CHAPTER 1 - THAT LITTLE BLACK DRESS
In the first chapter of my previous fanfic "A Stoked Christmas", Lo, while she was talking with her mother about Kelly, mentioned that Kelly had once treated her poorly when she was first put on the Pirate Ship staff by her father because she initially had a perception of Lo based on an old schoolmate of Kelly's from her high school days, with whom she did not get along.
This newest fanfic, which expands on what Lo told her mother, will explore a little more into Kelly's past and reveal, in later chapters, some events that occurred in her life prior to the arrival of Reef, Fin and the rest of the groms at Surfer's Paradise, while also introducing a new antagonist (represented by a new OC), the aforementioned old rival of Kelly's, who comes back into her life just as she is beginning to grow in her relationship with her boyfriend David. Expect some drama to occur as a result of the reappearance of Kelly's old enemy.
The events of this fanfic take place roughly around the time of the events of "A Boy Named Leslie" in the Stoked internal timeline.
On the seaplane travelling from Sunset Beach to Victoria early on Friday evening, Kelly was looking out the window by her seat toward Victoria as the plane approached the city, heading toward its destination at the seaplane terminal in Victoria's inner harbor. A few days earlier, she and her boyfriend, David Hughes, had talked about the possibility of her taking a trip down to Victoria one weekend to see him as he was about to board the seaplane to return home. After checking her funds and talking with David in a webcam chat the night before, she told him that she planned to take him up on his offer to head to his hometown to see him that weekend, which pleased him when he heard the news.
As she watched the inner harbor get closer while looking out her window, Kelly was thinking about Surfer's Paradise and the staff she worked and roomed with there. Since she and David began dating, she had begun slowly building relationships with some of the junior staff, thanks to her efforts to change her once-unpleasant attitude and become a better person in order to impress David when she first met him at the hotel's Pirate Ship dining lounge while she was on duty. One of the benefits gained from her newfound, more pleasant personality taking root was the friendship she had formed with Fin, thanks to Fin teaching her and David how to surf the week before. She had also become more friendly to Emma as the result of a heartfelt chat the two girls had about David and his positive influence on her.
As well, while Kelly no longer treated Lo poorly as she had when the hotel owner's daughter first joined the Pirate Ship wait staff during grom initiation, she had only recently begun warming up to Lo when she learned from Fin that the rich girl had been secretly supplying the summer staff with better-quality food to replace the barely-edible garbage which day manager Bummer had been bringing in recent days. Since she had a low opinion of Bummer and little respect for him, Kelly began to gain a new respect for Lo and her own efforts to improve for the better since Kelly first met the Ridgemount clan over a year earlier when she began working at the hotel, so she promised not to say anything to Bummer about Lo's food switch. But while she enjoyed the new friendships she was making with most of the groms, as well as re-establishing her friendships with her fellow seniors, Kelly felt a sense of relief to be able to get away from Surfer's Paradise for the weekend, and especially from Bummer and his slavedriving ways.
When the seaplane finally landed and pulled up to the seaplane dock at the inner harbor, Kelly looked out her window and saw David walking on the dock toward the plane, waiting to greet her. Grabbing her suitcase from overhead storage, she then stepped off the plane and ran over to meet her boyfriend. "David, hi!" she said pleasantly as she put down her suitcase and greeted him with a big hug, then kissed him.
"Good to see you again in person, Kelly," David said after they finished kissing. "So how was the plane ride over?"
"It was okay," Kelly replied, "but I'm glad I'm here now and I'm happy you're here."
"Perfect," David said as Kelly picked her suitcase back up and they started walking, arm-in-arm, toward the seaplane terminal. "So, where are you staying for the weekend?"
"We won't have to go far to get there," Kelly said. "I'm using my Ridgemount Resorts employee's discount to stay at the Empress Hotel. Got a standard room booked there for tonight and tomorrow."
"Wow, pretty nice," said an impressed David of the Empress, one of the crown jewels of the Ridgemount Resorts hotel chain (aside from the flagship Surfer's Paradise) and one of the top hotels in Victoria. "That's one of the perks of working for a hotel chain." As he and Kelly arrived at his car in the parking lot, he then said, "What do you have planned for tonight?"
"I was thinking about staying in and either watching TV or surfing the Internet on my laptop at first, but I think you've got something in mind, don't you?" Kelly said with a sly glance and a flirtatious smile toward David.
"Now that you mention it, I do," David answered, returning the smile as he started his car.
Over in Kelly's room at the Empress, Kelly was in the bathroom taking a shower and getting ready for an evening out with David, who was in the main room watching a Seattle Mariners baseball game on the room's widescreen TV in the meantime. Kelly had finished her shower after about 20 minutes, but another 20 minutes after that, she had not yet finished getting ready as she had to dry her hair, brush her teeth, put on a couple of spritzes of her favorite perfume and try on a dress she had bought to wear for David for her trip to Victoria.
"You almost ready yet, Kelly?" David called from outside the bathroom.
"I'll be another couple of minutes," Kelly replied. "I need to look my best anyway 'cause I have a surprise I want to show you."
"Okay then," David said before he turned back to the baseball game while continuing to wait for Kelly.
After another five minutes, Kelly unlocked and opened the bathroom door just enough to poke her head out from inside. "All right, you all ready for my surprise?" she said to David with a smile.
"Can't wait to see what you got," David said. As soon as Kelly opened the bathroom door the rest of the way and stepped out, David's mouth opened in surprise when he saw her emerge wearing a slinky, form-fitting sleeveless black dress with one shoulder strap over her left shoulder and its hemline coming a couple of inches above her knees. "So, what do you think?" Kelly asked of her dress.
Looking Kelly's dress up and down, all David could manage was "Whoa."
Kelly giggled at David's reaction to the dress. "Yeah, that's what I thought," she commented. "I'll take that as an 'I like it'."
"Oh, I think 'I like it' would be understating it a bit," David said with a small chuckle. "Actually, I love your dress. It looks great on you, very dressy chic."
"Oh, well, thanks David," Kelly said with another smile as her cheeks blushed slightly. She then passed David her digital camera to take a picture of her with the dress so she could e-mail it to her friends back at Surfer's Paradise later. "So what do you have planned for us for tonight?" she then asked.
David answered Kelly's question by taking her over to an all-ages dance club on Yates Street in the downtown area. Thanks to David knowing the club's owner, he and Kelly got in for free, thereby avoiding the lineup outside the front entrance. Once inside, the couple were quick to hit the dance floor, mixing their choice of tunes to dance to between the faster-paced electronica music and the more relaxing chillout music that David favored.
At a table while resting in between dances, David asked Kelly, "What do you think of this place so far?"
"It's great," Kelly responded, feeling jazzed over the night she was having up to then. "I'm really having fun here."
"Glad you like it," David said. Moments later, a jazzy-sounding uptempo tune called "El Alba", flavored with Latin-influenced acoustic guitar, began playing in the club, catching his attention. "Hey, this one's one of my favorites," he said to Kelly. "Want to head back on the floor?"
"Sure," Kelly said eagerly as she and David took to the dance floor again. At that point during the song, all eyes in the club were on Kelly, and they watched with interest as the stunning girl with the dark red bob-cut hair in the black dress grooved to the rhythm of the song with the lucky guy she was with, whom she had stuck with exclusively from the moment they arrived at the club.
One pair of eyes, in particular, watched from the sidelines, eyeing Kelly with seething jealousy while watching her and David dancing on the floor. The girl in question, who had long, sandy-blonde hair and was wearing a red dress with a matching short jacket, had once known Kelly from their high school days in Kelly's hometown of Nanaimo, and her eyes narrowed in an angry scowl as she continued to watch the redhead.
Like, what the hell's she doing here?, the blonde girl thought to herself while keeping her eyes on Kelly. I thought I saw the last of her just a few months before graduation! And who does she think she is, getting all the attention out there - attention that I should be getting myself! The blonde girl then clenched her fist on the table she was sitting at, fuming over being passed over for the attention she believed she deserved from the crowd at the club in favor of Kelly. This is, like, just too much! she thought. She's gonna pay for crossing paths with me again, and especially for trying to steal my thunder!
So, what will the appearance of this mysterious blonde girl have in store for Kelly? Based on her reaction to Kelly's appearance at the dance club, she's not happy about it at all and she will have something to say about it. What does she plan to do about it? Check out the next chapter and find out.
Stoked (c) Fresh TV Inc. and Teletoon. I don't own the show or any of the characters except for my OCs.
Reviews and comments are welcome.
