Billy Carter

Chapter 6: Do You Want To Know A Secret?

Wednesday night at about five o'clock I met Annabelle at Hyde Park. She was wearing the pretty floral sundress I'd seen her with the other day after school, and her long black hair was tied up in a messy ponytail that ironically looked too perfect to not have been styled. Her makeup was very natural and pretty, and overall she just looked amazing. When she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and grinned at me, I kind of fell in love with her a bit. That tends to happen to me - whenever a girl does something cute and pretty like that I sort of fall in love with her a bit, even if she's boring or bratty. Not that Annabel's boring. She can be bratty.
"Hi," I grinned back at her and she skipped over happily.
"Hi! Are those for me?" she asked, looking at the small bouquet of yellow daisies I had for her. Tulips were pushing the budget.
"Yeah. I thought you might like them - yellow's your favourite colour, isn't it?" I asked, offering her the flowers.
"It is! How did you know?" Annabelle took the flowers and smelled them.
"I didn't, I took a guess. I mean, you have a lot of yellow things, so I suspected. Anyroad, how was your day?"
"Good, but it's much better now. How was yours?"
"Same, better now." I smiled at her.
"So, what are we doing tonight?" she asked, holding onto my arm and biting her lip at me.
"Well, considering my limited budget, I decided on something that wasn't too expensive, but still romantic - I hope. I think you'll like it. And just think, the money we save tonight can go towards our next date, and we can do something a little more expensive, like see a movie or go out for dinner," I told her, trying to reassure her that I actually cared.
"Billy, I don't care about how much money you're spending on me," Annabelle told me, looking me seriously in the eyes. "Look, I know you don't have lots of money, and that's perfectly fine. I don't care what we do, as long as we're together. Don't worry about impressing me with fancy romantic meals or tickets to see the latest blockbuster. I'd be just as happy snuggled up to you on the couch with a bowl of popcorn watching a DVD." She leaned in and gave me a kiss.
"We don't have a DVD player, we have a VCR," I told her.
"Well, I guess that's it then. We had a good run, but I've got standards you know-" she turned around and walked off a few steps but I grabbed her hand and she turned back to me, laughing. "Video it is then."
"The images are pretty grainy - the movies have been re-watched so many times, and they're outdated-"
"Then no videos, I'm sure we could find something else to do," she said cheekily, looking down at my mouth then back up to my eyes with a mischievous sparkle.
"Oh?"
"Mm-hm." She leaned in and we kissed again, but we were careful not to get too carried away - not in public, at least. "So, what are we going to do tonight?"
"Picnic. That's romantic, isn't it?" I asked.
"That's really cute, Billy." She smiled again, then eyed me suspiciously. "Did Cynthia tell you to do that?" she asked.
"No, actually. I came up with it all by myself. Same with the flowers," I told her proudly. "I may have googled some suggestions, but this is all me. Mainly."
"I love it. Let's set up by the Serpentine."
"Sure." I took her hand and we set off for the water, finding a nice patch of grass to spread the blanket out on and unpack tea. "I brought coffee and tea, because I wasn't sure which you liked most. I've seen you drink both. And I got milk and sugar too, 'cause I'm not sure how you have it. There's also water. And I got biscuits and cheese and ham sandwiches. The, uh, biscuits are separate to the sandwiches."
"Oh, I like a man that can cook." Annabel smiled at me and took a biscuit.
"I can actually cook," I told her. "But my ingredients are limited and sandwiches seemed more picnic friendly."
"You can cook? Cornflakes and boiled eggs don't count, Bill," she laughed.
"I can so cook! One day I'll cook you dinner, you'll see - you'll eat your words then."
"Alphabet soup doesn't count either!"
I rolled my eyes at her while she cackled at her own joke. "You aren't funny," I told her, failing to suppress my own laughter. She nodded and wiped tears of laughter off her face.
"I am so funny."
"You're not."
"I am though. Come on - commemorative selfie." She took her phone out of her handbag and turned to take a photo of us both. She had a big proud grin, and I was sort of rolling my eyes in the picture. "Oh, that's so going on Instagram." I shifted next to her and leaned over to watch her as she went on to post the picture. "'Can you believe this handsome lad doesn't appreciate my hilarity?'" she read aloud her caption as she typed it, tagged me in the photo and added a dozen hashtags including "firstdate", "hydepark", "picnic" "model" and "hebroughtmeflowers<3". She shared on Twitter and Instagram, and I swear to God, within five seconds of posting, her picture had one hundred likes.
We had dinner, Annabelle excused herself to pee or something, and then we talked until seven, when I had to start heading over to Ollie's for tutoring. I was having a great time with Annabelle, and it was hard to pull myself away from our date. Still, I was excited to see Ollie. I was always excited to see him - and even more so lately, even though I knew he didn't have feelings for me and nothing was going to happen between us.
"I don't want you to go," Annabelle sighed sadly, pouting slightly and squeezing my hand.
"I don't want to go either," I told her. "This easily beats studying. But I have to, or I'm going to have to repeat the year - and that's not sexy."
"I don't know, I think you could pull it off," Annabel told me, putting her free hand on the side of my face and pulling me into what was likely our hundredth kiss. Her mouth tasted a bit like stomach acid, but I wasn't going to say something and embarrass her. "Maybe I could come, and study with you both? Then afterwards we could pick up where we left off?" she asked hopefully.
I smiled at her. "And how do you expect me to get any work done with you there looking the way you do?" I asked her. "I couldn't keep my eyes off of you. Or hands, for that matter." I kissed her again and she giggled against my mouth.
"I guess you're right - after all, you're only human," she teased.
"Exactly. But I'll take you home, if you like. Ollie's house isn't too far from yours, is it?"
"No, in fact it's a couple blocks closer."
"Well there you go."
"You don't have to come all the way though."
"I don't mind. It's five more minutes I get to spend with you."
"Aw, you can be pretty smooth when you want to, huh?" she asked me, giving me another kiss.
"It's a gift."
She helped me pack up and we took the underground, walking the last few blocks to her house together. Well, house was a fairly modest way to put it.
"Holy fuck, you live in a bonafide mansion?" I asked - shortly after picking my bottom jaw off the pavement. We stood at the electronic gate baring us from entering the property Annabelle called "home".
"It's not a mansion, silly! It's a villa," she told me. "Besides, you've been here before! My fifteenth, remember?"
"Yeah, but it looks a lot bigger in daylight and sober."
"Ollie's house isn't much smaller you know." Principal Connors might be a, well, school principal, but he married well above his pay grade. I don't quite understand what exactly Mrs. Connors does, but she owns half a dozen local businesses and is a silent partner or something. Whatever she does, she makes a shit-tonne of cash doing it. Ollie tried to explain it to me once, but I just got confused.
"Oh, it is. He has a big house, but it's not this big, it's half of this big. Cynthia's your closest rival when it comes to housing, and hers isn't much bigger than Ollie's," I told Annabelle.
"Come on Billy, size doesn't matter!"
"We both know that it does."
"Fair point. Don't be intimidated though."
"Don't be intimidated?" I repeated in disbelief.
"I told you before! Money doesn't matter, it's not important to me! The more you have of something the less valuable it becomes," she told me, somehow managing to sound really deep and incredibly shallow at the same time. She saw my confused expression and sighed. "My point is if I was interested in money I wouldn't be dating you," she told me with a bright and naïve smile.
"Ok, I know you're trying to make me feel better, but you do realise that was the verbal equivalent of a punch in the gut?" I asked her, my pride a bit hurt and tone a bit sharp. Her face fell and she looked at me in horror.
"Oh shit, I'm so sorry Billy! I didn't mean that the way it sounded!" she told me, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. "I'm so sorry, I just meant that it's not something you need to be worried about! I really didn't mean that how it sounded - I'm such an idiot sometimes! Please forgive me?" she begged, looking earnestly into my eyes. I could see she was mortified and that she really was sorry, so I nodded and gave her a smile.
"It's alright, I forgive you," I told her.
"I'm so sorry. I'm always putting my foot in my mouth like that, it's so embarrassing," she sighed, and gave me a big hug. I hugged her back.
"Do you want to come in and meet my parents?" Annabelle asked.
"Maybe next time, I'm running late as it is," I told her. "I'll see you at school tomorrow, alright?"
"Sure." I gave her a kiss goodnight - which only really made it all that much harder to part ways - and headed for Ollie's house.