Talk Me Down // Spider-Man (BOOK 2)

Chapter 6 - Dazzling Personality

A couple of weeks after promising Gwen I would say yes to the next guy who asked me out, I was faced with the predicament of actually going through with it. My lovely, stirrer of a best friend decided to take it upon herself to make it happen. She sought Harry Osborne out. She literally stood outside his office, waited for him to leave and then gave him my number. I was oblivious to her doing this, well that was until I got a phone call, a call from Mr Osborne himself.

Don't get me wrong, going against his public reputation Harry seemed like a great guy, the perfect guy even. He was smart, funny, had amazing eyes and was now the head of a 200 billion dollar company. Even with all that, I still hesitated, it didn't feel right. After much convincing over the phone, Harry smooth talked me into going for coffee with him, just as friends as he put it. Yeah, like I've not heard that one before. The second I put the phone down after agreeing to this little meet up, I regretted it straight away. I felt like I was making a huge mistake.

"Gwen, I don't think I can go through with this," I worried, Gwen touching up my make up on the morning of mine and Harry's starbucks trip.

"Lauren, for god's sake. We both know the reason why you don't wanna do this. The reason is 6ft 2, stupid and in the past. You need to move on."

"Maybe I'm not ready. If Peter found out I was seeing other guys he'd be really upset."

"He broke up with you Lauren," Gwen pushed, grabbing on to my shoulders.

"Yeah to protect me, not because he didn't love me."

"Fine, one break up I can let slide. Two, no way. You are meeting Harry and that is final. You never know you might actually end up enjoying yourself."

Turns out she was right. What I intended to be a 10 minute gulp and run at the coffee shop turned into a whole morning of getting to know each other, jokes, fun and laughter. I can't remember the last time I actually did that. For the first time in months my mind wasn't plagued by thoughts of a certain Spider-Parker.

Harry was exciting, different, drama free. He didn't come with a stack of bad feelings, memories and pain. With him I had a clean slate. With him I had a chance at maybe being happy again. We'd gone out for drinks as 'friends' a few times since then. Maybe all that is destined for me and Harry is to be friends, but who knows. If we take it slow, like really slow maybe it can blossom into something else. We'll see.

"Hey, Mrs Stacy do you need a hand with the food?" It was a Sunday and Gwen had invited me round to spend the day with her family. I wanted to help out whilst I was there. It was the least I could do after everything that's happened. Part of me will always feel guilty for ripping their family apart.

"Oh thanks sweetie, do you want to slice some bread for the table?"

"Sure."

Grabbing a bread knife from the drawer, I placed the freshly baked bloomer on to the counter and started to cut it into slices. Now everybody knows how accident prone I am right? Seriously though, even I couldn't mess up slicing bread surely.

Breaking news coming out of downtown Manhattan this afternoon...

The radio alerted from the kitchen shelf just behind me.

An armed bank heist was thwarted by our very own Spider-Man.

My attention was now drawn away at the sudden mention of Pete. It doesn't matter what I do he is always there, waiting to pop back out and make sure I haven't forgotten him. This time around however I wasn't annoyed, I wasn't angry. I was just worried. I hope he's ok.

Eye witnesses from inside the bank say that the masked hero had a few near misses when the robbers opened fire in his direction.

What?