The New Boy

the diner

"so where are we going?" I ask Jack.

"well, where do you want to go?" he asks me.

"I honestly do not care. as long as it's not fancy because I am not dressed for that." I tell him.

"you've been here longer though, so you know all of the good places." he tells me, not wanting to give a definite answer.

"well, what type of food do you want? pizza? fast food? a cafe?"

"a cafe." he says.

"okay, there's this place called The Duck that we can go to."

"okay. sounds good, but you'll have to give me directions." we both chuckle a little.

"okay. sounds good." I say and give him directions to the place.
as we're walking in I say, "one good thing about this place is they serve everything whenever. so if you want chicken for breakfast and pancakes for dinner, you can have them."

"that's awesome because I randomly crave pancakes at like 11:00 at night." Jack tells me.

"really? because I crave pancakes 24/7." I say, laughing a little.

"well, I'll make you some pancakes tonight." Jack says and I turn to face him.

"thank you." I say smiling and I give him a gentle kiss. he smiles at me and we walk in.

we sit down at a table near the window, overlooking the river.

"this is gorgeous." I say, never having sat at this spot before or seen the river like this in the fall.

"just like you." Jack says smiling at me. I immediately blush.

"you do realize that no matter how much you flatter me, I'm not going to do anything while I have a sprained ankle?" I tell him laughing a little.

"we'll see." he says with a wink.

"you know it wouldn't be very fun for either of us if we did." I tell him, still smiling.

"wait, are you being serious?" Jack says surprised.

"well, I wasn't at first."

"so you'd want to?"

"yeah, but I was waiting for the right person and I found him." I say smiling at him, and I grab his hand.

"I love you."

"I love you too." I say and he leans over the table and kisses me.

"how did I get so lucky? I didn't want to move up here because I was leaving behind my two best friends, but you make it worth it." he says.

"maybe we can go down and visit them sometime?" I suggest.

"sounds good." Jack smiles at me and the waitress comes up.

"Jess?" she asks.

"Cynthia? when did you start working here?" I ask her.

"I started over the summer when I moved out of my parents house." she tells me.

"oh. I haven't seen you since last school year." I say.

"speaking of school, why aren't you there?" she asks me.

"I got hurt in gym and Jack," I say motioning towards him, "brought me to the E.R. and we're stopping to eat before we go back to school."

"football?" she asks.

"yeah."

"and Jack, I've never seen you before?" she says, turning to Jack.

"yeah. I just moved here." he replies.