I heard the car before I saw it.
It was loud, all right. Loud, with plenty of engine revving. Roxas could be such a show-off when it comes to his car. Hey, I can't blame him—it's a gorgeous blue convertible. Any time the sun hits it, you'd swear the paint was made of ground-up sapphires or something.
Roxas came around the corner of my block, giving it one more vroom before stopping in my driveway. I bounced down the front walkway and vaulted into the car seat, earning a small glare from him. "Easy, Jewel, it's not a track hurdle." I giggled and shrugged.
"Pff, I think you'll get used to it. And I'm not a terrible jumper, so I won't break anything on the way in," I reassured him. He rolled his eyes sarcastically.
"I dunno," he told me. "Maybe I'll get the roof back up." He laughed when I pouted. "Kidding! All right, let's go." He put his foot down on the accelerator (don't worry, it was in neutral), reminding me of its 300+ horsepower. But what he doesn't realize yet is that to me, cars are cars. I don't know anything about them, nor do I want to. Of course, after this ride came into his possession, he knows (or at least acts like he knows) everything there is to know about cars. But at least he doesn't call it his "baby"; that's when he earns a duct-taped mouth.
We pulled out of my driveway and started the journey to Olive Garden. It's fun, riding in a convertible. You'd think your hair would be totally screwed up, but the wind doesn't even touch it. Thank you, epic convertible designer dudes.
"Hey, this reminds me of that song Shut Up and Drive," I told my driver.
"Oh, yeah, you're right," he agreed with me. I started humming it, looking at the scenery rushing by. Then, outta nowhere, I heard the intro to said song blasting in my ears, scaring me a foot out of my seat. I heard Roxas laugh, then when I turned to him, he yelled, "Karaoke version. Give it a shot?"
"All right," I said, happy to accept. When the intro stopped, I started singing. " I was lookin' for a driver who is qualified, so if you think that you're the one then step into my ride; I'm a fine-tuned supersonic speed machine, got a sunroof top and a gangster lead…" After Roxas stopped his slight gaping at me (like "whoa-I-had-no-idea-she-could-sing-that-awesome"-type gape), he picked up the beat by tapping the side of the car and beat boxing a little. Then he switched to providing back up, harmony vocals.
" So if you feel it, lemme know, know know, come on now what you waitin' for, for, for, my engine's ready to explode, 'splode, 'splode, so start me up and watch me go, go go!
" Getcha where you wanna go, if you know what I mean, gotta ride that's smoother than a limousine. Can ya handle the curves; can ya run all the lights? If ya can, baby boy, then we can go all night. Goin' zero to 60 in 3.5. Baby, you got the keys…now shut up and drive, drive, drive, drive…"
Before we knew it, we were already pulled into Olive Garden. Roxas hit the Pause button on his stereo. "Awww," I complained. "Can we skip dinner and just drive around like this?" He laughed.
"I worked hard to get these reservations! Now come on, or they'll give our table away."
"Okay…" He got out, walking around the car to open the door for me.
"And on the way home, we can do Hips Don't Lie," he told me. That cracked me up.
"Okay, but you're Shakira!"
"What?! No way!" I laughed at his flustered face the whole way in.