What Summer Brings

Chapter 24

{Song in video: NEEDTOBREATHE ft. Lauren Daigle - Hard Love}

"Mom, I'm going downtown," I called out to her as I walked down the stairs.

My mom sat on the couch with her laptop, making copies of my childhood VHS tapes. She turned around, asking with a curious look on her face, "Who are you going with?"

"Caleb." I tried sounding as nonchalant as possible, but my mom gave me a grin.

"Is this a date?" She raised her eyebrows, still grinning.

I nodded my head. "Yes, it's a date."

"I called it." She stood up from the couch, then walked over to me. "Mija, he seems like a genuinely nice guy. What do your friends think of him?"

"My friends like him a lot." Just then, the door bell rang. "I'll get it, it's probably Caleb." I went over to the door, opening it.

Caleb was standing there with a bouquet of red roses and poppies, smiling at me. "Hey," he greeted, still standing outside of the door.

I smiled greeting back, "Hey. I'll put the flowers in vases, and I'll be right back. You can come in, and sit on the couch or something."

My mom walked up to him, smiling. "Hi, Caleb," she greeted him. "You two have fun, okay?"

He nodded. "Of course."

After I was done putting the flowers in the vases, I said to him, "Okay, I'm ready. We can go now."

As we waved to my mom, we closed the door behind us, and then went over to Caleb's car. I still had to tell him where to go once we got closer to downtown, but he mostly knew where he was going.

"Want to play some arcade games, and then get some dinner and desserts?" Caleb asked me as the two of us got out of the car.

"Sure. I haven't done that in a while," I replied, grinning. "I've always wanted to play that game, Space Invaders."

"You never played Space Invaders?" Caleb gave me a surprised facial expression, his mouth opening and his eyebrows raised.

I laughed as I shook my head. "Never have." We held hands as we started walking toward the arcade.

"That's the first thing we're playing." He practically dragged me into the arcade, where we first went to Space Invaders. "This is a classic, along with Pac-Man." He explained to me how to play Space Invaders.

"This should be simple enough," I said as I paid, then started the game. I soon found out that it was not as simple as it looked like. "This is harder than it looks." I whined as I lost the first game.

"Here, watch the pro." I stepped out of the way so he could play.

My mouth dropped open as I watched him play. He really was good at it, because he almost beat someone's high score. "I never knew you were that good at arcade games."

He shrugged, chuckling. "I always played a lot when I was a kid. Now, I sometimes play video games too, but I prefer arcade games."

"Let me try again." I did a little better than the first time, but I still wasn't that good. After I was done, I decided to play Pac-Man.

Caleb continued playing Space Invaders.

Then, we went over to the pinball machine. I had played that on the computer, but not in an arcade.

Caleb snickered at me as I was losing, and didn't really know what I was doing. I gave him a look, saying, "The machine is probably broken."

He continued to snicker. "I doubt it's broken, but practicing helps. You'll get good at it in no time if we come here more often." He smiled as he wrapped his arms around me to give me a kiss on the cheek.