October.
It was now eight in the evening and yes - I was still with Luke. We decided to get lunch/dinner at this cute little pizza parlor. Luke had suggested to go to a café but quickly dismissed the idea, because I did work in a coffee shop and thought that "I'd be tired of the food" and how it "wasn't dinner worthy." But I hadn't eaten breakfast and was too busy caught up with this marvelous boy to even think about food, until my stomach had grumbled and reminded me I was feeling quite peckish, deciding to interrupt his story telling of when he tried to go surfing in his aunt's backyard pool with a bunch of pool noodles glued together as a surfboard, and I couldn't stop laughing until I snorted by accident, causing him to erupt into barks of laughter and we both had ended up in a laughing mess. We had walked around and got to the parlor around six and finished our meals way before, now we were just sitting and chatting.
We were sitting in a booth, him on one side and I on the other (sadly), he had his third slice of Hawaiian pizza on his plate and my third slice of pepperoni on mine (which he had ended up paying for, after having a mini argument on who wanted to pay, and was quickly forgotten about when he tripped on the leg of a chair).
"So, your brothers left when you were seven. Did you ever contact them ever since?" I questioned. His eyes were sad when they looked into mine before he responded, but he definitely looked more comfortable than before, when I had seen him in the Starbucks ordering, or sitting on the bench, writing. I had yet to ask him about what it was that he wrote about in that journal of his, but decided that now wasn't the time. I had learned enough for now, and I didn't want to seem like I was prying, or forcing the information out of him when clearly he was overwhelmed by everything else around him.
"No," he responded sadly, "I don't think they wanted to see me, or even want to at this point, so no, I never got the chance to contact them. My aunt has my uncle's phone number. I never got it from her, though." The disappointment was evident on his face and I was about to say something but he spoke up again, quickly changing the subject.
"Hmm," he hummed, it was now his turn to ask me questions, and he had two left, and I had one, and we both had no idea what to ask at this point. "When's your birthday?"
"January 21st, born on the year of '94," I exclaimed in a fake Southern accent, earning a skeptical look from Luke followed by a chuckle afterwards. "What about you?"
"Well lil' lady, I was born on July 16th, on the year of '93," Luke beamed, pretending to tilt his imaginary cowboy hat towards me, causing me to giggle.
"So you're twenty-one then?"
"Yup. And you're twenty?"
"Yup."
He beamed at me. "Alright," he added, and he stared at me for a while causing me to avert my attention to the leftover crust on my plate. I tucked my hair behind my ears before looking back at him, a smirk on his face.
"Why're you staring at me?" I groaned, hiding my face in my hands before separating my fingers to sneak a peak at him, who was indeed, still looking at me with his blue eyes. And I swear you could see a faint look of adoration in them.
"Because you're beautiful," he mocked, quoting The Fault in Our Stars, making me drop my hands and laugh. "No seriously, though, you are." he remarked, quietly. I smiled wider - if it was possible at this point - colour rising to my cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm lame. Sorry."
"Okay there, Augustus Waters, ready to go?" I asked rolling my eyes, trying to ignore the butterflies that had been refusing to go away in my stomach. He nodded, wiping his mouth with a napkin before standing up taking both our paper plates and throwing it in the garbage. We walked out of the parlor, and I caught a glimpse of his hand twitching towards mine, like he was contemplating on whether it was a good idea to hold it or not. I took his instead, feeling him relax as he let out a breath and he beamed at me, and I returned it, swinging our hands back and forth playfully, earning a giggle from Luke. He swung it along with me, not worrying about causing a disturbance, since the streets weren't as busy as before.
