“Hey I’m skipping school for you. The least you could do is eat some ice cream with me.” He winks at me and turns the music up as an upbeat song comes on. I find him so infectious that I can’t help but just laugh at him. He looks over at me and smiles an even bigger smile.
“Feeling better?” he asks. To which I nod my head.
“Yes, much. Thank you.” I gaze out window the rest of the way there and we just sit together, not needing to talk. Just happy to be there. This is what friendship is. It’s instantaneous; I realize that I have missed this since I’ve moved here. Amber’s great, but we don’t have ‘this’.
Whatever ‘this’ is.
We get to the ice cream parlor and get in the queue. It always surprises me that people, myself included, enjoy eating ice cream whatever the weather. Even when it snows. People still buy ice cream. I order one chocolate scoop and one honeycomb in a tub with nut sprinkles and jelly beans; Chris surprises me by just ordering vanilla. No sprinkles. No candy. Not even a wafer.
“Are you sure you don’t want any of my chocolate?” I ask him as we head to a table to sit down.
“No, I’m good thanks.” He answers and takes a seat opposite me.
“When you have all of these options here, why have you just had plain vanilla?”
“Its not plain” he says with a smile.
“Its vanilla, it the way ice cream was meant to be eaten.”
“You don’t prefer Chocolate or strawberry or ...” He stops me from naming twenty different flavors.
“No, I prefer Vanilla. When something is perfect, why change it?” he says with a shrug of his shoulders. His body is relaxed and casual but his eyes are focused completely on me. There is nothing casual about them and I’m sure there is a double meaning to his words.
I like what he says though and a smile slowly makes it way on my face and I decide to steal a little of his ice cream. He just watches me and doesn’t say anything. But the way he is looking at me is starting to make my cheeks heat so I look down and concentrate on my own tub.
“So what were you thinking about in the forest today? You must have been in there a long time. Amber said you text just before the bell went this morning.”
“Umm, nothing really important. I just felt like getting away. That’s all.” I don’t look up from my ice cream. I’m not sure if he will be able to see that there were more reasons than I’m letting on.
“You know, next time you want to get away. You could just call me and I could drive you somewhere. You don’t have to go hide away in the forest.” He reaches across the table and trails a single finger over my hand holding the spoon. I’m honestly not too sure what I think about him touching me like this, but I also don’t want to upset him so I bring my hand to my mouth to carry on eating my melting ice cream, and he just leaves his hand on the table beside my bowl.
“I might just do that. It's not the comfiest place to sleep you know.” I say casually not really paying attention to what I’m saying. His eyebrows raise up and he sits up straighter in his chair and pulls his hands back over to his side of the table.
“You fell asleep? In the forest? Do you know how dangerous that is? There are wolves and bears and...”
‘You are mine princess, never forget.’
Oh I know full well how dangerous it was.
“I know.” I cut in.
“I didn’t mean to. I suppose I was just tired that’s all. It just sort of happened.” I say, more careful about what words are coming out of my mouth this time. I don’t want him to know about the note.
“Next time, really, just call me. Okay? We can go do something that involves less chance of you being eaten by a wild animal.” He has his serious face on. It doesn’t happen very often, but I can tell he is meaning everything that he is saying.
“I will do that. I promise.” I say and without even thinking of what I’m doing I reach over to cover his hand with my own.
“You had better. Do we need to get going if I’m going to teach you how to drive that truck of yours? What time do we need to be done by? You had plans after right?” He asks while he starts getting out of his chair.
“Yeah, about that I don’t have plans after any more, so...” I say quietly.
“So... I could take you out to the cinema or something?” He takes two steps forward so he’s right in front of me when I stand up from the table. I have to look up so I can see his face when I talk to him.
“I wouldn’t mind doing the ‘or something’, I don’t think I’m in the mood for going out to the cinema tonight. Is that ok?” I ask.
“Sure, what ever you want.” He replies placing his arm around my shoulders and guiding me out the parlor to his car. He sounds a little bit shocked that I agreed to spend more time with him. I’m a little shocked myself.
‘You are mine princess, never forget’
The note pops into my head again and I grip my bag where it’s hidden a little tighter and I take a look around to see if I can
