"What should I wear?" I ask Van. I'm not sure if we are going somewhere casual or fancy.
"Anything you want. We're not going anywhere fancy," Van tells me.
I nod my head and open my suitcase. I end up choosing to wear a black tank top, some distressed, light denim mom jeans, and my black converse. Van notices me grabbing my clothes and says "you stay here and get changed. I'll wait outside."
"Okay," I say. Van shuts the door behind him and I strip out of my clothes, putting my new outfit on afterward.
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"You can come in," I yell as I begin tying my converse after sitting down on the floor. Van walks in and smiles.
"You look nice," he says. He walks over to me and holds his hands out for me to help me up. I hold on to them and he lifts me up. "Are you ready?"
"Thanks," I say. "And yeah I'm ready."
"Good. Come on, I'll let you open the door for me," Van says.
"The doors already open, Van," I laugh.
"Aw, I guess you missed your opportunity then. Oh well," he says. He moves his hand to the small of my back.
"I'll open the door for you downstairs then," I smirk and run ahead of him. He quickly catches up and grabs my waist. Damn those long legs of his.
"Haha no you won't," he says lifting me up and carrying me down the stairs.
"You suck," I mumble.
"I know," he says. I can't see Van's face, but I can't tell he's smiling.
"Goodbye, lids. See ya later," Van yells to the others as he opens the door and walks out while still carrying me.
He sets me down once we're outside of the apartment building. We walk to his car and he opens the door for me. I look up at him and he looks back down at me. "You gonna just stand there?" He asks with a laugh.
"Stop laughing. It's not funny. If you keep opening doors for me, my muscles will deteriorate and I'll have noodle arms," I tell him, jokingly.
"Well, jokes on you I like noodle arms," he says.
I roll my eyes and get in the car. He shuts the door and walks to the other side of the car to get in.
"Can you tell me where we're going now?" I ask.
"Not yet. It's still a secret," he says looking at me before turning away and starting the engine.
We begin driving and Van hands me his phone. "My phones connected to the car. You can go on and put on some music," he says. "My password is 7777." I chuckle at his password and nod my head, taking the phone from his hand.
"What are you laughing at?" Van asks.
"You're password," I tell him.
"Oh yeah? What's so funny about my password?" He questions. He mostly keeps his eyes on the road, but looks over at me every once in and while.
"It's dumb. Anyone could guess that," I laugh.
"Well, what's your password?" He asks.
"2975," I tell him.
He takes a moment and thinks about the numbers on the keypad. "Oh, you know, that's smart. I like that one," Van admits.
•~~~~~
Van and I eventually arrive at the place he was taking me, which turned out to be a carnival. We listened to Arctic Monkeys for the whole ride while we talked.
"The carnival?!" I say, excited.
"Yeah!" Van says, using the same enthusiasm I had used when I spoke.
We both got out of the car and Van came around to my side of the car. He grabbed my hand and we walked to the ticket booth.
"I've never been to the carnival before," I tell Van as we wait in line.
"Really?" He asks, shocked. The carnival happens every year for a few weeks and pretty much the whole town goes to it at least once.
"Yeah, my mom was never into them. I think she just never wanted to take me when I was younger, though," I tell him.
"I'm sorry to hear that," he says. "I hope tonight will make up for all those years of not going."
"I'm sure it will," I smile up at him.
He returns the smiles. "Well, you let me know at the end of tonight," he says. We both walk up to the ticket booth and Van buys two unlimited ride passes for forty dollars each. They were rather expensive, but I guess the carnival is always expensive.
He hands me the necklace with the pass attached. "Here you are, my lady," he says.
"Thank you," I say, taking the pass from him. "I'll pay you back at the house."
"No need to do that. Tonight is my day to treat you like the princess you are," he says.
"Fine," I give in. "But I'm taking you somewhere another night and you're not allowed to pay... or open doors."
"You have yourself a deal," he says. He holds out his hand for me to shake, which I agree to.
"Now where to first?" He asks.
"I don't know. You're the carnival expert. I've never been here before," I say.
"That's right. Let's go to the darts and balloon thing over there. I'll win you a stuffed animal," he says.
"You seem awfully confident that you'll win, Van," I laugh. "Who knows, maybe I'll be the one winning you the stuffed animal."
"We'll See about that. I'll have you know that I'm basically a master at this game," he laughs and grabs my hand.
We make our way through the crowd and head up to the dart area. Thankfully it wasn't crowded at this game. Only one other person was playing.
"We'll both play," Van says to the worker.
He nods his head. "That'll be ten dollars," the worker says unenthusiastically. I can't blame him, though. He probably is working for minimum wage.
Van pays the man and he hands us fifteen darts each. "Five for a small prize. Ten for a big one," he tells us.
"You go first. Ladies first," Van says.
I nod my head and pick up the first dart, throwing it at the board and missing by a lot.
I look at Van and frown. "This is harder than it looks," I say, causing Van to chuckle.
"You're doing great for your first time. Let me help you," he says. He moves behind me and grabs my hand which was holding the dart. "Try shooting from up here," he suggests.
I nod my head and toss the dart at the board. No balloon was popped, but I was a lot closer than last time.
"See? You're already doing better. Here ya go," he hands me my next dart.
I throw my next one and finally make it. "Did you see that?!" I exclaim, turning toward Van.
"I did!" He says with a smile. He holds his hand up and I high five it. "Looks like you're pretty skilled."
•~~~~~
I ended up hitting five balloons, which meant I could pick a small prize. "Which one do you want?" I ask Van.
"You choose for me. You look like you have good stuffed animal taste," he says.
I giggle and nod my head. "Can I get the pink dolphin?" I ask the worker.
He nods his head and grabs the dolphin stuffed animal from the bin and hands it to me.
I give it to Van and he smiles. "So you do have good taste in stuffed animals," he says.
