The Quirky Tale of April Hale (Quirky Series #1)

2.12: shelter

message: this chapter primarily focuses on April and Alex. If you forget who Alex is, he's the guy that roped Ryder into street fighting on Book One, and April's senior at Greenlake University. Ryder hates Alex because he seems cunning and like a fox. He's also the kind of guy who can make a lot of money by being smart and hide his emotions better than a five ton of makeup can. In short, he's a total opposite of Ryder. 

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2.12: shelter

Ryder's grandmother still gave me the chills whenever my mind wandered to that unfortunate memory. I had never been one to really care or notice about people's little quirks, but Phillipe-Something-Something (seriously I might need to tattoo her name on my wrist or something because I kept forgetting it) made it impossible for me to not notice hers.

Her eyes always moved all around me, as if trying to find any faults in the way I sit, talk, walk, or even stand. I couldn't discreetly pick my nose in peace.

And then there was her fingers, which was a true indicator of her patience. When she was content, her fingers would sit still, but the moment I fumble with my word or even digress a bit from any topic she predisposed.

I'll tell you this: I'm never one who has particular fear of fingers. Long, bony fingers didn't scare me. Stumpy short fingers wouldn't faze me at all. But there was something about the tapping of Phillipe-Something-Something's fingers that made my heart race, and not in a good way.

Safe to say, my whole body was in a very effective cardiovascular workout the whole time I met him, and the 1056 times I thought about her a week after that.

If this was Ryder's subtle way to get me to lose weight, then he'd been super successful.

For some reason, Alex was the one who noticed this.

Since he was dating Trisha, he'd been around on the townhouse a lot. Right now, he was waiting for Trisha putting on make up in the living room. Apparently, they were supposed to go out for a date but Trisha made him wait for more than 20 minutes while she attempted a youtube-inspired make up.

"Can you please wait another 20 minutes? I promise you get to pick the place tonight!" she screamed from behind the room, right after a wail filled with fury.

Ah. Her experiment apparently just failed. Time to move on to youtube-tutorial #2.

"You're very patient, you know," I commented at Alex, who only accepted Trisha's plea with a smile.

"Nah, I like to see the women I date look good," he said. "You, however, hasn't look presentable for the last week."

"Is it the teeth?" I said, pointing at my constantly grinding teeth. "Or the nails?" which was chipped because I chewed on it too much.

"Have you look at the mirror in the last week?" he asked. "Like, at all?"

"Not really. I don't like to look at myself when I'm anxious. It confirms my anxiety."

"Yeah," he nodded. "You better not."

There was a lingering silence as we went about our respective routine. Him checking on instagram and liking every picture with a pretty girl in it, and me trying to come up with a new script to show to my lecturer.

Then he suddenly talked to me.

"You can tell me, you know."

I looked up to him.