Never Gonna Let You Go

The One With The Oblivious "Bachelorette"

Reformatting things bites. This was pretty much the chapter in the way of @xAwholeNewworldx's birthday present, so this is like, Happy Late Birthday, pt. 1.

Enjoy,

--LTT

“No love bucket, you’re leaving in a few weeks, and I don’t want to impose on your parents place.” Paige had her phone balanced on her shoulder as she was throwing some basic essentials in her large handbag that had faithfully served her the past few years.

“But Sugah-”

“No Panda.” she interrupted her friend as she headed toward her door, “You’ve already left your own place, and to be honest, I think your family has always been afraid I’m about to either try and convert them, or throw holy water on them and start chanting about ‘Christ compelling them’ or something.”

“...I thought you guys didn’t use holy water? Do you even know what is in-”

“We don’t Panda. But that’s not the point,” she fumbled with her wallet as she walked to the bus stop down the block, “I think I make your parents more than a little wary, I’ll just head to Ara’s. This is the correct address right?”

“Yeah, that’s the right one. If you are about to drive Sugah, I’m hanging up.” Paige paid the bus fare and nodded to the driver as she settled down to find a seat.

“I’m just walking on the bus, but that sounds like a plan, I’ll talk to you later babe.”

“The bus?! Nevermind, I’ll stay on the-”

“I’m a big girl Panda, talk to you later love bucket,” she simply spoke over Panda’s protests “I’ll text you when I get to Ara’s!” with that she hung up her phone and slumped in her seat with a sigh, hugging her bag to her chest and looking down at the neon sticky-note carrying the address she had gotten from her enthusiastic friend.

----

With a knock on her door, Ara wondered who would take the time to trudge up her six flights of stairs.

“Be there in just a second!” Running from the kitchen, Ara caught herself against the wall and yanked open her apartment door smiling.

“Hey Ara, do you think I could crash here fo- oh crud,” Paige stopped her train of thought as she looked over how dressed up her friend was. “You’re about to go out aren’t you. Oh man, just forget I said anything! Pretend I was never here.”

“No, no!” Latching an arm on her friend’s elbow, Ara tried pulling back as hard as she could while still being gentle. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” glancing toward the ground, Paige lightly pried Ara’s fingers from her arm. “I’ll just be leaving.”

“No, not ‘nothing’. What’s happened, Paige.” There was an awkward silence as she stared down at the floor, her mouth opening and closing, eyes occasionally flickering to Ara and a distinctly male figure standing behind her. As Paige's cheeks reddened in embarrassment, Ara turned and nudged the blond, subtly signalled him to give them some privacy.

“Oh, righ’. Girly type s’crets an’ such,” blinking in shock, his Irish accent caught Paige unawares as he raised his arms in surrender and started backing up out of the room.

“I’ll jus’ be in the ki’chen.” Ara gestured to the couch a second after he had left, Paige reluctantly following with a sigh as she flopped down in the cushions, dropping her bag to the floor and her face in her hands. Gently sitting down next to her, Ara put a hand to her back and looked down at the hastily packed bag Paige was just carrying. It looked a little worse for wear, but seemed to hold a few items of clothing and maybe a toothbrush, but other than that, not much else.