Two Weeks With Chelsea

Chapter 16

Neither Trevor nor Chelsea looked at the name of the restaurant they found after wandering the area for at least an hour and a half. They briefly looked in and saw an open table amongst people happily dining. It was near capacity, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves with plenty of food and drink. A perfect place for their first meal together.

Trevor pulled the door open and placed his right hand at the small of her back as he guided her in then followed Chelsea through. She paused just beyond the door to make the moment last just a few seconds longer. As he moved in beside her, his hand slid into place on her opposite hip. She felt like they were a couple, like they were on a date. She smiled effortlessly.

The waiter on the far side of the room gestured towards the open table and waited for them to take their seats. Trevor pulled one of the two chairs out from the table and offered it to Chelsea then ordered a beer before he had even seated himself.

"You seem to know your way around. Do you come to Barcelona a lot?" Chelsea asked.

"Only been here once," Trevor said as he opened a menu. "I was thirteen. I came here with my dad. Do you want to share an appetizer? That looks good."

Chelsea looked to her left, to where Trevor's eyes had indicated. The waiter arrived with their drinks and blocked her view before she could see the pan of garlic sautéed shrimp on the table beside her.

"I'd like that," Trevor said to the waiter as he pointed to the dish on the neighboring table.

"That does look good," Chelsea said once the waiter had walked away.

She looked back towards Trevor and noticed a good portion of his beer was already gone in the short time she took to assess the contents of the proposed starter plate. She smiled and took a sip of her Coke.

They silently browsed the menus and ordered when the waiter returned a few minutes later. Trevor ordered a second beer.

"You know, I don't even know your full name," Trevor said to break the silence. "Chelsea—"

"Bales..." She replied.

"You're in, what, tenth grade?"

"Yes," She said as she glanced down at the cutlery in front of her.

Trevor nodded silently, "So then... fifteen? Sixteen?"

"I just turned sixteen"—she fidgeted with her napkin—"a couple weeks ago."

"Oh! Happy belated birthday. I'm Trevor Leland, as you probably already know, turned eighteen a month and a half ago."

"I know... I saw the cake your friends brought in for you. I signed the card too, when it got passed around the cafeteria," Chelsea replied.

"So, what do you do when you're not jetting off to Europe for vacation?" he asked.

A blank look took over Chelsea's face, "Not much, really."

"I always see Stacy at the parties, but I never see you, except that one. You don't have off campus permission?"

"No, it's not that... I went to the Halloween and New Years dances! Well, sort of... I usually leave early."

"I saw you at Halloween; some sort of goth ballerina. I thought it was a zombie thing, but someone said goth."

"You were right. Zombie ballerina."

"See, I told them. Where'd you get the idea?"

"Shelly, Stacy's roommate, showed me a picture from a dance competition. She was wearing black, she had injured her ankle but still won some sort of award, so she was crying. She said she had been there for something like four days straight, twelve hours each day or something crazy like that. Anyway, her makeup was running, and she looked dead. She had a cup of coffee in her hand and all I could think of was her walking like a zombie, limping and dragging her foot, 'cause of her ankle, and saying, coffee... coffee," Chelsea said, switching into her best zombie voice.