"Do you want to completely violate rule number one?" I asked, she raised an eyebrow, "How so?"
"Twenty questions."
"Yes."
She walked to the kitchen with both of our coffee cups in her hands, three them away, and dimmed the lights, she lit a match and brightened the room with multiple candles, then shut off the lights completely.
"Sit on the couch." She instructed, I did so, as she fiddled with something in the corner of the room, then an old slower song started playing, on a record player.
She sat back down, with two throw blankets next to me on the couch.
"Okay, you start."
"Where are you from?" I asked, she stretched her legs across my thighs. Two layers of clothing were between us. Her jeans, and mine.
"Alaska." She shrugged.
"Wait-what? I thought Alaskans were like-Eskimos." She rolled her eyes. "No, actually, it's an equal amount of Eskimos and other ethnic groups."
I nodded, "Where in Alaska?"
"Homer, it's a tiny town on the peninsula."
"Oh-cool."
"My turn!" Rae clapped her hands, I gestured for her to continue, "What do you do for living?"
My hand some how made way to her shin, my thumb making small circles on her jeans. "I'm a photographer, and a bartender." She nodded.
"Okay-what made you want to come to New York?" I asked. Her eyes lit up as if she had an amazing story- surprise! She did.
"Well- It did not take very long for me to realize that I hate Alaska. So I worked really hard, and graduated early. And graduation day, I actually had jeans, and a t-shirt under my robe, and I had my bag filled with all my stuff, which wasn't much." I had no idea where she was going with this, "and I ran to the international airport, which was at the city, so the minuet I graduated I drove four hours to the airport, and picked the next plane to God-Knows-Where. Like-I didn't care where I was going as long as it wasn't Alaska, and boom. It was New York, so here I am."
"Jesus." Is all I could manage to say, "That's bloody awesome."
"Bloody?" She quirked her eyebrow, "Are you British?"
"I always wanted to go to England."
"Hmm...That'll come in handy one day." She smirked.
"Hey! Wanna order Chinese?" She asked, her eyes wandered to my hand that was on her leg, she stared at it, for quite a while. "Yeah-sure." I smiled, she was still staring. As if reality hit her, she stopped, her cheeks flushed a deep crimson as she nodded, and got up from the couch, pulling the phone that was attached to the kitchen wall.
Yes, she has a phone, that is a rotary phone, not cellular.
She blushed. What does that mean? She blushed because I was touching her? Or because I was staring at her?
"Okay; thank you." Rae smiled into the phone and hung it back on the wall.
Wait-why do I care?
"Care about what?" She asked; hopping up on the couch.
"Sorry, I was just-uh, singing."
'Just-uh singing.' Good one, Charlie. You are SO smooth.
"Okay..." She trailed off.
"So my turn." She started after a few moments of silence.
"Okay- go ahead."
"Are you out-doorsy?"
"Umm. Not really. Actually, not at all." Her eyebrows furrowed and she slowly nodded.
"Well-I think that's enough for this game." She decided, as if on cue, there was a hollow knock at the door.
"FOOD!" She squealed, running to the door. It was a guy about- five years older than us, he had two small white bags with a red logo-which was some Chinese symbol.
"Hi!" She greeted, grabbing the bags out of his hands.
"That'll be twenty four fifteen." He said with some accent that was new to my ears.
Her hand slipped into her back pocket, grabbed her wallet, and she gave him a twenty and a ten, "Keep the change."
He smiled in gratitude, turned on his heel, and Rae shut the door.
"FOOD!" She squealed, again.
I chuckled, snatching the bags from her and placing them on the table.
We ate in silence, a few random, "Food's good." And "Yeah"s I noticed next to a large painting of Albert Einstein, there was a small sign that read, "Let this be first, and never possibly the last."
"Did you make that?" I asked, whipping my mouth off with a napkin.
She swallowed some sesame chicken and a nodded, "Yeah." She took a swig of her Mountain Dew, (she doesn't drink brown soda, weird, I know)
"What does it mean, exactly?" I asked, sliding a couple noodles onto my chop sticks.
"I'm obsessed with firsts; first kiss, first corn dog, first time I ate Chinese food with a guy who is obsessed with the British and looks British but refuses the fact that his name is now British," she rambled, "And, the second part is, first kiss: do you want it to be the last? Like- I don't know about you but, I for sure don't want this to be the last time I have a closeted Brit in my apartment eating foreign food."
I pointed my finger at her, nodding, "Makes sense. That was pretty deep, you should write a book."
"Oh-I did." She stated in a matter of fact manner.
I swallowed my egg role, "Come again?"
"I wrote a book! A children's book."
"Oh-um. Okay then."
She just shrugged, and took another fork-full of noodles, (She doesn't believe in chop sticks.)
I gulped down some of my coke, which Rae gave me a disgusted look, "Sorry but I'm not racist toward liquid high fructose corn syrup." I stuck out my tongue, she rolled her eyes and laughed.
"So what is it about? The book- I mean."
"What book?"
"The one you wrote."
"Oh-that book." She laughed, I rolled my eyes. "I don't know yet, it is still coming together."
I laughed and picked up my chopsticks, "You are one special girl, Rae."
"And you are one special guy, Finn."
