Worth the Effort

Chapter 7 - ORIGINAL

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Chris

As we walked around the mall, I let out a heavy sigh. I thought it would be a good idea to hang out with my friends and go with our normal routine of checking out girls, and we chose the mall today. I was hoping that that way I could have some type of distraction and finally stop thinking about Stella before my date tonight.

I had this weird feeling that I wouldn't be able to get her out of my head for a while, so I had to put in some effort to distract myself.

After a half an hour of walking around, we headed for the food court. It was always our main stop; after all, we were teenage boys. We could suck down food like a couple of vacuum cleaners.

As we were walking trying to decide where to eat, I was turned talking to the guys about football when I bumped shoulders with someone. When I turned to apologize, I saw the girl stumble to the side a little bit. When she caught her balance she turned to me.

I held my breath when I saw it was Stella who turned to me with an apologetic look. I was weirdly excited to see her, and the feeling irritated me. I couldn't believe this girl who was still a stranger to me could make me feel so... different.

Great, when my intentions are to forget about her, she just happens to be exactly where I am.

Act natural Chris, she's just a girl.

I kept reminding myself of this as I stood there tongue-tied, staring down at her. She had changed out of her sweatpants and tank top and was now in a pair of dark-wash skinny jeans and a loose-knit sweater.

Was it possible that I found her even more beautiful than I had earlier that day?

I mentally reprimanded myself and tried to remember that she's just a girl, Chris. After a few seconds of awkward staring I managed to smirk down at her.

I let my eyes run over her like they had when we met. "Hey Stella, long time no see. It's nice to... bump into you like this. You look beautiful as ever."

I winked at her suggestively and she blushed. I could tell she was shocked; we could both agree that it was odd for us to run into each other at the mall the same day we met, and we were both taken by surprise.

My friends were looking between me and Stella curiously, and I could tell they were checking her out. Even if she was completely oblivious to it like she seemed to be, they were clearly eyeing her up. At least I wasn't the only guy who found her beautiful.

She shook her head but had a small smile on her face. "Wow Chris, you couldn't even stay away from me for 10 minutes? Did you put hidden cameras in my house so you could stalk me now or something?"

I made an appalled noise and put a hand to my mouth. "Stella, you shouldn't give away your secret plans like that! I'm quite flattered, but I don't think you're supposed to tell me how you're going to stalk me. You should work on that."

Her laughter put a genuine smile to my face and I could feel my friends' gazes on me.

After a few seconds she glanced to my side and saw my friends. Her cheeks immediately darkened in color and she ducked her head down, trying to appear smaller and out of the way.

She's shy, I realized, watching her movements.

It was hard for me to believe that she was shy; we had such a natural banter that seeing this shy side of her come out was a shock to me.

Trying to lighten the mood, I turned to my friends to introduce them. "Well, this is Jackson, Cooper, and Brandon." I saw she was avoiding eye contact and I resisted the urge to comfort her. We barely new each other, for crying out loud.