𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 | 𝐜.𝐛

9

Colby

"Why don't you want to call the cops?" I ask Noelle as she lays down on my bed.

"I there's a part of me that wished he'd change." Sitting next to her, I cup her hands in mine. She lays her head on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Elle. People like that don't change." She sniffles. I cup her cheeks and wipe her tears away. I kiss her forehead.

"It's just, everyone cared for and I haven't felt that in a long time. Then, I ran into you at the barn and... it changed. The next day, when he was gone, I watched the video and I saw how genuinely concerned you were that some random girl was so... reckless around you."

"Hey, it's okay. You're okay. What do you say we go on that 'date' now?" She smiles softly and nods.

"Please."

"You ready to have your ass beat, Brock," she teases me as we pull into the laser tag building. 

"We'll see about that. What does the winner get?"

"A home-cooked meal for the entire house." I groan.

"I can't cook!" I laugh. She laughs too.

"Then I guess you'd better win," she laughs and gets out of the car. We enter the building and she grabs my hand. We buy the tickets and we put on our vests. She pokes my chest before we enter. The buzzer sounds and we split off. Every time she ran into me she'd squeal before shooting. It was good to see her smile and laugh after what happened earlier. When the round was done, we took off our vests and walked out to see the scores. Elle beat me by three shots. "I told you I'd win."

"Yeah, yeah," I joke, grabbing her hand. We walk around the small cluster of stores until we reach a Baskin Robbins. "You want ice cream?"

"Yeah." We walk in and she smiles up at me. I order a chocolate chip ice cream with no toppings. Elle smiles and gazes at her options before ordering. She orders an Oreo and Caramel ice cream with a cinnamon stick. I pay, take her hand, and walk us over to a booth.

"So, oreo, cinnamon, and caramel?" I question. She laughs before dipping her spoon into the ice cream.

"Yeah, it's actually really good. Wanna try, Mr. Plain Chocolate Chip?" She teases. I roll my eyes before taking a small spoon full of her ice cream.

Noelle

I watch him. He laughs and his cheeks blush. I laugh and point my spoon at him.

"Told you! You liked it," I tease.

"Yeah, yeah," he brushes off. "You win again."

I flip my hair playfully before taking another bite of my ice cream. 

"I'll help you cook tonight."

"No, no, you won fair and square. Plus, we never cook. We always eat out or order take out. I think it'll be cool."

"Yes, but that's a lot of people cooking you're cooking for on your own," I remind.

"Fine," he gives, "you can help."

We finish our ice cream and forget about the rest of the world. We share laughs and create new inside jokes. Colby's phone rings. He answers and his eyebrows furrow.

"Corey, what's wrong?" He questions. I can hear Corey shouting through the other end of the phone. "Okay, we're like five minutes away. Okay."

"Is everything okay?" I ask. He looks scared.

"It's Corey he needs us to come back." Nodding, we toss our ice cream and go out to the car. It takes five minutes to get home.

"Stay here," Colby says when we get inside. He runs upstairs and I hear them begin yelling back and forth. Colby yells for Elton.