In Our Heads

Chapter 29

*****

Cassian stared at the glass of Coke as he placed it back on the table, watching the ice bump against each other until they stopped moving before looking over at the pianist in the corner. The soft music suited the atmosphere of the dimly lit, quiet restaurant. It wasn't a busy evening, with only a few other diners around.

Cassian smiled spotting the restaurant manager looking over at him, the man raised his brows as if wondering if they needed anything, so he quickly lifted his hand to signal that they were fine and looked back at Ryan who was focused on cutting some of his food.

"If I'm being honest, the other date was way better," Cassian spoke causing Ryan to look up at him and glance around the restaurant.

"The boat? Definitely. I'm fighting sleep here."

"Are you calling me boring?"

"A little."

They chuckled.

"I just had a busy day... How's it going with your... conquest?"

Cassian's mood lifted at just the thought of Theodore, even though he still had not gotten a chance to check his phone since he started soccer practice hours earlier.

"Pretty great, actually."

"Does he know about this?"

No. Cassian was not sure whether he intended to tell Theodore about Ryan and their parents' intentions.

He still did not take it all that seriously and considered this set-up just them hanging out. Thinking that way helped keep him from stressing or freaking out about it. So, he would continue to think about it that way until he figured out how to get his parents to understand that he wanted nothing to do with their merger.

Realising that Ryan was still waiting for an answer, he shook his head and changed the topic.

"How are your parents?"

"Good. Yours?" Ryan did not seem to care about the change, thankfully.

"Same. Work?"

"It's work," Ryan replied, raising his brows.

Cassian nodded, that was not the most creative thing to talk about. Still, it was the only thing he could come up with at the moment.

"This is... fun."

They smiled at each other.

"Do you want to head out? I kind of have a bunch of homework I need to do and a lesson in half an hour."

Ryan looked at his watch before nodding.

"Of course. Have you finished eating though?"

"Yeah," Cassian nodded.

His appetite seemed to return to its weird normal as soon as he returned home.

His parents had already handled the bill, so they headed out of the hotel into the cold evening. After greeting each other with a quick hug that Cassian pulled back from quite fast, they headed to their separate cars that had already been brought to the front of the building before giving each other final waves of goodbye and then driving off.

The drive home was quite slow as Cassian felt more fatigued than usual. He had been using the pills the doctor prescribed to him at his parent's orders, but they had not taken effect the previous night, so he was exhausted.

When he made it home, he sighed in relief parking the car and figuring that he would call Jonathan to take him to school if he did not feel up to driving in the morning. Heading into the house, he called out a greeting to each of his parents finding them in their studies before making his way upstairs to change out of his school uniform – he felt that would be better suited for the restaurant than the usual track pants and t-shirt he threw on after practice.