Ello! I have a nice, long chapter for ya! I just wanted to post it before school starts ... updates may be even slower now :( I'll try though! Well, enjoy this chapter and review it if ya can! My goal is to reach... 50 reviews? :)

Oh and I wanted to say, that I saw the new season premire of Ben 10: AF today and it was... okay. I HATE KEVIN'S OUTFIT. Like Gwen's though! And I like Ben's attitude now, it's more of his age to act like that! Any thoughts on it? Tell me!!

Chapter 11
It's A Date

"Wow. It's really amazing what modern medicine can do these days!" That was the beginning of a hoaxey speech and my parents knew it too. It was 7:45 at night and we were all sitting down in the living room. My mom was reading a gardening magazine when she looked up at me with one eyebrow raised. Dad on the other hand continued to watch Jeopardy on the TV, not even bothering to look up. Thanks dad.

"I mean, psh, I took about two aspirins and man do I feel better! Who knew that such healing power could be in those little tablets? Maybe that's why so many people pop pills because man do they work!—" I sat up on the couch intensely to seem full of energy. But, mommy dearest wasn't going to buy it and I knew it.

"Gwen. You've got to be kidding me. This morning you weren't well enough to go to school and now — poof — you're all better?" Mom said with her no-nonsense face on. Then she studied my outfit. "And for someone who didn't even go out all day you sure do have nice clothes on…"

Curse you, you, darn cute clothes! Although it took me hours to pick out the perfect outfit I immediately regretted it. Why did I get dressed for my date before convincing my parents to let me go? I was wearing my emerald green and black buffalo-plaid button-down blouse with the top buttons open to reveal my white tank top underneath. The sleeves to the blouse were rolled up to my elbows — just how I liked them — and my dark blue denim mini skirt with my black cloth belt really complimented the outfit. My shiny sliver chain with a tiny charm shaped like a cat's head dangled on my neck (it was the necklace I wore to match my favorite blue kitty shirt when I was ten). Hell, I even wore my adorable black knit slouch boots even though it was getting a little too hot for them!

"Uh… well, you see…" I stalled as I covered myself with the nearest blanket.

"You have a date, don't you?" Mom said bluntly.

My dad looked away from the TV to me now. "Date?" he asked raising an eyebrow. Can you say selective hearing dad?

"I wouldn't call it a date. Just plans…" I said sinking into the couch.

"And where are these so-called plans taking place?" Mom badgered me more.

"At the pier. Me and Ben and a couple of friends were going to go to the carnival tonight and I totally forgot about it," I told a little white lie.

Mom crossed her arms and I immediately knew I was going to lose this conversation. "A couple of friends? And you were too sick to go to school this morning but, now I'm supposed to let you—"

"I'll bring home funnel cake with extra powder on it!" I tried.

"Done," said my dad, to my surprise. My mom shot him the evil eye as he handed me a twenty dollar bill. He sighed and added, "But you have to be back by 11 o' clock at the latest and you must call home when you get there."

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I squealed as I bounced up from the couch. "Now, Kevin should be here to pick me up any second—" I began to walk to the door.

"Kevin?" My dad called after me in an I-don't-like-where-this-is-going tone of voice.

I paused and sighed. "Yes, Kevin. The tall, dark-haired boy who is the only one with a license. Remember? You met him before!"

"I remember he was the boy that I caught outside your window, the day that your Grandma Verdona visited."

"Ben was with him," I tried.

"I don't seem to remember Ben being there. Nope, doesn't ring a bell." My dad looked up at the ceiling just to annoy me.

"You're impossible, dad," I smirked. Just then Kevin honked his horn to let me know he was there. "Oh, that's them! Gotta go, love you guys!" I said quickly as I ran out the door. As I crossed the lawn I could hear me mom yell after me, "Remember to call!"

When I opened Kevin's car door I was greeted by blaring metal music. As soon as I stumbled into the passenger seat I turned town the radio, about, 50 notches (it was on 100 before!) Not quite the entrance I was hoping for.

"Really Gwen?" Kevin said in disbelief.

"I know, how dare I save our ear drums and everyone's in a mile's radius?" I said with a smirk. I could hear Ben and Julie chuckle from the back seat.

"I think I'm startin' to rub off on ya, Gwen. You're comebacks are gettin' almost as good as mine," Kevin gave me a wry smile back.

After I buckled myself in I leaned over to kiss Kevin's cheek. What can I say? Teasing each other just naturally comes with going out.

As soon as Kevin started to drive I turned around in my seat to face Ben and Julie in the back. "Hey Julie! I haven't seen you lately!" I smiled as I greeted Julie.

"Hey Gwen! I know, right? I wanted to call you but I've been stuck practicing overtime for tennis…" she said as she flashed me a smile. We had a lot of catching up to do so we pretty much talked the entire car ride to the pier. Since Julie was one of my few friends that were actually girls, it was pretty cool having normal conversations with her. It amazed me how Ben was actually going out with a nice and pretty girl. It was a step up from the last girl he was seriously crushing on (Kai, whom I secretly mumble "bitch" after I say her name).

When we arrived at the pier's parking lot it was pretty crowded.

"Can you believe this? It's not even the weekend and it's crowded!" Ben said in disbelief.

"There must be a special tonight or something," Julie shrugged.

"I can't find any parking spaces," Kevin growled. Did I mention he has a bit of road rage? Just then a car honked its horn obnoxiously at Kevin. Bad move buddy, bad move. I saw Kevin's knuckles turn white as he gripped the steering wheel.

"Would you… ladies… like to… walk up to the entrance while I… find parking..?" Kevin said in between gritted teeth. It was code word for get-the-fuck-out-so-I-can-lose-it-on-this-man-without-scarring-you.

"Sure, no problem. I have to make a phone call anyway. Come'on Julie!" I said quickly as I opened the car door.

Julie exited the car and walked right behind me as I made my way to the carnival's entrance. Even from the ticket booth you could slightly hear the cursing from the guys. I rolled my eyes and made my promised phone call to home.

As soon as hung up the phone I turned to Julie. I had to admit that she was a cute little Asian girl. Well, she was only a little bit shorter than me but it still counted. She had this dark silky short hair to match her pretty almond shaped dark eyes. Plus, she looked fabulous in her pink halter top with those faded black skinny jeans!

How is my annoying-ass cousin dating her again?

Oh yeah, me. I was the one who pushed him to ask her out.

"So, Gwen… is it true that you and Kevin are finally going out?" Julie giggled as she asked me this question.

"Oh, um, yeah… yeah we're actually on boyfriend/girlfriend status now," I said while leaning against the ticket booth.

"Well, it's about time!" she smiled, "You two have been giving each other puppy-eyes for as long as I can remember!"

Puppy-eyes? Oh god, it was that bad… but, admittedly funny.

"How'd you find out anyway?" I asked curiously.

"Nick Miller won't shut up about how he saw you guys making out outside of the school. You know I think that jerk still likes you…" Julie said rolling her eyes. My jaw dropped. Oh no! My PDA (Public Display of Affection) actually became public?!

Didn't see that coming.

"I'm going to kill him," I moaned. Julie laughed and nodded her head in agreement.

"Can I help?" she asked jokingly.

"Please and thank you!" I joked back. We were both laughing when I saw these two guys approach us.

"Hey there," greeted the tall one. He smiled at me like we knew each other or something so I decided to at least say hi back.

"Um, hi…" I managed a smile back. The kid looked at least 16, he had short brown hair and really nice blue eyes.

"You know, I can't imagine why two pretty girls like you two are here by yourselves…" said the other boy. He was slightly shorter than the brunette, but was much more muscular and had blonde hair and brown eyes.

"But we could fix that if you'd like…" finished the brunette boy. They were both moving in closer and since me and Julie were against the ticket booth it was getting a little uncomfortable.

"You know, we're actually not—" But just as Julie began to explain the brunette tried grabbing at my waist.

"Hey!" I hissed and with lightening reflexes I countered. He ended up pinned up against the ticket booth with me holding his arms behind his back. So in other words, I looked like I was going to arrest him.

"Bitch!" He spat as he struggled to break out of my grip. In response I pushed him harder against the booth. Unfortunately, his buddy pulled me off him. I looked at Julie who was clearly scared so I decided it would be best for me not to kick the crap out of these two boys, which I was fully capable of doing.

But they didn't know that.

"Stupid ginger and chink!" They both spat at us. My blood boiled with anger. But then it settled as I saw Kevin and Ben make their way toward us.

The two boys had their backs turned to them so when Kevin and Ben yanked their shoulders they were caught by surprise.

"Is there a problem here, punk?" Kevin snarled at them.

"Well, maybe you should ask your fire crotch bitch," said the brunette with a crooked smile on his face. He friend chuckled alongside him. "Or maybe that slit-eyed chink," he chimed in.

Ben and Kevin's faces flushed with pure rage.

If you happened to blink at this moment you would have missed all of the next three things that happened:

1) Ben shoved the blonde boy so hard that he flew into the nearest garbage can.

2) Kevin purposely tossed the brunette boy into the parking lot. (A car had to swerve in order to avoid hitting into the kid!)

3) And then we all ran like hell into the carnival.

Okay, so maybe we didn't handle that the best. We weren't exactly aiming for any gold star stickers today so, hiding behind the fortune-telling booth was totally okay for right now.

"The nerve of those jerks," Julie fumed with her arms crossed. Ben wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close to him.

"It's all right now. They got what they deserved," he said trying to comfort her.

"Yeah… I just hope security doesn't find us," Kevin said scoping the area already. That's my little juvenile delinquent!

"They are not going to ruin my night to have fun," I almost growled. I felt a headache coming on and I hoped it wasn't the alien caused kind that I've been getting lately.

'Cause they didn't invent an Advil for that yet so I'd be screwed.

"Well, there are lots of things we can do now… like eat junk, go on rides, or play games," Julie piped in, "Oh, look at that game! Come'on Ben, let's play it!"

I watched as Julie dragged off Ben to a game booth. When I looked up at the sign of the booth I grimaced. It was a "Win-A-Fish" booth. Ben was known to kill fishes faster than you can name them "Bubbles". Poor Julie didn't even know.

"Shall we?" Kevin asked in a mock tone. He smiled his million dollar smile and extended his hand.

"We shall," I smiled. I accepted his hand and we laced our fingers together. Holding hands, we walked out from our hiding spot and onto a crowded path of the carnival. Since it was so busy today I felt comfort in knowing that security probably wouldn't find us.

"Look, look!" Julie bounced towards us. She held up a plastic baggie with a tiny yellow goldfish swimming around in it. "Ben won me a goldfish!" she beamed.

My heart sank. I shot a death glare toward Ben that said how-could-you-do-that?! He shrugged back uncomfortably, which led me to believe he had no choice.

I sighed and said, "Just… don't name it Bubbles." Or let Ben anywhere near it, I wanted to add — but didn't.

"Me and Gwen are gonna walk around now. Meet us here 'bout… 10:30… and we'll all get somethin' to eat. Kay?" Kevin said.

Ben and Julie both agreed and I watched as they walked away to do other things. Kevin and I walked away in the other direction and searched around to see what we wanted to do.

"Hey… you know, this is our first official date," I said looking up towards his face.

"Really?" Kevin asked looking down at my face, "What the hell took me so long to ask you out?"

"'Don't push me'…" I quoted him, laughing, "But seriously, we waited for, like, ever to just admit it."

Kevin stayed quiet, but I could tell he was thinking, so we kept walking. I saw the Gravitron ride, which is like one of my favorite so we got on line for it. Just as we were about to enter the ride it got full so we had to wait for it to finish.

"Aww…" I moaned, but I let it go. I leaned against Kevin's torso and he wrapped his arms around me.

"Ya know, I was just thinkin'... 'bout why it took me so long to admit that I liked you…" he started slowly.

"And..?" I asked looking up at him. All I saw was his jaw but even that was cute on him too.

"I think I was scared of you," he said.

"What? But, I'm like way smaller than you!" I laughed. Not that I couldn't kick his ass, but still, scared?

"Not in that way scared, but more like, rejection scared…" he said. I waited for more clarification.

"You're so different from all the other girls I dated before you. They were trash — you're… prim and proper."

"Prim and proper?" I said amused.

"And smart, and beautiful — in an entire different way than they were," he continued.

"Not slutty," I coughed.

"Anyway!" he cracked a smile, "It's just tha… you're so much better than I was… am… that you rejecting me scared me more than anything else," he finished.

He turned his head down to stare into my emerald green eyes. I stared into his deep, dark brown eyes. I briefly wondered what color our eyes would make if they were mixed together.

"Yeah, well… I occasionally take in lost puppies," I teased him.

"Woof," he said as he leaned over me to kiss. It was a weird, upside down kiss (kind of like Spider-man's and Mary Jane's, actually) but it was cute and still a good kiss. I was beginning to believe that Kevin just couldn't kiss badly. Ever.

"Next on line!" called the ride operator.

"Hey, that's us!"

---

The carnival had never looked prettier before. Since it was night now, the moon was almost full and shining right above us. All the attractions were lit up like that old Rainbow Lite-Brite toy I used to have. Reds, blues, and yellows flashed about playfully in my eyesight.

We were back at our meeting spot since it was around 10:30 now. We planned to go eat at the Pier's restaurant for dinner. It was like eating fast food — only sitting down — so no one had a problem with that (well, except Julie. Who has very strict Asain parents so they forbid her from fast food. But no worries, we turned her to the dark side.)

We all walked up to the front of the restaurant, where we were greeted by this fairly young waitress.

"Welcome to the Pier's Diner! Party of four?" she bubbly asked. I nodded and she grabbed some menus and began to walk to the back of the diner. My heart sank. I really wanted to eat outside on the patio of the restaurant to keep looking at the lights.

"Hey, wait!" Kevin called after the waitress. She turned around and walked back to us.

"Yes?" she asked smiling widely at him. I slightly gritted my jaw in attempt to control the she-tiger that wanted to pop out of me and strangle her.

"I'm sorry for botherin' ya... Chloe," Kevin smiled as checked out her name tag (which was conveniently located on her chest). "But, I would really, really love it if we could have an outside table…"

I stared at him in awe. How did he know? It was like he was reading my thoughts. Well, at least now I know why he was flirting with the waitress so much.

Kevin turned around and winked at me before he continued on using his "roguish charm" mind tricks on the girl. And being the handsome "Jedi" that he is, we got everything that wanted. Pfft, Yoda got nothing on Kevin.

We were seated on the wooden side patio. Our table was more like a picnic bench but I wasn't complaining. It was the round, wooden kind with the umbrella sticking up from a hole in the middle. And since the restaurant was on the Pier we had a view of the entire lit up carnival. Spiffy!

"I'll come back in a few to take your orders!" said our blonde, bouncy waitress. She shot an award-winning smile toward Kevin and walked away.

"Hey Kevin, if you flirt with her some more maybe you can get us an extra pack of crayons!" I teased as I just noticed she gave us all kid's menus.

"I got an adult menu," he teased back, sticking out his tongue. I couldn't believe it. Who did she think he was? Our very, very young and single father?!

"Well, we get free curly fries with our kid's meal! Suck on that!" Ben howled.

"Curly fries? I think I'll have the optional salad instead…" Julie said.

A long silence ensued after this statement.

"…Fine. I'll get the curly fries," Julie broke down.

"Welcome to the dark — but tasty — side," Ben said with a fake evil voice.

"I think I'm gonna get a jumbo king-sized burger…" Kevin said shortly after.

"You're kidding right?" My jaw dropped. These burgers have been rumored to give more-painful-than-death heart burn.

"Yeah, you're right…" Kevin said — surprisingly without a smirk. I was floored. He admitted I was right?

"…I'm gonna order two!" he finished proudly.

Figures.

Ben hooted and gave him a high-five. Julie and I just giggled. Boys will be boys, I guess.

Chloe, our oh-so-lovable and blonde waitress, came back once again. This time she was carrying a tray full of curly fries and drinks. She swerved and swayed the stuff onto our table with such finesse and speed — it was amazing.

I hated her.

"Can I take your orders now? Or would you like more time?" She asked with her flashy smile.

"Now's fine," I said, partially wondering if any part of her was alien. A super graceful, bouncy alien.

We all placed in our orders (and can you believe it? — Chloe asked Kevin if he wanted a beer. When he didn't have a license for it she used the "oops, I thought you were 21 — you're so muscular!" routine on him.) It wasn't until long we were digging into our curly fries.

Julie really took a liking to the curly fries. It was adorable (if not a little sickeningly sweet) watching her and Ben feed each other curly fries. Kevin and I decided just to snuggle up together and share my fries.

With my head pressed against his chest, I couldn't help but to smell his shirt. It smelled good, but not in the flowery type way. It smelled kind of musky — but not in a bad way. If "manly" could be a scent, he was wearing it.

"Hmmm… this is nice…" I sighed in a dreamy tone. I said it so low that only Kevin could possibly hear it.

"Yeah…" he replied softly back, snuggling closer. I was dazing off now… his voice was seductively sweet, his manly sent was intoxicating me, and I was staring off into the swirl lights of the carnival.

The blues, reds, and greens really highlighted… Mr. Azure's features?!

I froze. What was my guidance counselor doing here?! I thought bitterly. I stayed still, hoping he wouldn't see me. He was so close, too — only standing outside of the restaurant, really close to the outside patio!

Please don't look, please don't look, please don't look—

He looked. A wide, devious smile spread across his middle-aged face as he connected with my eyes. It gave a whole new definition to the word, "creeper".

Just as I thought things couldn't get any weirder I saw two figures appear from behind Mr. Azure. As my eyes focused on them I realized who they were — those perverted boys that we met in front of the ticket booth! And they stood right next to Mr. Azure like nothing and joined in on the let's-give-Gwen-evil-and-creepy-smiles game!

Something wasn't right about this. I felt my brain begin to pulse painfully. I looked at the others in panic — no one seemed to notice anything. Ben and Julie were deep into conversation and Kevin had closed his eyes. I felt my throat contract slowly. That's when I looked back toward where the three guys were standing.

They were still there alright, all three staring intensely at me. Breathing became harder and the pain inside my brain sharpened.

No, no, no! Not this again!

I stared in horror as I watched the men. Almost like a hologram frizzing out, I saw their human forms disintegrate right before my eyes. What was left when their cover vanished was disgusting — picture a human. Except all their bones were too long to fit inside their frame, so they broke outside the skin. Jagged broken-looking bones protruded from the arms, spines, legs — and to top it off they had one big vertical, silted eye taking up most their face and razor-sharp green teeth from inside their growling mouths.

I gasped as I could no longer breathe and my brain gave out from the pain. I felt my head hit the table hard, but my mind fizzled out to a dark black. Ever so slightly I could hear panicked voices in the background — I could have sworn Kevin was shaking me. But then that annoying voice loudly boomed through the darkness, bringing on a whole new pain to my agony.

Are you ready to listen now, Gwendolyn Tennyson? The voice asked amused.