no strings attached :: a.i.

09 : nirvana

After the session was over, Kyle hurried out. He avoided eye contact with me the whole time and I didn't want to push it, so I let him go. I walked out with Tony in silence.

I pulled out my phone to ask him a question, "Do you want to do something?"

Tony shrugged and opened his mouth to respond when suddenly he got a text, "Its Nicole," He took a second to read it. As he read, a smile crept onto his face, "She wants to have lunch! I could say no, if you still want to hang out though."

I shook my head, I liked seeing him happy. He smiled and leaned down to kiss me on the cheek, "Thank you so much! Maybe we can do something tomorrow?" I shrugged and waved after him as he hurried off.

I stood outside the Counseling center for a moment. I didn't want to go to the book store and I didn't want to go home. For the first time in forever, I wanted to be with people. I started to walk in no particular direction. As I walked, an idea came to me. Bell's Ice Cream Parlor. Now that I had a destination I walked faster. Maybe Thomas wouldn't be working today. Even if he was off, a little ice cream never hurt anybody.

A bell ringed above my head as I entered the door. From where I stood, I couldn't see anyone else in the building. As I moved towards the counter, I heard a crash from somewhere in the back, followed by a string of curse words. That was definitely Thomas.

I rushed through the 'employees only' door, searching for him. All I could see of Thomas was his sneakers, sticking out under a dozen cardboard boxes. I heard him moan and the boxes were lifted, revealing a disgruntled boy. His hair was disheveled and a frown was plastered on his face. When I laughed at the sight, Thomas jumped.

"I didn't know you were in here. You almost gave me a heart attack, Paris," I chucked and reached out a hand to help him up. "I'm so glad that my pain could bring a smile to your face," his sarcastic tone made me laugh even harder. He was no amused.

After a moment he smiled too and brought me into one of his bear hugs. The kind that I had missed so much.

"So, what brings you here?" Thomas let go of me and started to pick up the boxes.

I slowly brought out my phone to respond, "I don't know. Thought you might be lonely."

"Well you thought right. Do you mind giving me a hand?" I put down my phone on a nearby shelf and joined him in stacking the boxes. After a moment of silence, he finally spoke, "So that Kyle guy, you said he was your new neighbor. You didn't mean, you know, Luke's house. Did you?"

I watched as he put the last box on the self. He turned to look at me. I nod in response to his question. Thomas gave a slight nod. Silence filled the room.

"So, I actually have a lot of work to do today. You can hang out and help if you want," I was glad for the change of subject. I nodded my head and smiled. "Do you still like Nirvana? We recently got a record player. My boss said that 'it adds a certain feel to the shop'" he made air quotations with his fingers around the last few words and I chuckled, nodding again.

I grabbed my phone and followed him back into the front of the shop. Sitting on the counter was a record player, just as he had said. I must have missed it on my way in. He put on the vinyl record and a familiar song started to play.

I watched as he flipped the sign on the door to be reading 'closed'. He then grabbed the chairs and placed them on top of the tables, humming along to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" all the while.

After he was done, Thomas tossed me a broom and then grabbed one for himself, "And now, my dear lady, we sweep."

He moved his broom in time to the music and I did the same, giggling at the boy. He had his eyes closed and was lip syncing into the end of the broom's handle. He looked absolutely ridiculous in his work outfit; a navy blue t-shirt tucked into a pair of khakis that had obviously not been ironed this morning.

He opened one eye to look at me, "What?" I just laughed and shook my head, going back to sweeping the floor. "That's right, get back to working. I'm not going to keep you here if you are just going to stand there the whole time."

His laughed filled the room. The song ended and a new one started, this one was Luke's favorite, "Come as You Are". Our broom's made scraping sounds against the floor as we tried in vain to match the noises to the music. As I danced around the tiled floor, I soaked in the comfortable feeling that came with the setting. I finally felt at home, but home was just a room full of my favorite sounds.

~~

casually using Troye Sivan lyrics in my story