Nicotine

Chapter 6-Ice cream

Artemis' POV

I feel the engine rev underneath me, as he starts the bike up. He puts on his helmet and I follow suit. He turns toward me to adjust my helmet, securing it onto my head. He flips up my visor so I can see and hear him easily.

"Put your hands around my waist."

"What? Why?" I ask quickly, a bit apprehensive.  

He closes my visor along with his, revving the engine. He places my arms around his torso.

"Hold on tight!"

The bike jumps to a start and I clutch tightly to him, afraid I'll fall off. I can feel him slightly chuckle from how quickly my attitude toward pressing my body against his changed. I slightly lessen my grip to feel the wind in my hair, and the grin spread across my face. This is amazing.

He takes a sharp turn into a parking lot, slowing down and parking across from an ice cream shop.

"You can let go of me now, Artemis."

I instantly blush and pull my arms away," Sorry."

He chuckles, "It's alright, don't worry about it. C'mon."

We walk into the shop, immediately greeted by a worker.

"Blake! Sweetheart welcome back, take a seat anywhere you'd like I'll have Natalie take your order. Alright?"

"Sounds good Francesca," he says moving from in front of me, "This is Artemis, she is new and I thought she should know where the best ice cream in town is."

He winked at me and then smiled at Francesca as she glanced over the counter at me.

"Well aren't you the cutest pumpkin in the whole darn patch?" She said as she smiled.

I blushed and whispered, "Thank you." I followed Blake to one of the tables.

He pulled out a seat for me and gestured for me to sit down. I started to blush once again, as I sat down and stared at my hands in my lap.

"Artemis, what would you like to eat?"

"Huh?" I ask being shaken out of my thoughts.

"Eat, what would you like to eat?" he asks smiling at me.

"Oh, well what is good?"

"Just about everything, what is your favorite kind of ice cream treat?"

"Well, I really like Malts, and then ice cream caramel sundaes."

"I know exactly what to order you," he says, taking my menu, and scanning the room for Natalie.

She comes over quickly, "hello, Blake darling what will you and your girlfriend like to eat?"

"Oh I'm-"

"Going to have the caramel and vanilla malt, and I will have the cookies and crème super milkshake," he says handing the menus to her.

"Alrighty, that'll be out in about 5 minutes," she says walking back towards the counter to give our order.

"Blake why didn't you deny that I was your girlfriend?" I ask shocked.

"They wouldn't listen to either of us, even if we insisted we aren't together. So I thought I'd save you the breath," he says smiling at me.

"Alright you weirdo," I say laughing lightly at him. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, go for it." he says absentmindedly.

"Why does Jason keep telling me to stay away from you?"

The light hearted conversation comes to a startling halt, as his eyes grow wide.

"Why do you want to know? It's really none of your business," He says coldly.

"Because you are both my friends and I want to know why you don't get along," I say, determined to get an answer.

"Artemis this is none of your business, so stay out of it," he says, his tone growing louder with every word.

"Well, I'm making it my business. So talk pretty boy."

He opens his mouth, eyes aglow with an angry fire. Before he can get a word out Natalie comes back with our ice cream.

"Enjoy you two."

We fall back into silence as we stare at our drinks, neither of us willing to move an inch. I fear breathing may rekindle the fight that was about to happen.

"Listen, I understand what happened between you and Jason may be private, but I need to know so I can help fix whatever happened," I take a deep breath after finishing, preparing for the possible explosion that may ensue.

"It was freshman year of high school. We were bestfriends and then he came out as gay. I was proud to be his friend, proud that he was brave enough to be himself," he takes a deep breath, "But soon we started to drift apart. I joined the baseball team, and he joined the basketball team. We didn't see much of each other, even though we live next to one another. Rumors started that we had been secretly dating throughout junior high, which wasn't true. I'm as straight as they come."

I interrupted him, "So you let the rumors get between you two? I still don't get why he practically hates you."

"He rightly hates me. I was a shit head to him once rumors started getting around. My buddies on the baseball team told me I had to prove I wasn't gay by pulling a terrible prank of Jason, one that I would rather not relive. I did it to save my reputation, at the rick of our friendship," He sighs as he finishes, head hung, and shake pushed to the side.

"I don't hang out with those douche bags anymore, I quit the team that year. Now I just hang out with my friends. They really aren't as bad as they seem, tough on the outside, a façade."

"Did you ever apologize to Jason?" I ask.

"I did but he slammed the door in my face and told me he never wanted to see my face again."

"I get that. I'll find away to bring you two back together."

"Artemis don't get your hopes up. It might not be possible. What I did... it was horrible." He says shaking his head.

"Well there is no use dwelling over it now," I say pushing his shake back toward him," Finish your shake and we can head back to my house. Okay?"

"Okay," He says giving me a slight smile and eating his milkshake.

I smile back, happy I could do something to help the both of them. I quickly finish my malt, which was amazing. This boy has good taste in ice cream.

"We should probably get going soon, it's a bit of a ride back to your house, and it's getting cold," He says going to find Natalie and paying the check.

I take out my phone to find a text from Jason.

'I can't believe you actually left with him. Arti I thought you were better than that. He is a bad guy, and you have to see that. We are talking about this later.'

I instantly feel horrible for hanging out with Blake. I sit silently rereading the message over and over until I'm interrupted.

"Hey Artemis, are you ready to go?" Blake says.

"Yeah, let's go," I say putting my phone back in my bag.

We walk out together and get on his bike. I put my helmet on, not being able to keep that text out of my mind. I wrap my arms around Blake's waist and we silently ride to my house.

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Sorry, I've had some writers block after my recent break up. But I'm back.

QOTD: "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."