Half a Man at Best (Sequel to VALERIE)

Chapter Twelve

I am dancing bc Anna Todd a.k.a. @imaginator1d is finally following me. Yehaaa! I love you, Anna! Xx

This chapter is dedicated to @orange_carrots for being the first to give me the correct answer. Shoutouts to @AbbyStyles 16 and @ambive_, the other two who gave the correct answer. The book was colour YELLOW! :’)

The last chapter was so steamy, I couldn’t handle it.

~UNEDITED~

Copyright © zylgnagnaba 2014

The car I am in is at a different spot from where I’d usually park in front of ‘Just Being Random’. This time, I have parked it across the street, two buildings away from the shop. It’s only been last night that we got back from the US and although my jetlag is still at its remedial phase, I decided to show up at The Strand as soon as possible.

Owning a bunch of different types of cars and your girlfriend having no knowledge of anything about vehicles has its perks. Why?

First, although Valerie was so adamant about learning how to drive a car, she’d still take no interest on learning more about them – brands, compacts, and other technicalities – because what mattered to her is to just merely drive and/or own a car. It didn’t – and I know it still doesn’t—bother her if it’s worth a dime or not. If the engine works and her safety is secured, she’d ride on it. Valerie grew up where the world is served to her in a silver platter, but she’s not finicky about cheap things either. Price just doesn’t matter to her in a positive way.

Second, because she knew nothing about cars – the kind of cars I own in particular, I can freely monitor her whereabouts just by looking at the shop at a distant, concealed by the tinted windows of the vehicle. Okay, “monitor” is such an overstatement because I don’t even have any idea of every move she makes inside the shop. I am no eye spy. Despite that reason, I know that she isn’t stupid enough not to even be familiar with the cars that park in front of her shop every so often.

I have a feeling that she’s already being suspicious of strange cars just parking in front of the shop for few hours but no one even goes out and back inside of it. But even if she has already raised suspicion, she just perhaps brushed it off. Joanie even figured it out already, but I am hoping that she didn’t share the hunch with Valerie yet.

Three in the afternoon. I’ve been sitting in my car for two hours already and I am not even complaining. I don’t even complain of any possible occurrence of whiplash for having my head craned and turned to the side for so much time. Just knowing that Valerie is inside that shop, doing what she does best somehow gives me a sense of reassurance. Although all I ever wanted is just to be near her, it’s more than enough to know that she’s just somewhere closer to me than being around a thousand mile radius of the globe.

Allowing myself – my neck per se – a little break, I cock my head from side to side, rubbing my neck in a sluggish attempt to soothe the tense muscles in there. Fine, I admit. My neck fucking hurts. I relax for a bit and lean my head against the headrest of my seat. I glance at the mirror first before closing my eyes to take a light nap. Jetlag is a douche.

It was just a matter of good thirty seconds and I already flutter my eyes open again. You can’t really shut the world by just closing your eyes when your mind is still working and your senses are still conscious. You mean paranoid?

I shake my head, appalled at myself. Leaning my head on the hard glass window of my car, my sight darts to the two moving figures who are heading their way out of “Just Being Random’. It doesn’t take me longer than three seconds to recognize that one of the two figures is Valerie being clad in a simple crisp white shirt underneath a khaki blazer and a pair of dark jeans, her favourite kind of ankle boots completing her get-up.