miracle fan 9245: Thanks! I'm glad you like my stories. And I know how it is not finding stories for a while. When I first found this site actually, there were so many stories I wanted to read that I was spending like hours reading them, lol. Thanks for the review and I hope you like this chapter!
meadow567: Yeah, five exams. :( I'm just glad I'm just about done. But Laura has definitely grown up some. And you're thoughts about Buffalo are along the right lines. :) Thanks for the review and enjoy the chapter!
NellieBly413672: I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for the review. There's definitely going to be more of Mac being cute. Well, Mac and Laura. Hope you like the chapter!
neonnbible: Yeah, Laura is growing up. Her and Robbie will still have their issues though, as you'll see later. I hope you enjoythis chapter and thanks for the review!
A/N: Thanks to everyone again for the reviews. Getting them made my day especially because I usually read them after a long day of studying. Speaking of which, sorry this update took so long. With exams, I just didn't have time to write it. Luckily, my exams are officially over after tomorrow, so the updates should be more frequent. This chapter is actually longer than I thought it would be too. It's just their date, so none of the guys are in this one, just Laura and Robbie. Enjoy and please review!
Chapter 12
At six o'clock, Robbie was at Laura's apartment and knocked at the door. He didn't know why, but he was almost nervous. Robbie reminded himself they were just going out as friends, to catch up since they hadn't seen each other in so long. After knocking at the door, he only waited seconds before Laura answered.
"Hey Robbie, " Laura said, greeting him with a smile.
"Hey. Ready to go?"
"Yeah. I'm just going to grab my purse and we can go. You're welcome to come in for a minute." Robbie followed her inside and waited in the living room while she disappeared down the hallway. He noticed some pictures around the living room, including one of the two of them. Robbie was still looking at the picture when Laura came back.
"That's when we were at the party after you guys won that hockey tournament," Laura said. Robbie turned to look at her, half wondering why a picture of the two of them would be up, but he didn't let his curiosity on. Laura explained anyway though. "I had to have a picture that I looked good in. I'm not the most photogenic person and that's actually a very good picture of me," she said in a completely believable tone of voice.
"You're photogenic. But I think part of the reason you look really good in the picture is because it's of us. We were a pretty hot couple." Robbie looked at the picture again. "I think we really complemented each other." Laura stepped over to admire the photo too.
"Yeah, I guess we did look good together," she said with a smile, looking Robbie in the eyes. After holding each other's glance for a few seconds, they both snapped out of it. "So, are you ready to go? I'm starving. I haven't eaten since eight this morning."
"Eight this morning?! I'd be starving too. I'm starving now and I ate three hours ago," Robbie said.
Robbie and Laura chatted a little in the car on the quick drive to the restaurant. They decided to go to Joey's Pizza, which was five minutes away from Laura's apartment.
"What are you going to have?" Robbie asked Laura as they looked at the menu.
"I don't know. The Hawaiian Pizza's really good. So is the Four Cheese though," Laura responded, looking at the menu.
"Eww, you like Hawaiian Pizza?" Robbie asked, making a disgusted face.
"What?" Laura said, innocently.
"It has pineapple on it, right?"
"Yeah, so?" Laura said, laughing at Robbie's disgust.
"That's like, the oxymoron of pizza. Fruit on pizza? That's like . . . um . . . " Robbie tried to think of something to compare it to. "Like putting catsup on macaroni and cheese or something."
"What's wrong with that?" Laura asked with a really serious expression.
"Don't tell me you do that too?" Robbie groaned. Laura giggled.
"No, I don't. So what are you getting Mr. 'I think pineapple on pizza is so weird'?"
"Traditional cheese and pepperoni. Chicago style of course, because everyone knows that deep dish kicks ass," Robbie said with a grin.
The waitress then came over and took their orders. They each ordered individual pizzas, and Robbie ordered wings to go with his. After the waitress left, Robbie looked at Laura in mock disgust again. He liked teasing her.
"Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes. Laura knew exactly why he was looking at her like that. "Have you ever even tried Hawaiian pizza?"
"No."
"Then don't say you don't like it."
After several seconds of silence, Robbie asked Laura what she had been up to since graduation.
"Not a whole lot. Working, visiting my family, hanging out. I take it you've probably been busy with hockey?"
"Yeah. Herb's been working us hard, but the team's starting to look good. We're starting our pre-Olympic tour in two weeks."
"Where are you going?"
"For the first two weeks, we're going to Europe, but after that we're back here. We'll be playing different teams nearby and stuff after that."
"Europe should be fun. I've always wanted to go."
"Yeah. It'll be my first time, so I'm sort of excited. I don't know how much sight seeing we'll be able to do though. Our schedule's pretty full with games." Laura nodded.
A few minutes later their food came. They both enjoyed their dinner, and Robbie tried the Hawaiian Pizza due to Laura's imminent request. He thought it was surprisingly good. He didn't think he would ever order a whole Hawaiian Pizza by himself, but it wasn't bad. Robbie and Laura then began talking about college and old friends that they've seen since graduating. After talking about Robbie's friends for a few minutes, he asked Laura about her friends.
"How are Erica, Debbie, and Whitney?" Robbie asked, between bites of pizza. Laura shrugged before responding.
"I don't talk to them much anymore."
"Really?"
"Yeah. They're still the same though. I think Whitney's working somewhere, but I don't know what Erica and Debbie are doing."
"A lot of people seem to lose contact after graduation. I'm lucky to still be playing with several guys from the team."
"Yeah. I don't really mind that we don't hang out anymore," Laura said, referring to her friends. "But sometimes I feel like such a bum because I sit at home on Saturday nights with nothing to do."
"Well, you were at the bar the other night," Robbie said.
"Yeah. I think the girls from work felt sorry for me," Laura said with an expression Robbie couldn't exactly read. He got the impression she didn't want to talk about it though, so he sort of changed the subject.
"What about that girl you hung out with sometimes? What was her name? Sara? I think she was in some of your classes. Have you seen her at all?"
"Oh, Stephanie?" Laura asked.
"Yeah. Have you seen her since graduating? She was going into reporting or something too, right?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"Too bad you didn't end up at the same station. Then you would have known someone from that start."
"I don't think so. We couldn't have worked together. It would not have turned out well," Laura said with a slight smile.
"Why's that?"
"You don't wanna know," Laura assured him. He pressed the issue anyway.
"Come on. What happened? Did you have some big girl fight or something?"
"You could say that." Robbie gave her a questioning look. "Right after we broke up, I went to a party that Stephanie's boyfriend, Ryan, had. It was an end of the year thing and I got plastered. I was talking to Ryan and he started complaining about Stephanie and what they didn't do. He was drunk too, and the next thing I really remember is Stephanie walking in on us in his room. Actually, we weren't doing anything. We would have if she didn't find us, but at the time we were sitting on his bed, talking and flirting. She thought that I was trying to steal Ryan from her, and hasn't talked to me since. I guess I deserve it though. I used flirt or even do more with guys that I knew had girlfriends all the time," Laura said, looking guilty.
Robbie didn't know what to say to make her feel better, but he knew Laura had a reputation for doing things like that. Luckily, he didn't have to say anything, because Laura made a joke about it, lightening things up.
Once Robbie and Laura finished their pizza, they both pulled out their wallets to pay the bill.
"I got it, Laur."
"You don't have to. Let me pay for mine."
"I asked you out for dinner. I'm paying."
"But-"
"No buts. I got it. Just say thank you and out your money away."
"Thanks, Robbie. But I'm paying for putt-putt," Laura said, referring to their plans after dinner. They had already decided that they were going to play mini golf.
"We'll see."
"Robbie! If you don't let me, then we can't be friends anymore," Laura said, pretending to be serious. "For one, friends pay separately, and for two, if they were paying together, they take turns."
"How about whoever wins, pays," Robbie said with a challenging smile.
"That doesn't make sense," said Laura. Then it hit her. "Oh, so you think you'll win and then get to pay. Well, you have another thing coming mister."
"Oh, is that right?"
"Yeah. I'll have you know I'm really good at golf," said Laura as they walked out of the restaurant.
"Okay," Robbie said, clearly not believing her though.
"You don't think I can beat you?"
"No. Not really," said Robbie, shaking his head and smiling.
When they began their game, Robbie brought up winning again.
"I'll let you go first. That way I can at least make sure I let you off a little easy. If you have trouble on a hole in particular, I'll do bad on that one too." Laura playfully smacked him and then set up her golf ball.
"I'm going to get one under par on this one," she stated confidently.
"Laura, I think you misread the sign. This is a par three."
"Haha, very funny," she said sarcastically, then smiled.
"I'll believe it when I see it," Robbie said. Two strokes later, he saw it all right. Just like Laura said, she got it in in two. Robbie didn't say anything but set up his ball next. It took him three strokes.
"What do you have to say for yourself now?" Laura asked, raising her eyebrows.
"Lucky shot," he replied. "We still have seventeen more holes."
By the time they reached the last hole, Laura was winning. Only by nine, but winning none the less. It was Robbie's turn and before he putted, Laura made a comment.
"Are you getting this one in under par?"
He thought for a minute before responding, "One under."
"You must have misread the sign," Laura mimicked him from earlier. "This is hole eighteen, not par eighteen. This one's a par four."
"Doesn't someone just think they're hilarious?" Robbie said, smiling at Laura and then putted and ended up getting the ball in in four."
"Well, I won. Sorry, but it looks like I'm paying," Laura said. Robbie walked over to her and put his hands lightly on her waist.
"What if I don't let you?"
"I told you, we can't be friends," said Laura, turning away from him and out of his arms to go to the counter.
"How about best out of three?" Robbie asked, following.
"Nope. A deal's a deal. You're just upset that a girl beat you at putt-putt. You better ice your ego when you get home, cause I can already see the bruise starting to appear," Laura said, trying to be funny.
"I let you win," said Robbie.
"Oh yeah. I'm sure you did. Especially after all the complaining you did about me paying."
"Uh-huh." Then Robbie said, "Let's play something else."
"Okay, what?"
"There's arcade games, and where there's arcade games, there has to be air hockey."
"Okay." They found the air hockey tables in under a minute and Robbie quickly put coins in to play. As they began the game, Robbie started getting really aggressive.
"Jeeze, Robbie. Watch out. You're gonna kill me," Laura said as the puck kept flying at her. A few times it bounced on the table from Robbie hitting it so hard.
"I'm not letting you win this."
"I can tell. You're almost getting violent," Laura joked. Robbie scored on Laura six times, pretty quickly. "Let me get at least one."
"Nope. I can't. Hockey's my thing. This is going to be a shut out."
"Robbie, ice hockey's your thing. This is air hockey."
"So, it's a form of hockey."
"I think I prefer non-competitive hockey."
"Non-competitive hockey? That doesn't exist."
"Tonsil hockey's non-competitive," Laura said, matter of factly, hitting the puck really hard and finally scoring. "Ha. Not a shut out. I scored."
"That's not fair. You took my concentration away with the tonsil hockey thing. Which, by the way, can be competitive." Laura laughed. "It is," Robbie assured her. "I've had some very intense, very competitive, tonsil hockey sessions." This made Laura laugh harder as Robbie took the puck and shot it at Laura, scoring easily. "Game over. I win," said Robbie.
"Okay, I guess you're better at air hockey than me. But it was fun. Sometime we'll have to try real hockey too. Even though you're obviously better, I'd take the challenge."
"Aw, Laura. Don't sell yourself short. You might be better at tonsil hockey than me."
"I said real hockey, you idiot," said Laura, playfully hitting him. Robbie grabbed her arm.
"I thought tonsil hockey was real hockey to you," Robbie said. "I must have been mistaken." As Laura tried to hit him again with her free hand, Robbie grabbed that one too. "I don't think so. You can't abuse me like that. Don't make me tie your hands up."
"Tie my hands up and do what with me?" Laura challenged, grinning mischievously.
"Get your dirty mind out of the gutter," Robbie said, laughing and then finally letting go of her arms. "Ready to go? Or do you want to lose at something else tonight?"
Robbie and Laura ended up playing a few more games, and then they drove back to Laura's apartment.
"I had a really good time tonight," Laura said when they were in front of her driveway.
"Me too. We'll have to hang out more often."
"Yeah. It's still sort of early now though. If you want to come upstairs for while, you're more than welcome."
"Okay."
Robbie and Laura talked and laughed about just about anything for almost three hours. It seemed like they would never run out fo things to say. By midnight, Robbie knew Laura was tired, because she tried to hide a yawn.
"Well, I better get going. Herb will kill me if I'm tired and have a crappy practice tomorrow."
"I understand. I have to get up pretty early too. Next week we should do something again though. Tonight was the most fun I've had in a long time."
"Okay. How about I call you and we'll go do something next week."
"Okay, I'd like that," Laura said with a smile. There were a few awkward moments as they said good-bye. This was partly because it was one of the first times they weren't spending the night together. They didn't even kiss or anything. Robbie thought about it, but he didn't want to throw the friendship thing down the drain. He really liked hanging out with Laura. The weird thing was, Robbie almost enjoyed tonight more than some other times he spent with Laura. She was fun to be around and easy to talk to, and Robbie wondered if she still felt anything for him. Robbie thought his feelings were gone, but after tonight, he wasn't so sure. Maybe they were better off as friends, but Robbie couldn't help but wonder.
Little did he know, after he left, Laura began wondering the same exact thing. She crawled into bed, almost wishing he would have kissed her. Then she wondered whether she really wanted that again or not. At one point, she loved Robbie so much, but after breaking up so many times, she assumed they weren't meant to be. Feelings came flooding back after spending time together though, and she felt exactly like she had in college a few short months ago. But Laura didn't think she wanted the drama their relationship usually brought with it. Or did she? Trying not to think about it anymore, Laura finally drifted off to sleep.
