No Strings Attached ; j.g

t w e n t y - f o u r

"So I was thinking we could head out to Colorado or North Dakota next," Hash said. "Maybe in a few days?"

A few days? We just got here.

Well shit, what was happening to me? I opened my eyes and sat up. The sun was already risen and there was bacon on a plate.

"Did you make this over the fire?" I asked as I took a bite.

"Yep," Ziggy said as he put more raw bacon on a stick.

"It's good, where'd you get the bacon though?" I laugh.

"Jack brought it, he said he didn't know if you'd been living on hotdogs and marshmallows and he wanted you to have 'more variety'," he answered.

"Bacon is more variety?" I laughed to myself. Wait, he was thinking about me. "Hey, I'm gonna go on a walk around town, I'll see you guys later." I waved and walked up the beach towards the van.

-

I stood at Jack's door, I knocked twice. He showed up, shirtless like he'd just woken up. "Hey," he stretched and moves aside for me to come in. I nervously step inside, and he leads me to the couch. "Are you hungry?"

"No, I'm fine," I lie. I didn't wanna eat all his food. "The bacon was good," I laughed.

"Oh, yeah, thought you might like it," he sat down and I sat next to him. "So what's up?"

"We're cool now, right?" I ask.

"Yeah," he smiles. "Oh, I meant to give you this at my parent's house," he hands me something from his pocket. I take the small box he'd given me and opened it. Inside was a promise ring. "I have one too, but I don't know if-" he stopped and looked at me. I take out the promise ring and stare at it. It was beautiful. It had beautiful diamonds on it. Written on the side was 'I'll be by your side.'

"It's beautiful," I say looking up at him. "But, I don't know how your girlfriend would feel about-"

"I broke up with her."

"-you giving me a promise-" I stop, realizing what he said. "You did what?"

"After seeing you yesterday, I know I was a dick at first but seeing you again, it just made me miss you," he shrugged. "I was gonna give that to you before we left for the airport, but you were gone."

"Man..." I sighed. "I really messed things up for us."

"No, look it's alright," he scooted closer to me. "Alexis, I think I'm more in love with you now than I've ever been. I thought I'd get over you in two months but it only made the love grow stronger!"

I stared at him with a smile on my lips. "Can we try it again? I won't mess it up again, I promise." I help up the ring, "I promise."

He smiles and tackles me. His arms were wrapped around me tightly and he was kissing my face repeatedly as I giggled.

No, no, no.

Why can't you leave me alone? He's not going to hurt me. He wouldn't. We have promise rings.

Stupid girl.

"Hey Jack," I said as I got an idea. I pulled out a crumbled twenty and several tens. "Can we take the hippies to breakfast?"

"How'd you get all of that?" he stared at it.

"I made a lot of jewelry with shells and cool rocks and beads I found, as we traveled," I smiled. "People started buying them," I shrugged. "I actually made-" I stopped myself, I'll show him. "I made a lot."

"Alright, well let's go get some hippie breakfast," he smiled and stood up.

"I told them all about the Hawaiian waffles, they loved the idea of them, they haven't even had waffles in years." I paused, "they all left their families too."

Once we arrived at the beach, we saw the hippies swaying to Bob Marley, it was always nice to see them dancing. They were so happy.

"Breezy! You're back!" Cotton stood up and hugged me. "He's cute," she whispered and we giggled.

"So!" I called. "Jack and I are taking all of you crazy hippies to eat HAWAIIAN WAFFLES."

They all gasp with wide eyes, "finally," they all say.

Hash let's Jack drive the van to the the cafe, everyone else was piled into the back. "How long will you guys be here?" Jack asks as he pulled into the cafe parking lot.

"Planning on leaving in a few days," Ziggy replies. Jack and I make eye contact through the rearview mirror. His eyes quickly look away and he shuts off the van.

"We're here," he says and gets out. All of us rush to get out of the van and we push into the cafe. "Uh, biggest table you've got," Jack said with a laugh. I heard a bark and the waitress' eyes widened. "And a dog bowl."