Walking among the dead

Chapter 20 Ben, BONDING

The engine on Mike's bike roars as he revs the engine and takes off. The humid breeze blows against my face as Mike drives to wherever he's taking me, I look around for stray lurkers. After a while Mike pulls up to a city park, he turns off the motorcycle and checks for any of the undead. "Come on." He gets off the bike and walks over to a bench and sits down, leaving space for me. I plop down beside him and look at the beautiful lake in front of us. "I pulled you out here to get supplies and to talk to you." I looked over at Mike as he took his sunglasses off. "I noticed how you look at Ellie and how you talk to her. It's obvious you have feelings for this girl," I quickly look down while blushing, Mike glances over at me and smiles softly, "You have to ask her out soon or someone else might do it before you. I know you noticed James has feelings for her too, and without a father figure you don't know much about this stuff do you?" I slowly shook my head. "Well i'll be your father figure," Mike smiled softly and patted my shoulder, "I'm bringing this up because i know it's hard to get over a broken heart. You're a good kid Ben, and i don't want to see you struggling to ask someone out. Ben i wanted to ask you this but not in front of everyone else, why haven't you asked her out?" I sighed softly while kicking a rock into the stream, who would go out with a guy like me? "Well..I'm weak, and i was never good with talking to people. I was kind of the loner nerd who aced every class no problem but..failed in socializing with others.." I struggle to try and explain to Mike why someone like Ellie wouldn't go out with someone like Ben Abel.. "I'm not the best looking guy and i'm not the fittest kind of guy. To be honest every girl i ever liked always went for the fit, athletic guys. I never even had the best relationship with my sister.." Mike looked up at the sky while listening to me. "Well I can help you with that. The best thing to do is win her by personality. If you have a positive and bright personality, people will like you." I slowly nodded then stood up, "Can we talk about this later..? Stuff like this..makes me uncomfortable." Mike nodded and walked over to his bike. "Come on, lets search some stores and gather supplies." Before i even had the chance to get onto the bike, Mike slowly started driving off. "Hey!" "Come on Ben! Better get on." He started taking off, causing me to run after him. Mike broke into laughter and stopped. I quickly jumped off before he could drive off, "Jerk.." "You're the one who just complained about not being fit." I couldn't help but laugh with Mike as he drove off.