Taste the Rainbow (Editing/Rewriting, slow progress)

III.

chapter three: chocolate sweet

***

The warm liquid runs down my throat and I release a breath. It'd been freezing on the ranks watching the Scorpions being great Cheerleaders. Now luckily the training is over and we're sitting inside Nova's enjoying a hot chocolate.

"Didn't think it would get that cold," says Mackenzie clinging to her cup.

"Me neither," Olivia agrees, makes a shell with her hands and breathes in them to get her fingers warm.

"None of us did," says Daphne defiantly and sips on her tea. All of the Scorpions nod.

Carly fixes her scarf and says "Yeah, but that probably is an only-one-day thing. Tomorrow the weather will warmer." Again all of the Scorpions nod, including me. October usually doesn't have that low temperatures and the news never said something about it too. But the weather can't be predicted to one hundred percent.

"It's like only 8 degrees outside."

"Maybe winter is coming early."

Yeah, maybe winter is coming early this year.

Carly rubs her hands together to create heat but they are still shaking. My hands are warm by now so I take one of hers in mine and she sighs.

"Thanks, Auden," she says and closes her eyes. My heart is pounding so loud, I think that the others have to hear it. In my mind, there seems to some kind of fog making it hard to think properly but I still manage to reply "You're welcome."

While we talk about early winter and what clothes we should buy if there will be snow in a few weeks I keep Carly's hands in mine warming them for her. After some time she pulls out one to drink something from her cup and leaves the hand at the handle. I do the same and following we're just holding hands and the butterflies in my stomach are riding on a roller coaster.

"Trenchcoats," Nica cries out, "let's all buy Trenchcoats!" I grin because I remember that my dad has about five to ten of those coats at home. Back when Carly and I had been kids we'd always wear them or we'd sometimes go inside the closet and pretend that it was the closet to Narnia.

"Nah," Olivia disagrees, "normal coats are way better looking." Half of the Scorpions agree with her and Nica pouts. Some of the girls, including Carly and I, laugh about it.

"You're mean," says Nica but she can't stop herself from grinning and turning what she said into a joke. Again some of the girls laugh.

"Maybe we are," I say, "or maybe normal coats look better than Trenchcoats." My comment makes her laugh.

When I turn my head to look at what Carly is doing I find her looking at me. To my irritation, she looks away and blushes a bit before she starts to talk to Olivia about hats. She suddenly pulls her second hand out of mine and my hearts stops for a second but then I see that Nica was looking at our hands and I can understand Carly's reaction. Even though it is a stab to my heart. To keep me from thinking about the feeling I join the conversation between Olivia, Carly and Mackenzie.

After some time I see Hotaru appear in the corner of my sight and I turn my head. There she is entering Nova's with Marcus by her side. I reach one hand out to tap on Carly's shoulder. She turns to me and I nod in Hotaru's and Marcus direction. When she discovers them the corners of her mouth rise and she looks at me again.

"There are our two lovebirds," I say jokingly making Carly laugh.

"Yeah, there they are," she agrees and we continue to watch them. It is pretty boring because we can't hear what they are talking about and just seeing them look at each other and moving their mouth is not enough to work with later. What are we suppose to ask Hotaru later? Except for the standard questions.