One More Chance

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

It was him who pulled away.

“Let’s not start something we can’t finish,” he said. I nodded, still grasping for breath.

“That kiss was something,” I said softly.

He nodded and met my eyes. His graze lowered to my lips, and suddenly his were on mine again.

He pulled away again and grinned. “Damn it,”

“Well, who knows, we might finish what we started later,”

In the end though, we did.

*******************************************

I woke up on his bare chest, and lay there for a few seconds, letting his heat radiate onto my cheek. He was already up and he was playing with my hair.

“Shall we tell them we’re together?” I asked him.

“Are we?” he said with his eyebrow raised. “I never said anything,”

I slapped his neck. “Stop messing with me,”

He grabbed my hand and looked at me suddenly, and I was mesmerized again by his eyes.

He bit his lip. “I enjoyed last night,” A small smirk crawled up his mouth, which turned into a full grin.

“So did I” I replied and kissed him.

*****************************************************

“So, duckie! Are you ready for limelight?” asked Rita with a grin. “The festival’s less than a week away, so we better get ready. Imagine all those cameras! We have to go shopping. Oh god! I’ve forgotten shopping completely!”

I was definitely not prepared for the shopping trip. It was like a family day out, except it was a much bigger family. Haze, Rita, Jared and his parents, Josh and his mother were all crowed into James’s mini bus, listening to Queen, while gossiping loudly. It turned out we were going to a big shopping centre in Manchester to ‘splash out’. The sun was shining, and the whole van was loaded with tents and stuff. This was going to be a day and night trip.

I noticed Jared, who decided to sit next to me, check his hangnail.

“What’s up?” I asked him.

He smiled and nodded. “Nothing,”

“Are you still with James?” I questioned.

His ears turned red. “Yeah,”

My voice dropped into a whisper. “When are you going to tell?”

His eyes looked away from mine as he whispered “Today,”

I understood. It was supposed to be a happy day, and why not break the news when everyone was optimistic.

“Moving on,” he said, grinning. “What’s up with you and Haze these days?”

My cheeks heated up, and he grinned even further.

“Oh my god, you guys should totally become an item,” he said.

“Quit fangirling,” I hissed, and he laughed. I looked around the mini bus, hoping no one was listening, and I sighed in relief when I saw that all the people in the mini bus were engaged in their own conversations.

“It’s not my fault you guys would make a cute couple,” he said. “Most girl in town are really short with is a pity because he’s so tall and you’re like only a few inches shorter than him,” I slapped him, shutting up his fake ‘girly’ voice.

“Are you not going to tell me a thing?” he asked and I grinned, shaking my head. “You’ll find out sooner or later,”

“Damn,” he muttered. “Talk about suspense,”

*************************************************************

“We’re here!” called Rita, opening the door.

I looked out to see a hilly camp site, full of caravans and tents.

“Right,” she said. “Boys, you unload the bus, us girls are going shopping. And Jared come with us; you can be the judge,”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Judge?”

“Apparently I have good taste when it comes to female clothing,”

“Ok,” I replied.

When we reached the clothes shop, Rita went mad, piling in every god looking item into her arms.

She pulled out a halter necked dress. “Vanessa, this would suit you,” she said. I knew that I would never have worn something like that, but I nodded politely. I saw a few summer dresses I like and carried them along with a few random things Rita wanted me to try out.

“Vanessa,” called Jared. “This might suit you,”

He pulled out the same blue halter necked dress Rita gave me. I showed him the same copy Rita gave me and he smiled.

“It really will suit you,”

The changing room was horror. I had tried all of my clothes in 10 minutes, discarding the ones that didn’t look good. Surprisingly, the blue halter neck did look pretty good, earning me a ‘I told you so’ from Jared an Rita.

Rita was the worst, fretting after every single item she tried out.

“Does this make me look too short?”

“I don’t like the frills on this dress. It looks too girly, right?”

“Do you think the red one would look better?”

Jared groaned after the last question. “The blue one looks good, alright?” Let’s go now,”

We walked to the tills and I separated my clothes from the rest.

“No, duckie,” said Rita. “I’m paying for yours,”

“But I-“

“No, you’re like a daughter to me- it will make me feel better,” she said, and I saw the cloudiness in her eyes. I must have reminded her of Hannah.

“Fine,” I said, handing over the clothes. “But I owe you,” her sad expression was replaced with a smile.

I loved Rita as a mother, and I had moved on from the theory about old Stella. And even if Stella was my mother, I didn’t want to find out.

Because I didn’t want to know the woman who dumped me in an old car park.

I've been busy because I started watching Glee from season 1. Right now, I'm on season 2 and it's a great show etc, etc

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