table by the window. This is the first time we've eaten in The Tribune, usually when we come it's always around like 5.
Sitting down, I immediately devour my sandwich; I've been starving all day. Ms. Timmons called us in today to do some extra paperwork. We don't usually work on Mondays, but there was an exception. Not just me and Lyle, but all the others are here also.
"What more do you want?" He plunged his straw in the juice box.
"More, like did you guys dance, talk or even kiss?" I said moving my eye brows in a seductive way, he just rolled his eyes at me. He's been hanging around me too much, I always roll my eyes.
"Fine, if you want to know so badly. Yes, we did dance after that we went outside and had a private conversation." I'm glad they had a good time. Most people would be made that their date was mooching on someone else, but not me. Lyle and Kate are good people and they deserve each other.
"What was the conversation about?" I asked desperately interested. Since theres nothing interesting happening in my life, except for the visions, I'm interested in some elses.
"You do know what private means right?" He asked me looking sharp, making sure that I clearly understand.
"Fine, I guess that's enough.... for now." I tell him sternly. He lets out a deep sigh and starts working on his salad.
As we keep talking, we hear feet walking quickly towards us. I'm greeted by Lyra; she smells like a grandma's basement. Now that I think about it every time she comes out the from there she smells like that.
"Why do you smell like that?" Lyle asked plugging his nose. She sticks out her tongue at him, what is she five?
"Timmons had us in the basement looking for some old videotapes, while you all sit up here pretty, I'm doing the hard work." She sits down her tray and snatches a chair from another table.
"Hey! I was going to sit in that chair." One of the interns say to Lyra angrily.
"You snooze you lose." She smirks at the intern and plants her butt firmly in the seat. Behind us, we hear the intern call Lyra an asshole, knowing Lyra, she had to say something back.
"Right back at you." She sticks up her middle finger and sneers at the intern. Me and Lyle give each other a look and laugh silently.
"So, what are you two jackhammers talking about?" She pops a fry in her mouth.
"No hi?" I asked Lyra.
"I've been saying hi to you for years Quinn gets over it." She snarls at me.
Finishing up my apple, I start to drink my soda. "We're talking about Lyle and Kate. Oh, did you see anything since he doesn't want to tell me everything." I dart my eyes at Lyle as he looks at me with a 'what' face.
"I would have no idea honestly. I woke up at 3 in the morning hanging out of Jack's car with a top hat on?" We both give her weird looks. Every time she get's drunk she's always in a unknown location. Before The Blondes party, the last time she got drunk, I found her on my front lawn with a lawn gnome tucked under her arms. "Hey, I can't control when I get drunk." She says defensibly.
"You said you wouldn't get drunk again?" I gasp at her.
"You know by now I lie like a rug." She smacks her lips at me.
We spend the rest of our lunch time just eating the rest of our food and chatting. Suddenly, we hear Ms. Timmons come over the intercom.
"All the 4th floor interns please report back immediately. I repeat all the 4th floor interns please report back immediately." All of us groan and began to clean our trays.
"Back down to grandma's basement I go." Lyra walks off to the basement.
"See you later."
"Yeah, yeah." She waves me off.
Afterwork...
"Hey, I'll see you next week." I say to Lyra and Lyle. They both wave bye to me while walking over to their cars. While walking to my own car, phone starts to buzz in my purse. Fishing through my dirty bag, I finally find my phone, taking it out I find some pink sticky gum attached to it.
"You've got to be kidding me." I mumble to myself. While trying to detach the gum from my phone, I press the answer button. I groan, suddenly the gum is not stuck only to my phone but my hands.
"Hey you alright?" I hear Alexander ask through the phone. I honestly think this is Karma. Yesterday my grandfather told me to take out the garbage and I didn't, this is the universe paying it forward.
"I'm fine- I jus- hold on a minute." As I keep fighting with the gum it detaches and I throw it to the ground. Wiping the access gum on my pants I hop in my car and put the phone up to my ear.
"Sorry about that I had some gum stuck to my phone then it got stuck to my hands, just a whole mess." I hear him laughing over the phone.
"Are you laughing at me?" Now it's a boisterous laugh.
"Sorry, no I'm not sorry scratch that. To see you fighting with gum is a sight to see." Shaking my head, I start my car to warm up. For the last two weeks the temperature here in St. Helena has dropped immensely.
"Anyways what are you doing?" The last time I talked to him he was asleep. After that we spend the rest of our time hanging, talking about what we were up to before we made up.
"I just got done doing work at The Tribune." I put on my seat belt and began driving down the road home.
"I thought you only do that on the weekends."
"Yeah, I do, but we had to come in on an extra night because of paperwork and such." I stop at a red light. "What are you doing on this cold night?"
I hear shuffling on the phone, sounds like he's moving around on a bed or couch. "I did some work with my father at his company and hung out with Aren and Christian." The light finally turns green and I push on the gas. "The real reason I called you was to see if you wanted to go out tomorrow?"
"Go where?" I asked intrigued.
"The park is hosting a movie night so I wanted to take you, you down?" The last time we went out was at the night café, and we all know what went down that night.
"Yeah, what time?"
"Ummm.. I have something to do for my father in the afternoon so I'll be picking you up at say... 6:30?"
"That's good, I get off work at 6:00 so you may have to wait a few minutes for me to get ready."
"Can I sit in your room and watch you get ready?" I can hear the hopefulness in his voice.
"No, you cannot." I let out a laugh. "I'm pulling up to my house, call you later?"
"Yeah bye."
"Bye." Hanging up the phone I pull into the driveway. I can't wait to take these clothes off, take a shower and go to sleep.
The Next Day...
Looking in the mirror, I fix my hair. "God, it doesn't look right." I whisper silently to myself. In this moment, my hair is literally fighting with me, it isn't looking how I want it to. I grab some bobby pins from my vanity and start pinning hair back. After I'm done, I admire the finish do, this is the best it's going to be.
Tonight's the night me and Alexander watch the movie in the park, I forgot to ask him what movie we were supposed to see. Hopefully it isn't some old vintage movie. For the life of me I've tried to watch various vintage movies such as Breakfast at Tiffanies, or Sabrina I can't get into them.
Every since we got back on good terms, I've been dying to hang out with him. I can't have him in my room all the time fearing that grandpa would walk in on us and kill him then kill me. When he called me to hang out I was overly ecstatic, I made sure I didn't sound too crazy on the phone with him.
Walking into the living room, I'm greeted with Irene and Grandpa on the couch. Speaking of old movies, their actually watching Sabrina. For the past week they've been binge watching all the movies from the 50's to the 70's. Grandpa has been trying to get me to watch with them, but I've declined every single time.
Originally they were going to watch it at Irene's, but her T.V. isn't working properly so their here.
"Hey I'm about to leave in a few minutes." I hear a honk from the car outside, Alexander's exactly on time, it's 6:30. I honestly didn't think I would get home early, but when Ida found out I had a date she instantly made me go home and get ready. How did she find out, I left my phone open to help with a customer and she saw the texts between me and Alexander?
"Where are you going at this time of night?" Grandpa asks while staring straight at the T.V.
"There's a movie showing in the park tonight so me and a friend are going to see it." I purposely didn't mention that he was guy because he'll most likely ask me a million and 1 questions.
He tears his eyes away from the T.V. giving me his undivided attention. "What kind of friend are we talking about here." I look at him with a confused look.
"I think he means a male or female friend." Irene added. I shake my head and laugh.
"It's a he, the friend is a he. Everything will be fine tonight, don't worry." I kiss Irene and Grandpa on the cheek while heading out the door. "Don't wait up for me!"
Going down the cobble stone walkway I see Alexander leaned up against the car, he's engaged in a conversation on the phone. Looks intense I hope he's alright. Walking closer to his car he holds his finger up indicating he's not done yet. I give him a nod and get inside the car.
This is a different car than he usually drives. I'm not good at naming them, but I assume this is a Chevy truck looks new. I smooth down my brown fitted skirt that I paired with a green button down sweater.
10 minutes go by and he's still on the phone. Finally, he's done talking and gets in the car. "Sorry about that, my mother was chewing my ear off." He lets out a chuckle and starts his car up.
"Everything ok I hope." From his body language I can tell everything wasn't alright. He leans forward and turns the heat up.
"I'm sure your cold so." I give him a small smile indicating a thanks, he's so thoughtful.
"You sure everything's ok, we can talk about it if you want." I say softly. I want him to know that we can talk about anything, establish a trust between each other.
"Don't worry about it. You ready." I give him a nod. Off to the park we go.
At the Park...
Alexander walks over to my side of the car helping me out. "Thank you."
"Your very welcome." He smiles.
I guess we weren't the only ones who had the right idea about the movie in the park. Lot's of people are out today, couples, friends and such. All my time living in St. Helena this would be my first time doing this, you could say I'm not a town supporter.
Walking up to the booth, we wait in line to pay for tickets.
"How was work?" Alexander asked.
"Work was fine, finished reading my book for school."
"What was the book called?"
"The Giver." Suddenly his eyes widen.
"Loved that book, the only good book I've read for school." I'm intrigued.
"I didn't know you read."
"Not all the time, mostly when I have down time which as you know is not all the time." He lets out a chuckle.
"Me too. I prefer the movies over the books." I add on.
After being behind five other people we finally reach the front of the line.
"Just the two of you?" The girl asked us.
"Yeah, how much?" Alexander asked, talking his leather wallet from his pocket.
"4 bucks." He takes out a five and hands it to her. "You want your change?"
"No, you can keep it."
"Enjoy the movie." She gives us a dazzling smile. Walking into the park it looks quite beautiful. The big screen is centered in the park with a bunch of people sprawled on the grass laying on blankets and pillows. The lights hang from the tree with colorful lanterns. Oh, Jesus we need blanket and pillows.
"Alexander! I forgot the blankets and pillows." Our backs will be hurting quite a lot.
"I took care of it. You see over there where that girl with the red hair is?" I give him a nod. "Behind her that's our spot."
"Wow." Is all I can manage to get out. There's tons of blankets and pillows all set out beautifully, it looks more comfortable than all the others.
"Like?"
"For sure. Your always one step ahead." If we would have relied on me, we'd be on the ground. Grandpa said I wasn't the best person to remember things.
"That's me. Let's get something to eat." The menu I see lots of different food. From popcorn, hotdogs, nachos and candy.
"Hey, I want to pay." He shakes his head no. "Why not?"
"I'm the man, it's a date and I want to take care of you."
"But you don't have t-." He gives me a look. "Fine, you can pay."
"Hello, what would you like?" The Cashier asks.
"I can have anything, right?"
"Yeah." I hope he remembers what he said.
"I'll take a medium bucket of popcorn, two boxes of chocolate nuts, twizzlers and a water." I see Alexander staring at me like I'm crazy. "You did say I can get whatever I want."
Alexander pays the man and we walk over to the side and wait. "Umm... You never told me what movie were seeing." I forgot to ask him.
"It's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." I let out a chuckle. "Something wrong."
"I haven't seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang since I was 8. It was one of my favorite movies growing up." Memories flood in from me and Grandmother sitting on the floor with candy surrounding us while singing the soundtrack. "It's going to be nice to see it again."
"I've never seen it before." He said nonchalantly. I let out a gasp and clutch my chest.
"You've never seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?" He shakes his head. "Where have you been, living under a rock, it's Chitty Chitty freaking Bang Bang. We got to start hanging out more often." I pat his arm.
"Order number 28!" The Cashier screams.
"I've got it." Alexander grabs the food and we head over to our spot. Moving through the crowd of people, we finally made it to our spot.
"Let me help you." I grab the candy while leaving him with the popcorn and water. We sit down and get situated.
"So, what's the movie about?" He asked looking at me.
"I'm not telling you; you'll have to watch." He lets out a huff. He doesn't look like a musical guy, but he'll muster through.
I open up the candy and start pouring it in the popcorn, Alexander just stares at me, yet again.
"What are you looking at?" I asked dumping the second box of candy in the popcorn.
"Just how beautiful you look tonight under the stars." I try to contain my smile.
"Be quiet." I say shoving his chest. He lets out a laugh from my embarrassment. "It's about to start. get ready to see a classic, good movie." I know I said that I didn't like old movies, but Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is the exception.
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