FALLING IN LOVE AT A COFFEE SHOP | D.H [✓]

Twenty Two

(Aria's POV)

I come home from school and see my dad passed out on the couch surrounded by empty liquor bottles and a still lit cigarette clutched between his fingers. I roll my eyes at his stupidity. If he had dropped it while he was sleeping I would have come home to a burnt down house and possibly a dead father. I feel guilty for not feeling overly sad at that possibility.

I go over to him and try and take the cigarette out of his hand without waking him up but it proves impossible due to his death grip on the damn thing. He lets out a cough and my stomach sinks when his eyes open and sees me trying to grab the cigarette.

"What? You're trying to steal from me now?" he grumbles while taking a drag of it.

"No. I'm trying to prevent our house from burning down."

"It wouldn't matter. We have insurance."

I roll my eyes again, "Are you hungry?"

"Starving."

"Maybe if you ate food instead of drinking you wouldn't be starving." I mumble under my breath as I walk into the kitchen.

He stumbles in after me, "Is your mother home yet?"

"Nope."

He grunts and I see a flash of regret in his eyes before he takes another drag of his cancer stick, "Maybe she finally did the smart thing and left for good this time."

I'm shocked at his response and gulp before grabbing two frozen dinners from the freezer and popping them in the microwave.

The kitchen is filled with an awkward silence before my dad slams his hand against the counter and yells, causing me to jump. He storms off back to the living room to pick up a half empty bottle of liquor and guzzles it down. Drinking won't bring her back, it was the reason she left in the first place.

-

I'm getting really tired of these memories coming back in dreams leaving me to think about it for the rest of the day. Leaving was supposed to suppress the memories, not bring them back. Obviously that wasn't going to be as easy as I previously thought.

I go downstairs in my pyjamas to find Grace making pancakes. The smell is heavenly.

"Damn, if you keep pancakes I'm going to force you to live here forever."

She laughs, "I was getting tired of cereal and you had some mix in the back of your cupboards."

"Did I? Are you sure that isn't expired or something?"

"Well, if we both get sick we'll know it was expired."

"Lovely."

There's a comfortable silence as she flips the pancakes and and I turn on the coffee pot. I'm debating whether to tell her about the email from my mom or not. She could give me advice on what to do or I could just stay quiet and not reply. She would probably tell me to reply anyways.

Did I want to reply? As much as I didn't want to reply and just let it go, I still wanted to hear her excuse on why she left. I deserved answers but I desperately wanted to keep it in the past.

"So I was thinking of having a dinner party type thing before everyone goes away for the Christmas holidays but I don't want to intrude on having it here since it isn't my house."

"You can have it here, I don't mind."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, it's your house as much as mine now."

"It would just be a few people from work, 5 at most. You could invite Dorothy and Bianca if you want. Dan too of course, and his friend, I'd feel bad if I left him out."

I smile at that thought, "That sounds like a good idea actually. I'll ask them about it. When would it be?"

"In 2 weeks? That should be enough time to prepare and for people to reply."

"Sounds good to me. Wow okay this actually sounds fun, usually I'm not one for parties."

"A lot of things are changing for you these days."

"Changing in a good way too." I say with a smile.

(Dan's POV)

I'm watching tv with Phil when I hear my phone ringing. I look down and smile when I see it's Aria.

"Heellloooo!" I say cheerfully once I accept the call.

"Hey Dan! What's up?"

"Just watching tv with Phil, how about you?"

"Say hi for me! And nothing much, talking to you."

I lean away from the phone, "Aria says hi!"

"Hiiiii Aria!" Phil says loudly for her to hear.

I lean back into the phone, "He said hi in case you didn't hear."

"Can I ask you something?"

"You just did." I say while smirking.

"Haha, very funny."

"You walked right into that one, but yes, you can ask me something."

"Grace is planning this dinner party thing before Christmas and I was wondering if you wanted to come to it. Phil is invited too."

"That sounds like fun! When is it?"

"2 weeks today."

"Okay, yeah, we'll both be there!"

"Great! I'm glad you don't think it's lame or something."

"As long as you're there nothing is lame."

"Awe that's sweet, thank you. Wear a Christmas sweater too, we're making this as festive as it can get. You don't have to wear a really ugly one though, don't worry."

"Alright, got it. Christmas sweater but not necessarily an ugly one in 2 weeks. Great! I'm excited!"

We continue to talk for another half an hour until Aria has to go out with Grace. I hang up and get back to watching tv.

"I hope you're free in 2 weeks by the way, I said you were able to go to Aria and Grace's Christmas party."

"It seems I don't have much of a choice but I heard the words 'food' and 'Christmas sweaters' in the conversation so I'm okay with it."

The rest of the day goes by uneventfully and soon I'm lying in bed finding it impossible to fall asleep once again because of her. Just the thought of the party makes me smile.

I'm soon sent off into a whirlwind of dreams of her in an oversized Christmas sweater sitting by a Christmas tree. Us drinking peppermint hot chocolate while the snow falls outside and even kissing under the mistletoe.

A/N Boring shorter chapter (that is mainly dialogue oops) but I promise the next few will be better. It feels weird writing about Christmas when it's September but meh, Christmas is the shit! I may find it harder to update with school starting on Tuesday (cries) but I'll do my best! Thank you to everyone reading and voting, I love you all <3