Noel’s POV
“I’m famished,” I complained stopping my legs from moving any further.
“But we just got here.” Aaron said turning to look at me.
“Uh,” I checked my invisible wrist watch, “We’ve been here for 6 hours.”
Aaron rolled his eyes checking his gold Rolex wrist watch. Ofcourse if he doesn’t have a gold Rolex wrist watch, who would?. “Nope, we’ve been here for just two hours.”
“Yes, two hours of walking non stop browsing through shops and coming out because of your fashionista picky self.” I said annoyed.
He frowned at me, I frowned back. It became a frowning battle and when he saw I wasn’t giving up anytime soon, he relented. “Ok, 30 minutes break.”
My lips shaped into a broad smile, finally more food for me. I grabbed unto his hand excitedly. “Let’s go, You’re paying.” It wasn’t until we were already moving that I noticed that I was holding onto Aaron’s hand. My cheeks warmed up and my whole body heated up remembering the kiss he gave me in the kitchen. That spot should be marked. I start withdrawing my hand and letting go of his but instead his grip tightened around my hand. I smiled and continued my journey to food Paradise.
As we going through we passed a shop that had a very familiar sound coming off it with different light colours. I stopped walking and walked backwards dragging Aaron with me, I stopped and peered into the shop my eyes widening at the sight before me. “Game studio!”
Aaron looked at me confused, I turned to look at too before I smiled wildly, I’m pretty sure I looked like a Cheshire cat now. He groaned, “what now?”
I dragged him with me into the studio, marveling at the various games there was to play, this was my heaven, what have I been doing in New York all this while. I let go and Aaron’s hand and started walking around, touching the electrical appliances like they were gold. I was in my element. I saw a game I would love to play. “Yes. Let’s play this one.”
“You want to play a game, here?” Aaron asked looking around, I nodded really hard, really fast. “With me?”
“Well, its only you I know here isn’t it?” I asked not liking the way he was wasting time. “Money?” I stretched my hand out to him like a child awaiting candies on Halloween, adding a few eye blink to sell the act.
He shook his head then brought out his wallet and gave me a dollar. I hurriedly ran and changed some of it to coins then returned handing him the change. “You know other girls get this way in libraries.”
“Well thank God my name’s Noel and not ‘Other girls’ ” I said tucking my hair behind my ear and keeping my beanie steady, time for business. “Ready to get crushed?”
He smirked, “Yeah, right after I clear you out of the existence, my ultimate victory would be crushing.”
I smirked too, putting a coin in, “it’s on Aaron.”
We went crazy, literally. I did crush Aaron in that round, then he realized how good I am and upped his game. He won me in another round, but I won him in the next and the next, and he won me in the other two next…. and so on. He was good but so was I and I was a girl who loved a good challenge and Aaron just happened to be perfect plus his ego was on the line so it was a push and pull. We tried almost all the game there including foosball. We exhausted our dollar and it took the grace of God for Aaron to drag me out of there. Literally.
“I don’t want to leave,” I whined the idea of sitting put on the ground sounding really tempting but this was a mall and many many legs have stepped here. I’m germophobic as far as malls, toilets and restroom are concerned.
“We have too. We were shouting like crazy— well you were shouting like crazy and people are looking at us weirdly plus we’ve spent three hours here or more.” Aaron said pulling me out. When we were finally out, I waved sadly at the electronics before following Aaron.
I smiled, Aaron looked at me and asked, “what?”
“That was fun, I had loads of fun.” I turned to him, “funny that always seems to happen when you’re around.”
He smiled and put his arm on top my shoulder pulling me to him, the act was very surprising it shocked me, I could clearly smell his beautiful Cologne making lean into his warm embrace, my cheeks as red as a baby butt. “Yeah what can I say, I’m a fun guy.” He looked down at me, our face inches apart. “Stick with me Noel and you’ll never run out of fun.”
I blinked getting lost in his words, eyes and presence all together. He smiled touching the peak of my nose, “you’re cute when you blush.”
I looked down shaking my senses back into my head, “that sounded like a proposal.”
“And If it is?” He asked.
“Well on occasions you’re really annoying so… I’ll say no.” I said frowning at him
“But I’m supposed to be annoying to girls, that’s that’s the way things work.” He grumbled.
I pushed him off me, “Says who jerk.”
He scratched his head confused, “ok if I try all my best to not be annoying would you stick with me?”
I stroked my chin thinking before lifting his hand and placing it back on my shoulder, “well if you try your best not to be annoying…. I guess I’ll say yes to you.”
He smiled, “it on.”
We entered into the food court and I ordered Roast beef sandwich with a triple cheese chili fries and a can of soda to go with it. Perfect. Aaron ordered same just a smaller portion. “Where would that go into?” Aaron asked me looking at my order and then my tummy.
I rubbed my tummy and turned to speak with a gruff voice, “many have asked, non have stumbled upon the right answer.” He chuckled leading us to a booth as we start down and started devouring the meal before us. I felt Aaron staring at me, I looked up, “what’s the matter?”
He seemed lost in thoughts, he got his self back and pointed a fry at me “so apart from playing games, what are your hobbies?”
The question took me off guard but I immediately recovered, “um… eating?”
He rolled his eyes, “duh.”
I laughed raking my head to find out my hobbies, “I love swimming, it frees my mind and relaxes my nerves. I take pictures,” I smiled at the memory of me and my camera, my camera that was carefully tucked into a box right now in my room. “Unlike most girls I don’t like reading, I only read when I have a problem.”
“When you have a problem?” Aaron asked his eyes completely focused on me.
“Yeah like when I have a boy problem I turn to romantic books,” he chuckled. “When I have a life problem like I’m confused about anything, i turn to all those inspirational, motivational books, family problems, family books and so on.”
“What do you hate or dislike?” He asked resting his elbow on the booth. I leaned forward chewing on a fry.
“Ugh I absolutely hate washing dishes or the toilet, its like there’s some kind of monsters in dirty dishes that freak me out…..”
.
.
“I want to learn how to dance, my mum is great dancer and so was my dad, I don’t know why I’m hopeless in dancing. After that humiliation at my 12 year old party I was slowly learning to dance with my dad but that all ended when he died,” I say said holding onto the shopping bag as we walked.
After eating, Aaron and I had gone back to buy his shirt. We saw two beautiful matching shirts and Aaron insisted on buying them. I only agreed because there was a big discount on the shirt and it would look good on me, so I bought it. Now we both had new shirts. Its a win win. Along the way, Aaron ditched his car, leaving it to Jesse who we met at the walking in the streets apparently he was heading to somewhere important and didn’t want to use his bike. Now Aaron and I were walking home under the night sky.
Yeah, you heard right. It already late, we went to the mall in the morning and was coming back home late into the evening with only one shirt for each of us. We spent a lot of time at the food courts, talking ofcourse. Aaron wanted to know me and who knew I like talking about myself. He asked me a lot of question and I answered him sincerely. But I didn’t want to be the only one talking and I was also curious about him. So we talked about each other… a lot.
“I suck at tennis too, I just can’t get the heading of it. My dad teases me about it, saying I’m just like my mum.” Aaron says laughing it off. “Why did you stop dancing after your dad… died.”
I shrugged looking up at the sky seeing the beautiful stars, “I don’t know, I only learned with him. It just doesn’t feel right with someone else and I guess I’m just…”
“Afraid to fall.” He said, I turned to look at him and he was already looking at me, his eyes filled with understanding. I gave a small smile in reply turning to look back up. Nobody talked, we just walked in silence. I wasn’t sure if I was comfortable with the silence or not.
“My grandma spent 15 years in prison.” He just blunted out all of a sudden making me to burst into laughter.
“What?” I asked wiping my invisible tears, he didn’t look like he was lying, “oh my gosh that’s… that’s terrible.”
“I know, apparently she dealt with drugs, casinos, assassin stuff and other kind of things you only see in Mexican telenovelas,” he said I didn’t know how to reply to that. “She is one handful of a grandma. She was sentenced twenty years but dad connections and government parole got her out five years early.”
“I did not any grandparents, the only grand parent I knew was my grandfather who owned our house and lived here. He had a huge and major beef with my mum because she married my dad so I didn’t get to see much of him.” I say giving my own grand parent story as we stopped in front of my house. Both of stood there looking at the door.
After a while I talked, “wanna come in?”
He raised his hands up, “well now that you offered… How can I say no?” I laughed as we entered inside.
‘Chinese in the oven’
That was the sticker note I saw on the fridge written in my mum’s beautiful cursive hand writing. Aaron was making himself comfortable on the couch so I went upstairs to check on her. She was tucked in peacefully on her bed, snoring slowly. I smiled kissing her forehead. “Goodnight mum.” I tip toed out of the room closing the door behind me slowly.
I fixed the Chinese dinner for Aaron and I and we sat down together on the couch eating and watching X-men. Afterwards, I went upstairs took my bath and prepared to sleep for the night. While dressing my bed, I heard a knock on the door. “Come in.”
“Nice PJs,” Aaron said leaning on the door frame and commenting on my Superman PJs, a shirt and short. “I have one like that, we could match sometime.”
“You’re delusional.”
He laughed, “I’ll be going home now.”
“Oh,” I said sitting on my bed and drawing my sheets to me, I was disappointed a part of me wanted him to spend the night here, not necessarily on my bed but that would be ok too. “This late?”
He shrugged coming in and closing the door behind him. “I could crash at Jesse’s.” He sat on the bed making it deep down.
“Oh ok, goodnight then.” I said ignoring the disappointment and not looking forward to the loneliness that was bound to fall on me the moment he leaves my room.
But Aaron didn’t make any attempt to leave, instead his face got a little serious and his look was focused on me. His staring was making me uncomfortable somehow and I started squirming beneath me. His hand shot up and tilted my chin up so I can look at him.
What’s he doing.
“Noel,” he said softly causing goosebumps to appear on my skin. “You know…. You know your father would have let you go someday right? Someday he would have removed his hands from yours while dancing and he would loved to watch you fall and get back on your feet dancing just the way he had taught you right?”
I repeated his words in my head over and over again and tears welled up in my eyes. I nodded, I nodded and nodded until the tears started falling off. Aaron’s jaw clenched and his expression morphed into a pained one. His hand went to my cheek and his thumb wiped a fallen tear away.
“I know,” I replied softly. “I know, I know but…” My voice was breaking and the tears were choking me. “I wasn’t ready.” I looked at his understanding eyes feeling comfortable as more tears left me. “I guess I wasn’t ready yet.”
I fell into his embrace and cried my eyes out. I don’t like crying, I rarely cried but I think this cry was coming a long time and finally it came on Aaron, on Aaron the that’s slowly warming his way into my heart and life, breaking my defenses and bringing out emotions no one has been able to bring out of me for two years. Two years my dad died yet I’m still crying over it. I’m so pathetic.
Aaron wiped my tears and tucked me into my bed. He was about to go but I quickly held onto his hand, “stay.”
He smiled, “I wasn’t planning on going anyway love.” I let go of him and he walked behind me, I heard shuffling and my bed dipped as he tucked himself in turning to me. I leaned into him, his hand over me. “Goodnight love.”
“Goodnight Aaron.”
And once again I had a perfect goodnight sleep.
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Bye.
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All of everything I understand, I only do because I love you.
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