He's Giving Me a Reason, an Emblem3 Fan Fic (Sequel to Riptide)

Chapter 42

It was only the second week of summer vacation and Adrianna had already dragged me to go back to school shopping. Or should I say first day of college shopping? Whatever it was called, it was the reason why I was standing in Kohl's at 8:30 in the morning on a Thursday. Adrianna was pushing around one of those huge clunky shopping carts, knocking into every possible thing.

"Oooh, what about this one?" She pulled a piece of purple fabric out of the middle of a stack of sheets. I shrugged and flopped down on the decoration bed that was made up to display a comforter. One of the store employees kind of looked at me funny, but I stared her down. A few seconds later she walked away. You don't mess with me when I'm tired.

"They're nice." I said plainly.

"Nice? You gotta give me something better than nice! These sheets are going to be on your bed for possibly your entire college life! They need to be the sheets." Adrianna protested. I chuckled at the crazy look in her eye. Shopping with Ade can be pretty insane sometimes.

"Then they're the sheets." I threw them in the cart, poking fun at how serious she was about this." She must have noticed how ridiculous she was acting because she let out a small chuckle.

"I just can't believe we're going away to college." She whispered that last part. College. I was going to college. To be honest, I was looking forward to being in the city again. NYU was my home territory. Living in New Jersey, the city was a mere twenty minutes away, so I was always there. It was nice to be back somewhere familiar for once.

But Huntington Beach was my home now. And I knew I was going to have a hard time leaving it behind. "What's next on the list?" The sound of Adrianna's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked down at the piece of paper in my hand.

"Uh, shower caddies? What the hell is a shower caddy?" I laughed, and then I heard Adrianna laughing with me.

"You know! It's those plastic carrier things that you put your shampoo and stuff in." She clarified. Oh okay. I actually do know what those are. I just didn't know they had a specific name. I just called them shower-carrier-boxy-things. Shower caddy definitely had a better ring to it.

We wandered around the department store for another hour or so; buying everything we needed for our dorms to be ready. And that's when the exciting part started. Since Adrianna was forcing me to go shopping, she allowed me to pick one of the stores. Even if that store was in Los Angeles half an hour away.

I haven't been to Amoeba since the trip we took with the boys last summer. If there was one place that I had to go before I went off to college, this was it. Around 3:00 I had dragged Adrianna in through the familiar record store. I took a deep breath in. The store was bustling with people; the smell of cardboard record sleeves and fresh vinyl filled the air. Yes, vinyl has a smell. It's a combination of passion and history, but glorious all the same.

I left Adrianna's side and started piling up the records in my arms. Green Day, Sublime, Nirvana, Blink-182, Led Zeppelin, and the new All Time Low CD. Somewhere in the best of the 90s aisle I ran into Adrianna, whose basket was also full to the brim.

"What did you get?" I inquired. I glanced down into her basket attempting to read some of the titles on the shiny plastic CD cases.

"I got the new Demi album, some Foo Fighters, A Celine Dion CD..." She trailed off after that last one and I raised my eyebrows at her. She burst out laughing. "Oh my god, I'm totally joking." She said between giggles. I let out a sigh of relief. I was pretty cool with any kind of music--my taste had a pretty broad spectrum. But I draw the line at Celine Dion. "Let's see, Selena Gomez, some Fall Out Boy, and One Republic." She sighed happily. Along with all of my records I got a free CBGB decal. I'm planning on sticking it on the bottom of my skateboard when I get home.

"Hey what time is it?" I asked Adrianna. I left my phone in the car accidentally so I had no idea.

"It's 5:30." She said.

"What time do we have to be at the boys' house?" I asked.

"6. We should probably get going." We made our way to the register and paid for all our stuff. I spent over $175 on music alone. But it was so worth it. I hopped into the drivers' seat to start the drive home. We were already running kind of late, but Adrianna insisted that we stop for coffee. I pulled into the drive-thru Starbucks, exhausted. I was super tired so I didn't say much to oppose the idea. About a half hour later we were sitting in the Stromberg's driveway, Iced Caramel Macchiatos in hand.

The front door was open so we decided to walk right in.

"Hey guys, we're here." I slipped my sunglasses to the top of my head so it wasn't so dark. There was no answer, but something smelled really good. My guess was that Laraine had made some sort of Lasagna earlier.

"Guys! Where are-" I stopped short upon seeing the two boys covered in tomato sauce.

"Uh, hey babe." Wes smiled sheepishly. When he flipped his hair out of his eyes, a bunch of flour fell to the floor. "What's up?" I covered my mouth with my hand, trying not to laugh.

"Are you... cooking?" I grinned.

"Attempting to." Drew grimaced.

"Where did you guys learn to cook?" Adrianna laughed.

"Would it be shameful to admit the Food Network?" Wes chuckled, pointing to the TV where Bobby Flay was boiling some pasta. I nodded my head slowly.

"Do you guys want any help?" I asked.

"No, no. We're gonna cook everything, and you guys aren't allowed to help." Wes stuck his tongue out at me. It was kind of cute how he wanted to do this on his own.

"And voila! Dinner is served." As Drew spoke Wes removed his hands from in front of my eyes. As soon as my vision adjusted I saw the kitchen table, covered in dishes of homemade food. There were different bowls of pasta, salad and a tray of chicken parmesan. And it didn't look half bad.

"Happy one year anniversary." Wes smiled sweetly down at me and kissed me on the cheek.

Hey guys!! :D I hope you liked this chapter!!! Congratulations to ediefalk for winning the dedication for this chapter :) woohoo! I will dedicate the next chapter to whoever can guess my middle name!!

HINT: It's an emotion and a name at the same time :)

P.S. Go check out my Drew Fan fic! It's called Miss Cleopatra :) You can find it on my profile!