And Then There Was You (Chris Evans AU)

December Part 2

  I look up in the direction of the voice. I take in the bright red Panthers hoodie adorning the body that's leaning against my truck. "Hot stuff, huh?"
  "Excuse me, do you have a Band-aid? I just hurt my leg when I fell for you."
   I open the passenger side door to toss my bag in. "I'm sorry ma'am, but I have a girlfriend."  I'm leaning on the truck with one hand on my hip facing her.
   "You must be a campfire. Because you're super hot and I want s'more," she says with a straight face.
  She continues with "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put I and U together."  She takes a step closer to me. "If you were a vegetable, you would be called cutecumber." 
  It's at that point that we both lose it and double over in laughter. "Babe, that was, uh, something else to say the least," I say as I bring her into my arms. "I couldn't help it. There was an article in my Facebook feed about cheesy pick up lines," Daphne says as she hugs me back. 
  I lock up the truck and take her hand in mine. We start to walk towards the craft booths and food trucks. The crowd isn't as large and concentrated now as it was during the parade. "Where's your brother at?" 
  As if on cue Daphne's phone goes off with an incoming call. "Hey," she says. She's listening closely to the person on the other line. "Let me check with Chris." She holds the phone away from her mouth. "Are you hungry? James grabbed a spot over by the food trucks. Ya want to join them?"
  "Works for me," I tell her. We start walking in that direction again. There's four different food trucks, each with a different menu: wings, tacos, gourmet fries and salads. "I'm leaning towards wings I think," I say to Daphne as we look over each menu. "You know I'm a sucker for fries," she says as she looks at me and quirks her brow. I know exactly what she's about to say so I interrupt her, "split?"  "Yes please!" She squeals like she was just given the gift of a puppy. I kiss the tip of her nose.
  We decide that I'll go order the wings and she'll get the fries. After about ten minutes we rejoin James and Rene at the tables.
  "James, do you remember my friend Katie from school?" Daphne asks her brother.
  "Katie, Katie, Katie...help me out," he says as he tries to place her.
  "Red hair, braces, class Valedictorian?"
  "Okay, sure," he says sounding very unconvinced that he has any idea who this person is.
  Daphne rolls her eyes but continues, "anyways she owns the gourmet fry truck! She told me how she say Ellie's birth announcement in the paper and that she's been meaning to call me to catch up."  She now turns her attention to me. "Katie is having a big Christmas party and she invited me, well is since she said I could bring a date. What do you say?"
  "As long as I'm not working that night, I'm in," I tell her. 
   "It's this Friday, the 12th. Do you have your schedule for that day?
  I pull my phone out of my pocket and open up the calendar app. Scrolling along I see that I am not on shift that night. "I end my shift that morning so I'll get some sleep while you're at work and should be good to go."  The news brings a huge smile to her face. Oh how I love that smile.

~~~

Daphne POV

Kindergartners at Christmas time act like they're on a continuous sugar rush every day. Im very thankful Christmas break is only a week away. As soon as the busses pull out on Friday I make my way back to my room and grab my stuff to leave. I need a little bit of time to decompress before heading to Katie's Christmas party.
I'm pulling into my drive right at 3:30 pm. Chris won't be here until 6 so I decide to set an alarm on my phone and lay out on my couch for an hour. Knowing my body well enough I know that I won't actually fall asleep. But that won't stop me from resting my eyes.
The hour goes by too quickly, as I knew it would. I jump in the shower and let the hot water wash away the day. I can feel myself relax and start to feel rejuvenated. Reluctantly I pull myself out of the shower and begin the process of getting ready. While I'm excited to see Katie again and catch up, I don't know who else from school will be there. Despite being a cheerleader, I wasn't popular. I had a small group of friends and then a couple in common with Ollie, who thankfully was also coming tonight with his bride Hazel.
Eyeing my closet I keep finding myself going between pants and a skirt. It's not a formal party but I still want to look out together. I decide on black skinny jeans with a red top. I choose my leopard heels that Rene gave me for my last birthday. Again, something out of my comfort zone but they looked fun.