Begin Again // Calum Hood

Chapter 12.

The sun was basically blinding me as Michael steered with his left hand, his right hand sat on my leg.

"Where's the first place she wants us to go?" He asked as we sat at a red light.

"Uh looks like, we're going to," I opened the note cleverly titled, 'Date Already'. "It says to get something to eat, go to the beach, and bec- never mind I won't read that last part." I giggled as I read the note telling us to become official and then have celebratory sex on the beach. We won't follow those steps.

"What does it say?" Michael looked over to my passenger side.

"It's not important. We aren't gonna do the end thing." I rubbed my hand over his.

"Just tell me what it says." He whined. I looked him in the eyes and shook my head. He pouted his lip. I mimicked his pout and shook my head again. "If it's not important just tell me then!" He laughed as he turned towards the road again.

"If you're really so curious to know, it says for us to go to the beach, become an official couple, and have celebratory beach sex." I stared at his blank face and slightly open mouth. He let out a short laugh and looked over at me.

"So were aren't doing the last part?" He repeated.

"We are not." I lowered my head to my lap.

"Well darn! I won't need the condoms I brought then!" He sarcastically yelled and dramatically slapped the steering wheel. I snapped him look of confusion as my head was still sideways.

"You're kidding right, you didn't actually bring those, did you?" I whispered.

"No." He half breathed, half laughed. Silence fell upon us, the only thing you could hear was "Always" by Blink-182 flowing through the speakers. Michael hummed along and tapped the beat with his fingers on my leg. "Where do you want to eat?"

"It doesn't matter to me. I'm not really that hungry." I mumbled.

"How about just, like, some ice cream or something and we take it from there?"

"Yeah that sounds good."

"So who are some of your favorite bands?" Michael asked as he spooned out some of his chocolate ice cream from across the small booth.

"Well, Blink is obviously up there, um, I have the basics like All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, and The 1975. Then I have random people like Childish Gambino, Bea Miller, Ed Sheeran, Frank Ocean, Jhené Aiko, Odd Future, Twenty One Pilots... Sorry I'm getting random and rambling. My music taste is a little bit of everything ." I awkwardly chuckled.

"We have pretty similar taste actually." He replied, his stare still focused on his little cup. I took another small spoonful.

"Do you think we're moving fast?" He peered up suddenly.

"Well, uh. Kinda? I guess?" I questioned. "Why such the random timing?"

"I don't know it just bugs me how I'm just finding out your favorite bands and we've slept together." He paused, realizing his flawed choice of words. "Well, not slept together, like actually slept." He corrected.

"Yeah I know what you mean. We should get to know each other more." I stirred my ice cream. "I feel like our relationship was sorta pressured at the beginning with my fight with Calum." I admitted.

"Yeah I could see that. What if we just start brand new?" His eyes lit up.

"Yeah. Let's do it." I cleared my throat and smoothed my shirt. "My name is Amber Jennings, I'm 20 and like music."