HEY MY BEAUTIFULS! I'm sure you've noticed that i've updated a lot lately and that's because i'm going on vacation for a while and i'm not sure how much time i'll have during that time. But I will update on July 3 at the latest! But I hope this longer chapter makes up for it!
Me: Can someone say the disclaimer?
Stanley: Hell no
Me: Language!
Stanley: *smirks* sorry
John: Hey readers!
Jospeh: Focus John!
Maren: JOHN?!
Me: Here we go, Marina please just say the disclaimer
Marina: . . doesn't own us or the Lorien legacies series
Me: Thank you! Onto the story!
Marina
Maren and I are walking home when I get Joseph's texts. He and I made up last night, and we needed up talking for hours. My face automatically heats up after remembering what he said. I look up dreamily at the sky, but quickly look down again when the sun flashes brightly in my eyes. Maren continues to talk about some girl who tripped her in gym and how pissed she is at her. I try to listen closely but just zone out once so I get another text from Joseph, saying how he wouldn't miss tonight for the world. I roll my eyes at his cheesiness and push my hair out of my hair quickly before texting him back and looking up from my phone with a smile, to be greeted with Maren's smirking face.
"So, am I ever going to get to know this guys name or what?" Maren's teasing voice snaps me out of my daydream immediately.
"Huh?" I repeatedly try to shake his stupid grin out of my head while Maren rolls her eyes at me and starts twirling her hair, putting a dreamy look on her face.
"So are we on for tonight? Can't wait!" She giggles, winking at the end of her sentence. My face heats up and I smack her on the shoulder.
"You've been reading my texts?!" I yell angrily, but she continuously twirls her finger around her wavy hair.
"Like, maybe. Omg you are soooo funny like stop it!" She squeals and my eyes widen in frustration. My cheeks flare bright red before putting my face in my hands in embarrassment. I hear Maren laughing at me loudly, but I continue to try and ignore her, but after she starts mocking me again, I jerk my head up quickly and try to hit her, but she slides away.
"I do not say 'like' that much!" I protest, but she shrugs and happily looks ahead of her, way too happy for her normal mood.
"Maybe I was exaggerating a little, but you do sound pretty..."
"Watch it." She hesitates, deciding against what she was going to say. We walk in silence for a few seconds before she coughs.
"Stupid" She coughs through her words to hide it but I turn to her and I try to glare, but a happy smile breaks its way through onto my face.
"That's it!" I exclaim, and she starts to run away quickly. I laugh outright before starting to chase her the rest of the way home. Cliche as it sounds, it feels really great to see her laugh again, it's been way too long.
After we get home, we end up, against Maren's protests, studying. I threw my hair up in a quick messy bun and lightly pulled around a few strands, framing my face. There are textbooks and papers sprawled out all around Maren's bed and there are so many pencils I can't even adjust my seat without being worried that i'm going to stab myself. To my right, I hear Maren sigh angrily at the math problem she's on and start to mumble something abort how stupid she thinks it is. I chuckle to myself and look back down to my english paper. The french revolution was before the civil war, right? I'm pretty sure, well, not really. Maren makes another frustrated noise and taps my shoulder, and I look up to see her with big, begging eyes.
"Can we please stop?" she whines, laying her head down in my lap. I laugh at her complaints and gently lift her head off of my lap.
"Fine, but only because I don't know a thing about the french revolution" I joke, causing her and I both to laugh and she shuts her math textbook happily.
"Thank god!" She leans back against the head board of the bed and runs her hands through her tangled hair.
"You know," she starts, smirking. "you never told me this amazing guys name" she turns her body so she can sit right across from me. Rolling my eyes, I start to pick up all my papers spread across the bed and start putting them in my backpack.
Your right, I didn't" I spare a glance up at her to see her giving me annoyed look.
"Don't be a smart ass" she mumbles angrily, causing me to burst out laughing.
"Maren!"
"I can keep on going if you want me to" She opens her mouth and starts forming a word that seems to rhyme with tuck, until I buckle under pressure and yell the first thing that pops into my head.
"Jake!" I close my eyes and sigh, disappointed in myself. I can't believe I just lied about his name, there was absolute no point in doing that, but blame my stupid mouth for freaking out.
"Jake?" She says, giving me a questioning look, obviously catching on my train of thought.
"Yeah, his names Jake" I scramble onto words, trying to search for a believable backstory. "I met him a few weeks ago, and he asked me out last night" I'm smiling on the outside, backing my statement up with a small blush on my cheeks. But on the inside, i'm screaming at myself. Literally everything I just said was completely wrong. Well, except the asked out part, not like it's a date or anything, we're just hanging out as friends.
"Well then, we have to get you ready for your date!" She exclaims, standing up and pulling me with her. Despite my protests, she drags me to the bathroom and places me in front of the mirror.
"What kind of date is it?" She murmurs, more to herself than me.
"Uh- Casual?" She nods and starts opening random drawers, trying to find some subtle makeup. She has to open almost ten drawers before finding the mascara she was looking for, she probably couldn't find it easily considering that neither her or I wear makeup on a normal basis.
"Since when have you been into makeup?" I ask suspiciously. She snorts and leans closer to me, brushing my eyelashes up with the mascara brush.
"I'm not" She laughs at the question and has to steady her arms so she doesn't mess up doing my makeup. "I just have experience from my dates with... John" She turns away from me and tries to play off her hesitation but I grab her arm and turn her face back to mine and she looks at me with tears in her eyes.
"Maren" I whisper, pulling her into a tight hug, and she returns it quickly. Surprising us both she lets out small sob as she wraps her arms around me. I never knew how much she really missed John. I guess since it happened almost a year ago that I kinda dismissed it, but that was probably stupid, considering she hasn't even though about a guy ever since. She lets go of me with a quick sigh and brushes a few stray tears away from her eyes.
"You know Maren, I could cancel if you want, I could totally-" I start rambling but she cuts me off immediately.
"No" She says shaking her head slightly, but smiling very lightly. "This is your first date, i'm not going to let you miss it" I give her a grateful smile and she grabs another fluffy brush to apply some blush, after I disagreed to putting on foundation. She spends a small amount of time picking out a cute white blouse for me to wear, along with some blue ripped jean shorts. She looks me over a few times approvingly but sprints to the bathroom quickly. I raise an eyebrow suspiciously and start to laugh when she runs back in with a tube of light pink lip gloss.
"Maren.." I start with a warning tone in my voice. She just smirks and uncaps it smoothly, leaning over to run it lightly over my lips.
"Now your perfect" She praises, grabbing a pair of nice sneakers for me to wear. "So, when is he coming to pick you up?" She wanders around the room, starting to clean up the mess she made getting me ready. I momentarily hesitate but when she looks up at me expectantly, I quickly explain myself.
"No uh, we're meeting somewhere" She smiles slightly, going back to cleaning her bathroom counter.
"May I know where?" She teases, not looking up and meeting my eyes. I let out noise of panic but I don't think she notices. I glance out the window quickly, trying to think of a random restaurant but then refrain myself, because that could easily backfire if she stops by and i'm not there. So instead of that, I out on a mysterious smile and try to get my eyes to light up.
"Nope. It's a secret" I reply lightly, holding my finger to my mouth as if i'm hushing her. She looks up once and grins before looking down at her lit up phone. She reads a message and then her eyes widen. I'm about to ask her what's wrong when she runs over to me and is pushing me out her balcony door, since were on ground level.
"Great! Then have fun!" She pushes once last final time and sends me one more supportive smile before slamming the doors right in my face. I open my mouth in surprise but then pull out my phone and glance down at its screen, shaking the thought off.
It's 4:38, which is perfect since I need to meet Joseph at five. I sigh and start walking down the road that led me to the forest my walk a few nights ago. Our 'secret place' is a park that's a few miles away from our house. Which, wasn't very ideal since that requires lots of walking but, I couldn't really risk it. Why do I have to keep thinking that? I try to shake off that thought immediately and try to regain the right mindset. Just as i'm about to cross the street and am looking across it, a pair of warm hands cover my eyes. I struggle against them, thinking of the other night in the forest, when I hear a warm whisper behind my hear.
"Hey, it's okay. Just me" A small, shy smile takes form on my face when I hear Joseph's voice and turn to take him in in full view. He's dressed in a dark blue t shirt with black jeans and a pair of really worn out sneakers. I tear my eyes from studying him to meet his gaze, but his eyes were also scanning me and he looked at me shyly. Before I lose the adrenaline of seeing him again, I smirk and tilt my head curiously.
"You like what you see?" He responds to my teasing by shaking off his shy look and giving me a cheerful smile.
"How about you?" His smile turns into more of a smirk and a blush of course, rises on my face, but I try to play it off anyways.
"Damn it! You caught me" I sigh sarcastically, causing him to break out into a cheerful laugh. He bumps my shoulder casually with his as we start walking down the street.
"Well, you caught me first." He reasons, causing me to laugh loudly, causing us to gather the attention of multiple people, and I panic slightly when I remember Josephs tattoo. I shoot innocent smiles to the people surrounding us and shoot a quick look at Jospehs confused eyes and pull him into a hug, making sure that my head goes to the same side of his tattoo. As I wrap my arms around him loosely, Joseph makes a noise of surprise before returning the it.
"Uh- not like i'm against hugs or anything but, what's this for?" He asks, chuckling as he feels me smile against his neck.
"Hold on" I say, pulling back slightly to look at his neck when I realize that his tattoo isn't anywhere to be seen. "what?" I gasp in confusion, looking around on both sides of his head frantically. My eyes must show my confusion, because Joseph grabs my hands that were surrounding his neck and holds them in is.
"I covered it up, one of my friends put some makeup on it" He looks into my eyes earnestly and his words make a smile come onto my face in full force. He smiles too and reaches out to brush my cheek, and that's when I realize how close our faces are together. I blush and quickly retreat out of his arms, and I see a flash of emotion in his eyes that I can't quite place.
"That was, uh, very thoughtful of you" Way to go, Marina. You really couldn't have been any more awkwardly. Instead of calling me out on it, he just laughs and pats me on the back.
"No problem"
The day goes on and we spend the rest of the afternoon laughing like crazy. Joseph takes me to a diner and we get dinner and afterward he bought me a milkshake. I insisted on paying for myself but he said that it wouldn't be the right thing to do because he was trying to be a gentleman, which I laughed at. When the sun started to set, he insisted on walking me home, and assured me that no one would recognize him. He walked me to the door and I swear he had a look in his eyes that meant he wanted to kiss me, but it disappeared so quickly that i'm sure i must have imagined it.
I walk inside to find Maren fast asleep on her bed and with nothing but a tank top and shorts. Chuckling, I pull a blanket over her and she unconsciously snuggles it closer to her body. She smiles in her sleep and seeing her so calm puts a very peaceful smile on my face. I turn to the air mattress set up on the floor for me but shiver as a i step towards it. I turn with a start to see our balcony door wide open with the curtains flowing freely in the wind. I don't even think about it because i'm too busy smiling from my amazing day with Joseph, i just shut the doors and lay down on the mattress. Even if my thoughts are completely overwhelmed but the days events, I do wonder in a small piece of my brain why the doors were open, but I don't really think much about it.
In hindsight, I really should have.
First "date" of navrina and looks like some Drama is brewing.. told ya the good stuff is coming. See you all soon and leave me a review because they make my day a million times better.
