Loving the Other Side

The First Time

[Chapter 7]

"Hi, I'm Joey."

Joey, the most beautiful name I've ever heard.

Joey, like the baby kangaroo. It's so innocent.

But I feel like there's more to this shy and innocent girl in front of me. Like there's something waiting for me to unravel it.

I gave Joey a wide smile and called for the other guys. "Oi lads! Let's all meet Xander's friend!"

Peter came grinning and dripping wet, then gave me a pat on the back.

Bloody hell, his hand is wet.

"Xander's friend and your soon to be 'friend'?" Peter said while doing air quotes with his fingers.

I gave him a playful punch on the arm and rolled my eyes at him. "Just meet the damn girl." I said as I pushed him to Joey.

She was smiling so widely and had such an approachable personality. She was shook hands with all my mates even though half of them were dripping wet.

I can't believe it. I finally know her name.

Xander came rushing to me with a burger on both hands and handed one to me.

"You're welcome." He said, grinning from ear to ear.

"Thank you for not telling me her name. I owe you big time." I said whilst biting into my burger. God. James did an awesome job on these.

Xander chuckled at me whilst biting into his own burger, "Just get me one of Peter's famous butter pudding and we're even."

"Deal."

I was seated on one of the wooden benches we brought and across was Joey, seated on Xander's car's hood with her camera constant clicking and her mouth chewing. Guess she liked the burgers too.

Her hair was up in a tight bun because of the strong winds. But I would really like to see it being swayed by it. She was looking at the pictures she recently took and smiled at some of them but an occasional frown was brought upon her too.

James was suddenly sitting beside me, giving a bottle of beer. "I wanna ask you something."

"Shoot." I said before sipping into the beer.

"Why do you like her? Don't get me wrong she is pretty. But not the kind of beauty you're into."

I paused for a moment and looked at her again. This time, she was just there. Taking deep breaths and her eyes closed. And that gave me the answer I needed. I shifted my gaze to James and gave him a small smile.

"She's like a breath of fresh air. It's so foreign yet so familiar. She's something new and I just automatically like her and I can't wait to breathe in more of that fresh air."

James playfully scoffed at me and gave me a pat on the back, handing me another bottle of beer. "Alright. Why don't you stop staring at her, give her this beer and actually talk to her?"

I gave James a grateful smile and straightened myself out before taking the beer from James as he went back to conversing with Damien, probably something about sports.

My mind was running with different conversation openers.

Just hand her the damn beer.

And say what?

I don't know, something to push it down?

"Something to push it down?"

Joey suddenly whipped her head towards me and she had a flushed look.