"There are worse ways to break into the scene, I think."
Aria snorted at his comment despite herself, "Not many," she quipped, finally looking at him, as if it were the first time. They were meeting again, and not in a questionable bar. And even though she still had that constant nagging voice in the back of her mind telling her that something wasn't quite right about this, she pushed it aside for the moment. Too many times, she felt, she'd missed out because of her paranoia that stemmed from her childhood experiences. From her parents, and how they ended up.
This time, she decided, would be different.
Luke chuckled lowly at her remark, and sat back down on the couch, his eyes looking over her again before flicking over to the TV again. "So, how's life?" he asked, and it was as if he was a changed person. The similarities between the douchebag that she'd met at the bar and this sweet boy that was only just a few feet from her were undeniable, it was true; his smile was still slightly crooked, his eyes wild, in a way. But the way he slouched on the couch, one arm draped lazily over the arm of the chair and the other resting on his torso, he was reminescent of the kind of men that she saw as a blessing; an Average Joe.
Aria never really liked to say that she had a type; Kimmy loved teasing her about her 'types', though. And those types were complete opposites. The Douche, and the Average Joe.
Kimmy had it all down to a science, when it came to Aria's relationships. First, the Douche would come along, in disguise, hungering for Aria's prescence (in his bed, presumably). Then, once the Douche had her in his clutches, he'd get what he wanted out of her (sex, obviously), and leave her for dead. While Aria did try to avoid these men, it was inevitable with her, she'd come to find in the past few years. In the wake of the Heartbreak that ensued after the Douche, an Average Joe would come along, swoop her off her feet in an expectedly average kind of way, and, once they got bored, things would just end, usually. Aria would feel bad for a time, and, after another uncalculatable time, the cycle would repeat itself. Like clockwork.
"Life's been pretty..." she paused for a moment, "... eh," she nodded, looking over at him, more comfortable than she'd been before. Maybe they would have a civil conversation, like normal people, instead of, like, aggressively flirting with each other until the other one wanted to fuck.
"Why 'eh'?" he asked, and she shrugged, walking over to the couch and sitting next to him, squinting at him only slightly. "What?"
"I'd tolerated it up until now, but no more..." she shook her head, "You're in my spot, sorry." Luke's tension eased, and a smile spread across his face while he got up from the spot and switched spaces with her. Once she'd gotten comfortable, she spoke again, "There. Now I can watch Urkel be a nerd in comfort and not on the armchair of death."
Her blond companion gave her a look, raising an eyebrow, glacing over at the armchair that she was previously sitting in, "The armchair of death?"
"It's a really long story that Kimmy would kill me for telling you about," she nodded, and then put Family Matters on pause, looking Luke directly in the eyes, "So, I'm going to start from the beginning, for maximum effect."
"It was a dark, and stormy night, and, honestly I was a little freaked out, too. So I'm in my room, the curtains are drawn, and there's so much rain I call in sick to work because I'm, like, deathly terrified of driving in rainy conditions. It's literally one of my worst nightmares. Andbutso, I'm just on the internet, when the power goes out. You can hear the collective groans and shrieks of everyone in the complex, because thin walls, so I just go out into the hall and try to find Kimmy because she watched too many horror movies when she was a child and was traumatized or something," Luke listened attentively as she spoke, and though she was aware of his eyes on her, she wasn't as nervous under his gaze as she used to be. Things were comfortable right now, "I go out into this space," she gestures at the living room, and then points at the ratty old armchair, "That was on the right side of this couch, so it was in front of the kitchen counter, and I'm telling you because it's totally integral to the story. So I walk out, and call out Kimmy's name, 'cause I don't want to trip over her in the dark or something, right? Anyways--"
