The Summer I Met Styles

Chapter Six

The next morning I decided to take a stroll down the boardwalk. I made sure to bring along my camera to take plenty of pictures. I hadn't taken any since I arrived. There weren't that many people out yet, due to it being seven-thirty in the morning. The shops were just starting to open up. I didn't realize it until I was standing next to it that I was right in front of Harry's store. I took in the familiar scene. Soon a pair of familiar green eyes appeared in my view when Harry turned on the "open" sign making it flash red lights in the front window. His eyes met mine and my feet instinctively started to walk away at a fast pace. My mind began to flood with images of last night's events. I heard the bell of the store door open and Harry screaming, "Wait, Aimii. We need to talk!"

"There's nothing to talk about, Harry." I continued to walk but my feet were'nt carrying me fast enough. Soon, Harry caught up to me but I continued my stride.

"Aimii, I'm sorry. I didn't mean what happened last night." That's when my feet came to an abrupt stop.

"If you really didn't mean it, you wouldn't have. I knew I should've listened to my cousins. I should've avoided you and never have gone with you!" If the locals were'nt awake, they sure were now.

"Who are your cousins?" He asked.

"You don't need to know," I scoffed, "the point is, is I don't want to be near you."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and  kicked his boot on the ground. "Look.. Can we just...I don't know. Start over?" He lightly scratched his head.  Why is he trying tonbe nice? I thought he was supposed to be the complete opposite.

We stood there for a couple moments in silence as I contemplated on what to do. I finally decided, "Okay. We can start over. But, if I don't like what's going on I'm done."

"All right. So, where do you wanna go?" I didn't know any places here well, so I put the responsibility back on him to decide.

"Well, we could go get some breakfast. Stop at a diner?" Breakfast did sound good. I never ate breakfast so it sounded good to me.  Then I remembered he can just opened the store.

"It sounds good, but your store just opened.," I stated, pointing my finger towards the store.

"Eh, I'll just have Louis look after it for me." He whipped his phone out of his pocket and shot Louis a quick text and put it away. "Which diner do you want to go to?"

"Well, which one do you normally go to?" I asked.

"We can go to Deb's Family Diner. Their burgers are amazing, but I've never eaten breakfast there before."

"Let's go there.," I decided.

~~~

We picked a corner booth in the small diner. There were a lot of old men sitting around, having a coffee clutch gossiping about the town. I noticed when Harry and I walked in together, the men and waitresses were giving us weird looks. My thoughts wondered around. Is it because they've never seen Harry with a relatively normal looking girl? It's not every day either you see someone as intimidating as Harry walk around with and intimidated girl, let alone have breakfast with her.

"So what are you getting?" I scanned the menu to see what options they had for breakfast. They all sounded good, but I decided to get a "dippy egg" as I would call it, hash browns, and toast. Harry decided on an omelette with sausage and toast. One of the waitresses came to take our order and was showing a little cleavage more than necessary, but Harry didn't pay attention to it. She took our menus once she finished taking the orders and left us again. There was a quiet awkward silence between us. I kept wondering what he was trying t get out of this. Harry broke that silence.

"Nice camera. Where'd yoy get it?" It's a Nikon D600 Fill Frame Digital. I placed it on the middle of the table next to the napkin holder when we sat down.

"My parents gave me it for a birthday present a couple years ago," I answered.

"Cool," he started to drum his fingers on the table not knowing what to do.

I finally voiced the question that was swimming around my mind. "Why are you doing this? Being nice to me?" Hist eye immediately peered into mine.

"Can't a guy take a girl to breakfast and try to talk to her?" His question came out more as a statement. 

"Well I thinks it's odd considering the way last night went." I said a little louder than needed.

"Can't we just forget about it, Aimii? I thought we were starting fresh." I was fuming, but I had to keep it under wraps because our waitress was coming over with our food. She handed us our plates and I grabbed the ketchup and drew a smile on my hash browns. I heard a chuckle escape Harry's lips.

"Whats so funny?" I asked putting back the ketchup.

"Nothing. The smile on your hash browns is cute." He grabbed the ketchup bottle and mimicked my drawing skills onto his omelette. I couldn't help but laugh.  A small smile spread on his face and our eyes met when he felt me staring at him. I looked away, feeling nervous.

I mentally decided to let my guard down. After all, it was just breakfast. I can easily be done and never have to see him again after this if I don't want to. What I thought would at the most be a half hour turned into and hour and a half discussing anything and everything. I told him Why I was here, but I left out who my cousins were. He does need to know. He told me how him, Eleanor, and everyone else come here every Summer from England, which explains their accents, and run their own shops. It makes me wonder why I never saw him before this Summer, but I'm not going to question it.

By the time we finish eating the waitress comes with the bill. "We can split it," I offered. I went to go to my purse, but I realized I never took it with me from the house. Harry noticed my sudden panic and said, "I got this one. You'll just have to pay next time." He pulls out his wallet and put a twenty in the bill book.

"Who says there's going to be a next time?" I questioned.

"Your purse," I couldn't help but let out a laugh and so did he. I grabbed my camera and we got up and left the diner. We walked about ten minutes before we got back to the shop. As we stood in front of it in said, "I guess next time is on me." That was something I didn't expect myself to say. Maybe I won't actually come back. Just then I heard the familiar bell ring, signalling someone was coming out. I saw Harry's tattoo covered friend, Louis. He waved a friendly wave to me and I returned it.

"Hey Aimii." He greeted me. I returned his hello and the three of us exchanged small talk before Louis said he needed to visit Eleanor at the frozen yogurt shop. "It was nice to see you again."

"You as well," I said with a smile. Louis walked away and Harry was heading towards the door so I started to go my way.

"Don't forget. You owe me." Harry reminded me.

"We'll see what happens." I called back as I continued on.