𝙲𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚋𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚗 𝚀𝚞𝚎𝚎𝚗 ⚓ 𝙹𝙹 𝙼𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚊𝚗𝚔

03

Malia sat across from Nolan Shrotter at a small little restaurant he had picked for the two to have lunch at.

After the little stunt she pulled yesterday, her mother had told her she couldn't hang out with her little group of friends. Instead, she called up Nolan and told him that Malia wanted to have lunch. So now, she was stuck in a red, diner booth, while her friends were all running around doing God knows what.

“What happened yesterday? Your mother told me you came home in a terrible state,” he said as he took a bite of the crab cakes he ordered.

Malia had ordered a salad that she hadn’t really touched yet, “I kinda tripped,” she let out a quiet laugh as she moved around the cucumbers in her bowl, “It was nothing too serious,”

The boy nodded, “Oh,”

It was awkward, to say the least. Malia obviously didn't want to be out, and it seemed that maybe he wasn’t too interested in the whole thing either.

“I heard your sister is coming back tomorrow,” He said, trying to start a conversation, “Are you excited to see her again?”

“Oh yeah,” Malia smiled, “She’s coming back for the whole Midsummer’s event,”

“I see, how long has it been since you last saw her?”

The girl looked down at her salad, “Christmas actually, it's been a while. We call every week, but lately, she's been kinda busy with school and all,”

“I assume you're close?”

“Oh yeah, Genevieve is like my best friend, it's been kind of hard without her, you know? And she’s all my parents talk about,”

Malia may have been a bit jealous of her older sister, but that didn’t mean she hated her. The two Beifong girls were pretty close, surprisingly. They did have their fights, but they normally ended up with one of them apologizing.

“I see,” Nolan said, “So, about Midsummers… Is anybody going to be accompanying you to the event?” he fiddled with his silver fork, waiting for her response.

“Oh um-” Malia bit the inside of her cheek. She didn’t plan on bringing a date, in fact, she was going to ask JJ to escort her like he has the last couple years, but they were never really considered dates.

There was no way she could turn Nolan down, not unless she wanted to face the wrath of her Kumiko. It’d just be best to accept his offer and say thank you.

“No, nobodies offered to take me yet,” she said, taking a sip of her ice tea.

Nolan's grin grew, “That's great! Uh I mean um- how about you and I go together?” he coughed and tried to hide the blush that made its way onto his cheeks, "I'd love to be your escort- if you'd let me, of course,"

“I would be honored,” Malia smiled warmly at the boy, “My mother’s choosing my dress, so I don’t know how it’ll look. If you want, you can just keep it traditional and go with a black and white suit,” 

Nolan nodded, “Perfect,”

「 ₊˚.༄ 」

“You did what?!” Malia yelled out as she stormed up to Pope who was sitting on the dock in front of John B’s place, with JJ trailing behind her, “You sunk Toppers boat!”