Shawn wanted to tell her a lot about himself but he decided to keep his personality in secret. At least for a while.
"Yes a bit. Except for the studying. But I also am a hard worker. Working almost 24/7. In what sphere do you work?"
"It's economics but I don't really want to talk about it. I mean I love my job I really do. I can talk hours about it and my addiction to it gives me strength to do what I do without feeling exhausted or sorry for missing my youth. So if you are OK with this let's just change the subject. We can talk about your job if you want to"
"You know you are right. We both established that we are super busy with what we do and that we love it. I think it's enough. Let's change the subject and never get back to it again"
"Agree. So you brought pizza?"
"Yes and some cupcakes"
"Good choice: something spicy and something sweet after. Oh that's the pizza from my neighborhood"
"Yeah I googled for pizza in this area and this resulted to be the best. So I ordered one"
"It is the best. They work for 15 years already. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was in high school now unfortunately I don't have enough time, only for takeout The owners are very good and generous people"
"Have you been living here for such a long time?"
***
They both sat on the couch.
"Well not in this exact apartment but I used to live in this neighborhood with my parents. Then we decided to move and a couple of apartments in this building were free. But then my parents had to move to China for work and I had to stay because of school and stuff. But I liked this neighborhood so much that I've chosen an apartment in this building. Even though this part of the city is a bit adult you know I like it though"
"Yeah I kinda noticed. There were not that many young people around. I was surprised by the way"
"I know. It's calm in here so there are not that many noisy parties and stuff you know"
In fact Shawn noticed that and he really liked that because nobody knew he was a popular singer and he could spend some time like a regular person.
"So no parties in the neighborhood, no time for rest because of work. How do you even entertain? Maybe you watch movies or just like to listen to music?" – Shawn asked and watched Alexa's reaction.
***
"You know I don't have time for it either. I mean watching movies takes at least 2 hours and that's a lot"
"Ok than what about music?
"Well I do listen to music. When I go to gym or go jogging I look for some "workout music" and just go. But I mostly listen to news reports and stuff so the radio stations from my list don't have music. So I don't have any specific preferences. And you?"
"I like John Mayer's songs. Have you heard of him?"
"Not really, no. But as an excuse I haven't heard of any modern singer so..."
"Home come you never heard of him? He is so popular on the Internet. Don't you use the web?"
"I do but I need it for some very specific data"
"Ok what about an Istagram account do you have one?"
"I do but it's so much abandoned. I haven't uploaded anything for about a year or so. And I don't use it to watch other people's photos as well: you are about to spend 5 minutes on the app which result to be 5 hours"
"Oh my God you're such a granny!
"No I'm not!"
"Yes you are! No TV, no internet, no music. You know what? You should definitely move to another place"
"What? Why?"
"This neighborhood has a bad influence on you girl" – he laughed.
Alexa laughed as well.
"Oh shut up" – she said and slightly hit Shawn's arm with her hand.
***
She didn't have such a pleasant conversation since forever. Yes, she had Tom but when you work together and study together and that's pretty much all you do you just don't have too much topics to talk about except for your duties. And now she felt like a regular girl and she loved that. She felt so comfortable around Shawn. And the fact was she really liked him a lot.
"I'm not a granny. I'm young and beautiful" – she smiled.
"Yes you are"
"What?" – Alexa blushed a bit.
"You really are beautiful" – Shawn said blushing – "And young of course"
Both of them laughed. The situation got a bit awkward but in that exact way they both wanted it to be.
"How's your skin by the way?"
"Much better thanks. It's not that awful looking anymore. I think in a couple of days things would get way better"
"That's good. A couple of days is a really good prognosis for a person like you"
"A person like me?"
"Yeah I mean you know that older people need more time to recover" – he said and smiled again.
"I'm gonna punch you harder right now"
But at that moment Shawn laughed out loud than took Alexa's hand pulled her towards himself and hugged. It was so impulsive but he just wanted to hug her so bad that he couldn't wait any longer.
