Shades Of Blue

Chapter 26|Welcome To Your World

Henry and Eleanor seem to be having a blast as they chit chat about anything and everything.

Me? I'm stuck with a certain King dingus stealing my food and kicking my feet every five goddamn seconds.

"Will you stop that, gosh!"

"Stop what, Laine?"

He kicks me again.

"That, you dingus!"

He feigns disbelief as he manages to hide his disgusting smile underneath all that food.

We manage to capture the attention of our amazing and wonderful dates which give us the side eye and a look of pure confusion. All the while, Beck manages to put on a pretty convincing face of innocence.

Sly ass.

"Everything okay, Elaine?" Henry questions as he reaches a hand across the table for me to hold and with a gentle squeeze and a smile, I nod.

"Yeah, everything is fine, perfect in fact" I return the smile and just as Eleanor chuckles continuing her conversation with Henry, I not so carefully lift my foot to bring it down with a stomp onto Beck's.

With an incoherent screech he turns away from the table and lets out a, "I'm gonna get one of those blue lemonades, they look good..."

Then he says something about, "... extra ice" and walks away.

I am quite pleased with my efforts and so, I decide to join in to my boyfriend and best friends conversation. From what I had heard, they're talking about waterfalls and cliff diving.

"Yeah, I've always wanted to. Well, Elaine, Mere and I have always wanted to but, we've honestly never had the chance to actually make it a plan to follow through with" Eleanor explains as she continues to talk with her hands motioning as if they were doing the speaking.

As I look towards my best friend, I notice how the light from outside peaks in and captures her features almost too perfectly. The brown in her eyes glimmer like caramel and I can see clearly, the light frizz to her blonde hair. The natural pink hue in her cheeks is much more prominent too and I think to myself; wow, my best friend is actually so pretty. Beautiful even.

So, how the hell are we even friends, I consider myself a close resemblance to that weird wizard, Gargamel from the Smurfs.

"El?"

"Hey, Laine!"

Oh. My bad.

I'm shaken from my invading thoughts with everyone at the table staring at me and I feel so small all of a sudden.

"Yeah?" I ask with a mumble.

Henry chuckles as he takes my hand again and within my peripheral vision I can see the action had caught the attention of the one and only, Beckinsale Carter. Brushing it off, I look back to see Eleanor starting to speak.

"Oh, Henry and I were talking about the waterfalls and hot springs and so, we thought it'd be cool to do some exploring to see if there's actually any places we could all go to"

"Oh, you wanna go swimming by a waterfall?" I say and yes, I know it's a dumb question because I was just repeating what she was saying but, I need to be more active in conversation.

She nods with a excitable hum and absentmindedly places her hand on Henry's forearm. I brush it off as she is my best friend and a very innocent, excitable human being. It's one of her perks. And perky she is.

"I think there's two waterfalls around the area, I'm not too sure seeing as though I've only lived here a few months" Henry says as pulls out his phone, searching for something.