Promises - Joel Pimentel

Chapter 34

I stood there in complete and utter sadness, waiting for his reply hoping he was joking the whole time.

"Of course I remember" he chuckles, I knew it was a fake one.

"Joel, don't play games right now. I'm serious" I sternly look into his chocolate brown eyes.

He looks down, takes a deep sigh and finally looks back up at me.

"Ok fine, I forgot ok? But we're here now aren't we? So, let's just enjoy the night" he walks to the picnic blanket set out and sits down.

I turn around to face him. Still contemplating if I should go home and mope about the fact that my own boyfriend forgot our anniversary, or stay here and make the most of it, not letting my hard work go to waste.

"Fine. But this isn't over. For the sake of all the hard work I put in, I'm staying" I roll my eyes and sit down.

What a great start to the night.

"Hey, thanks for this" he leans closer to me and kisses my temple.

Joel is making it really hard for me to stay mad at him right now. However, he somehow managed to drive my mind away from the fact that I was meant to be petty throughout the night, by changing the subject.

"Watch, I'll get it on the first go" he opens his mouth, waiting for me to throw the purple grape into his mouth.

I aim the grape towards his open mouth and flick my wrist, throwing the grape forward.

However, it landed on his eyes, making him flinch.

"Ow" he places a hand over his eye.

"Whoops" I giggle.

"Now watch how the champions do it" he grabs another purple grape as I sit back and keep my mouth open.

Throwing the grape, it landed straight in my mouth. I chewed on the grape and gave him a thumbs up with a smile. I was about to grab the strawberries from the basket but then I see a big fat bee just sitting on top of the basket lid.

"Oh my gosh. Aah!" I screamed, jumping back.

I hate bugs and I hate bees. 

"What happened?" he asked.

"There's a giant bee!" I point at the basket as I slid back, using my arms.

"You mean this little thing?" he leans forward, almost touching the bee before it begins to fly towards me.

My first reaction was to jump and scream even louder, causing my voice to echo.

"Ew ew ew!" I yell, sliding across to where Joel was sitting.

I tried to stand up but ended up stumbling and falling on top of Joel, causing us both to fall back as my weight was put onto him. The way I fell and landed on top of Joel made my legs end up around his waist in a straddle position. He sits back up, looking at me before we both bursted out into laughter.

"Honestly Maya, sometimes you are just impossible" we tried to hold in our laughter.

9:21 am

Yesterday was one of the most fun nights I've ever spent with Joel. Sure, he forgot our two-year anniversary but I can understand why. The boy has so much packed onto his schedule, he probably doesn't have much time to live his own life. Grabbing my phone, I send a good morning text to Joel.

'Good morning Joelito, last night was fun. Wanna hang out again?'

I didn't expect a reply straight away because I knew what a deep sleeper he was. However, the moment I stepped off my bed, my phone vibrates with a notification from him.

'I can't today sorry. Maybe another time?'

I should have known. Ignoring the message, I head downstairs to have breakfast.

"Morning sweetheart, I'm going to need your help today. You're coming with me to the boy's meeting" my dad says while taking a sip off his black coffee.

It was always like this; every time my dad needed my help with the boys, he would tell me as soon as I wake up, before letting me get even a word out of my mouth.

"Any special occasion?" a yawn escaped my lips as I begin to pour myself a glass of the coffee that was sitting in the kettle still hot.

"Just some paper work that I could use a hand with"

I knew what this was about. The boys would be travelling again and if you're not a citizen of a country then it takes a lot of paperwork to even be able to enter the country. After breakfast, I changed into some casual clothes and both my dad and I began to make our way to the destination. The boys were already there waiting and messing about.

"Alright so I have these that need to be signed by each of the boys. As soon as you're done just bring it back to me and I'll tell you your next job" I grab the papers from my dad and walk over to Richard first since he was the only one sitting.

"Hey dude, I'm going to need you to sign these marked lines" I point at some empty lines that needed to be dated and signed.

Giving him the pen, he scribbles away his signature on multiple papers.

"There you go chica"

I thank him and go to Joel next. Telling him the exact same thing, he signs away on the papers.

"So, if you're not busy, did you want to go out for ice cream tonight maybe?" I ask as he signed the last bit of papers.

"Uh sorry...can't. I um, have something going on" his gaze shoots up at me then back down at the papers.

"What do you have going on?" I ask.

"This...thing. Um you wouldn't know about it" he nervously replies back.

I lift an eyebrow up at him, before shaking off the thought and walking to Chris next.

"Whatever"

While Chris was signing away, I decided to ask him if he knew anything about what was going on with Joel.

"Hey, do you know what's going on with Joel? He's been acting really weird since this morning" I ask.

"Not that I know of. He seems fine to me" he finishes off signing.

Ignoring the thought again, I finish off my task by getting Zabdiel and Erick to sign off their parts. As soon as I was done, I walk over to Joel who was in the corner of the room, talking on the phone with his back facing the rest of the room.

"Alright, so I'll see you tomorrow? Cool" he speaks, not knowing I was behind him. "Can't wait then" he chuckles as if he was really happy about something.

"Hey" I poke his back, startling him.

"Oh my god Maya don't scare me like that"

"I've been standing here for the past five minutes what are you talking about? Anyway, who were you talking to?" I ask.

"No one" he blandly replies.

"Didn't sound like no one to me"

"It's no one babe" he kisses my cheek.

"I was thinking, since you're not free tonight, what if we did something tomorrow instead?" I asked, taking his hand and looking up at him.

"Yeah, I can't tomorrow either. I just have this thing" he says before walking away without even saying 'bye'.

Turning around, I watch him walk away. He's hiding something and I'm going to find out what it is.