Caucasian Asian: An Anthony Padilla Fanfiction

Chapter 9 - Coffee and Jealousy

Chapter 9

Anthony’s POV

It’s been two weeks since the near-kiss incident (It a fabulous pun because it sounds like ‘near-miss’ but no one gets to enjoy the pun with me because I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone I nearly kissed Nikki, and I can’t tell the joke to Nikki either because… well I haven’t seen her in these past two weeks. Sohinki came back to town to visit his family and did two episodes of Game Bang since Nikki had said – to Ian – that it’d be fine for her to take some time off and go travelling, according to Ian she said she still hadn’t seen much of the US and wanted to explore more. As pathetic as this sounds, I miss her like crazy. I really want to apologise and explain to her… whatever the near-kiss meant. I’ve been watching her vlogs on her channel just to see her smile. If I told anyone about the sappy stuff I’ve been doing, they’d say I’m whipped… and I’m starting to think that that’d be true.

Nikki’s POV

I was pretty lucky to be able to avoid Anthony for the two weeks after he ditched me, I knew I was going to need to compose myself properly since I’d need to pretend I was fine with what he’d done and that we were still friends. Not that we aren’t friends, we are, but I need to get my acting face on if I’m going be all sunshines and rainbows when I do see him ago. So I took some time to myself, you know, girly spa days with Mari, pizza days in with Ian and Joshua, sight-seeing and stuff, I even went to Vegas and did some vlogs and fan-meets up there. The time away from everything was actually pretty lovely.  But then a day before I was going to have to see him again I bumped into Wes while I was getting my morning coffee.

“Nikki!” he called out to me and I didn’t even recognise him …. It was a guy with short and stylish hair was smiling at me and he looked… well HOT. Then I realised who it was
“Wes??” He had gotten a dramatic haircut and was looking smoking “Wes! It is you! Wow you look great!” I gave him and hug, having to go on my tip-toes to wrap my arms around his neck – I’m weirdly specific about hugs, my arms have to be on top of the other person’s shoulders that way I don’t feel small (which isn’t hard to do, since I’m so short). But in doing so he wrapped his arms around my waist and lifted me about 15centimetres into the air - I’m still not used to using the American inches, in Australia we only ever used inches for measuring a guys’ well YOU know… thing – but I’ve digressed, the hug was oddly breathtaking, literally sweeping me off my feet.

“How’ve you been?” He said, returning me to the ground,
“Yeah, you know.” I didn’t feel like lying to Wes, but I also wasn’t feeling like telling the truth. “What about you? I haven’t seen you in ages!”
“I’m great, I’m appearing in more videos now, I’m no longer faceless to the public.” He smiled and I laughed in response. We waited in line together, and after about 5 minutes of chit-chat I complimented his hair, bluntly saying he looked hotter and he blushed, thanking me rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly and kind of cutely. When we got to the front of the line he bought me a coffee, refusing to let me pay for myself saying it was a welcome back gift.

“I was only gone 2 weeks!” I chuckled “You’re acting as though I was gone for months.”
“No I’m not, I’m acting as though we’re on a date… which I wouldn’t mind if we were.” He grinned, and it was now my turn to blush at his words. He was surprisingly forward, I learned quickly. So we drank our coffees together, as though we were in fact on a date. Wes made me laugh, and I was smiling the whole time, my face was actually aching from using my smiling muscles non-stop. Afterwards I walked him to his car and we said goodbye before I walked back to my apartment. The smile didn’t leave my face for hours afterwards.

***

The next day I went back to ‘work’ for Game Bang, Wes was at his desk when he saw me coming and stood up and he gave me a hug, my feet left the ground yet again. “Wes!!” I giggled “Put me down!” He decided to tease me and spin around. I squealed like a little school girl, both of us laughing. “Damn it Wes, just how tall are you?” I said breathlessly as he put me down again,
“6 foot 3.” He smiled at me, that was interesting… Anthony is only 5’11”… well I say ‘only’ when I’m only 165cm…. that 5’4” in American, at least I think it is. As I said before, I’m not really good with feet and inches.

“It was a rhetorical question, but thanks for the fun fact.” I grinned back at him.  “Besides, it’s not only height that means you can pick me up, you’ve got to have muscles as well.” I teased,
“Hey I’m pretty damn strong, you don’t even know how strong I am” Next thing I know he’s picked me up, and not in the few-inches-off-the-floor kind of picking me up, he lifted me full on princess-carry style. One of his hands under the crook of my knees and the other near the small of my back slowly sliding up towards my shoulder blades as I sunk into his arms laughing. Not knowing what else to do with my arms I put them around his shoulders linking my fingers behind his neck. It was then that Anthony walked around the corner –

Anthony’s POV

Two weeks. Two freaking weeks since I saw her and she’s in the arms of another guy. Ok so granted, I accidently punched her in the face, then ditched her and ran away from her apartment and made no effort to talk to her for 2 weeks, and we weren’t together or anything, I have no right to be jealous – am I even jealous? ‘Yes you idiot!’ I subconscious drawled frustrated at me. Alright so I’ve done more than enough to cause her not to want be with me romantically, but that doesn’t mean I can’t… that she can… that we couldn’t… damn I can’t think of a single reason that justifies why I feeling this way.

Wes, of all people was holding Nikki in his arms, both of them smiling and laughing. Then suddenly her eyes roamed across the room and landed on mine, suddenly her smile dropped and her stopped giggling happily. A frown appeared on her lips and her eyes saddened and my chest constricted, she put on a fake smile and I felt like an anvil had dropped on me, and not in the funny, Saturday-morning-cartoons kind of anvil, but in the I-feel-like-a-douche-bag anvil. She laughed again, but it was forced, and she asked Wes to put her down. Wes didn’t even notice her change in mood, he just said he’d text her later and returned her to her feet.

“Hey Nikki,” I said finally finding my voice, fighting a stutter of nervousness coming along “Long time no see, how was Vegas?” She stared at me, keeping her fake smile plastered on,
“Yeah it has been a while,” Nikki greeted “it was great, I met up with some fans, saw the sights, won some money in casinos, got a bit tipsy then lost my shirt… y’know the Vegas story.”
‘LOST HER SHIRT!?!” Images of Nikki in that state suddenly popped into my mind and I couldn’t push them away, so I had to continue the conversation with thought in my head. ‘damn…’
“Sounds like you had fun,” I laughed extremely awkwardly, still picturing it. Then the image of her shirtless morphed into her sad face, nose bruised eyes slightly teary, me about to kiss her, and I really had the urge to ask her about that day “Hey Nikki, if I-”

Suddenly Mari and Ian entered the room, Nikki squealed in delight, crash tackling her Mari in to a hug, and speaking to her rapidly in Japanese. Mari responded back in Japanese as well, with almost as much excitable enthusiasm. After they had calmed down a little Nikki hugged Ian chatting to him with a lively smile. She hugged everyone else, and grinned at everyone honestly, yet forced her smile towards me. I felt like crap because of it.

“We’ll we’ve got Nikki back, let’s get filming guys!” Joven was grinning, everyone made their way to the game room, and I couldn’t help but feel like I hadn’t ‘got Nikki back.’

Not yet anyway.