Mr. Mendes

chapter 3 - dinner

Mum, Dad, myself and Mr. Mendes, correction, Shawn, sat down at the kitchen table eating the lovely spaghetti bolognese my wonderful Mum had prepared. The conversation was flowing but the addition of Shawn made it slightly awkward, for me anyway.

Whilst we were eating he would occasionally look at me and pretended that he wasn't, but I often caught him staring. To make a joke, I grabbed a huge forkful of pasta and put it in my mouth. Then I made direct eye contact with Shawn and began to suck the pasta up. The look on his face was priceless. Straight afterwards he had to excuse himself to the bathroom, which I found quite hilarious.

Once my childish mind had gotten itself out of the gutter, I decided I wanted to find out more about him. When he returned I was ready with an arsenal of questions, but when he sat down and gave me that little side smirk, my mind went blank. I had teased him, now I guess he was returning the favour. Once I had finally gathered my emotions back together, I asked him,

"So Shawn what brings you here, you know, to dreary old England?"

"I wanted to get away from Canada. It was so samey. Never tell this to any Canadian or I'll be burned at the steak; I wanted a change from poutine and Tim Horton's."

"Absolute sacrilege" I replied while laughing lightly.

He watched me with his kind eyes, then he would shake his head and look away. As if to say, "Shawn, stop it, she's your student for Christ sake!"

The dinner had ended and Shawn helped my mum clear the plates. I was still sitting down with my plate in front of me when a large muscular arm snakes round my shoulders to retrieve the plate. I get a small hint of his musky aftershave and it sends me wild. He walks back over to the sink and puts all the plates he had collected in there.

"Well I should probably head off, it's 9 o'clock and I need my beauty sleep." He joked

"9 o'clock?" My Mum gasped, "That means the new episode of Broadchurch is on!"

Shawn and I looked at each other in confusion.

"I'm so sorry Shawn, it's been an absolute pleasure having you round and catching up but I love this show, so would you mind if Eleanor showed you out?" She said whilst staring at me.

"No that's absolutely fine," he smiled "Hope to see you all soon!"

"You too Shawn!" My Mum and Dad replied in unison.

We walked towards the door in comfortable silence, just enjoying each other's company. I reached for the door and opened it.

"Well I'll see you tomorrow, Eleanor." He said playfully dragging out the syllables of my name.

"Oh god that reminds me, I didn't finish the assignment you set last week! I was planning on doing it tonight but then you happened!"

He put his hand on his muscular chest and and pretended to be hurt by what I had said.

"Eleanor Hill, how could you say that to me," he said while trying to hold back a tilde wave of giggles. "It's okay, just say you left it at home and I'll give you an extra day."

"Thank you so much Shawn!" I said, refraining from giving him a huge hug.

"No problem El, I'll see you tomorrow." He jogged to his house on the other side of the street, gave me a wave and shut the door behind him.

"EL?! HE CALLED ME EL?!" My mind was going crazy at the nickname he had just coined. It rolled so naturally off of his tongue, that I don't even know if he knew he had said it.

I ran back to my room so I could freak out in peace, when something had caught my eye. There was a note on my bed. I began to read it.

"Look out the window - Shawn"

That sneaky little thing must have left it when he went to the "bathroom".

I did what the note said. I looked out the window.

I was met with Shawn and a white board, he'd written on it too. I couldn't make out what it said so I grabbed my binoculars, I sometimes star gaze.

Looking through the lenses I could now see what he had written.

"Be outside your house tomorrow at 8, I wanna take you somewhere"