Kissing Is the Easy Part

Part 3 ◎ Chapter 25 The Louis Vuitton

Flora

I was sort of on friendly terms with Sean when he hurt his knee a while ago. I felt sorry for him, because seeing him temporarily off the basketball team made him seem like an angel with cropped wings and it was almost pitiful. However, senior year began and as soon as he lost the crutches and the clingy girlfriend, he was as cocky as ever.

He bossily decided on meeting for the history project right away, even though the paper wasn't due for weeks and the oral presentation was at the end of semester. He said he wanted to start early, and I knew the sub context. He thought I would slow him down.

Well, he wanted early, I would give him early.

I sat in The Pavement café waiting for him, and coincidentally this was actually where we met for our first date, back when he was still the adorable guy who waited for me at the bus stop. This time he pushed open the glass door with a mixture of open distaste and perhaps lack of sleep on his face.

"Flora, what is so hard about showing up at a given time?" he demanded as he sat down, setting down the history textbook as well as a laptop. Needless to say I had brought nothing except my wallet on chain.

"If we start early, we finish early. And you're here already, so don't complain." 

He glanced at my appearance and shook his head. I supposed orange fake eyelashes didn't suit his taste. "Okay, what have you got?" he asked in a weary tone.

"Ginger latte," I replied. "It's not bad."

"No." The look of controlled irritation was hard to miss on his face. "I mean for the history presentation. You must have some ideas already."

"Oh!" I giggled. "Well, I thought we're supposed to talk about what each of us has to do, and then I can go and look for it."

"What?" Sean took a few moments to get a hold of himself before he spoke again. "For God's sake, Flora, you're giving me a headache."

I waited for him to go on because I knew he would.

"I didn't count on you to put much thought into this project, but to show up empty-handed? That's a shock, even for you."

"Hello, did you mention anything about searching for materials? You said 10am on Sunday morning, and here I am. We just have a different way of approaching this."

"That's an understatement," he said. "Clearly it's my fault for not telling you specifically what to do and assuming you have common sense."

"With the way you are acting, I'm assuming you're my boss and I'm waiting for you to assign my work."

He narrowed his eyes. "What's the point of meeting if you haven't prepared anything? You're wasting my time."

I couldn't believe the last time we were here all I wanted to do was kiss his lips. Now I just wanted to smack the textbook over his head.

"Would you stop whining already and start discussing? Jeez! Let's hear what brilliant ideas you have."

Without further words, Sean turned on his laptop and clicked open a folder. He started doing a very detailed but boring description of what he had in mind, and I tried concentrating. I REALLY tried. But after five minutes I couldn't help but yawned.

He glanced at me in annoyance.

I waved my hand. "Go on, go on, I'm listening."

As he started again my eyes wandered around the café. It was only seven-ish in the morning but already this place was filling up. Lots of men and women hunched over their laptops and iPads as they sipped their morning dose of caffeine. I couldn't believe there were so many J.K. Rowlings lying around in the neighborhood.