THIS CHAPTER WAS UPDATED AND PROOFREAD FOR TYPOS, GRAMMAR, AND PLOT/TIMELINE ISSUES AS OF 7/17/2020

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The end of the day couldn't come quicker in all honesty, Anslee was eager to message Nico, even if it was just sending him notes. Rachel on one hand, had noticed Anslee's giddiness when she picked the teen up from school dance team practice, though Anslee couldn't participate, she was still captain and attended practice to critique and be a leader. Rachel decided not to question the girl's good mood considering this was the happiest she'd seen her daughter in days.

When Anslee made it into the apartment, she bolted to the kitchen table, where she set down her bag and dug into it for her American History journal. Once retrieving the notebook, the brunette opened it and turned to the notes dated for the previous Friday. Ans quickly took snapshots of the note pages and went to her messages, typing Nico's number into the recipient box and then attaching the photos to the message before hitting send.

"Should I say something with it?" she murmured out loud to herself, "Or is that too much? Just the notes ok?" she overthought.

The pictures had gone through and the girl breathed a sigh of relief, there she went, the first, and probably last time she'd be texting Nico Gargano. Was she really excited just for that? "You've never seemed so pathetic Anslee," the girl snickered to herself as she set her phone back down on the counter. But before she could get to putting her journal back in her bag, her phone buzzed and lit up like she'd gotten a text. Anslee paused, looking to her phone before another small smile formed on her face, and she reached to pick up the phone.

When she opened up her phone, she found a reply from Nico, it read, 'Thanks again, Anslee, you're a lifesaver!

"Me? A lifesaver?" she smirked to herself before deciding to type back.

'Glad I could help, if there's something you're not quite getting, I'd be more than happy to explain.'

She hit send, hoping this would be an excuse to get more conversation with the boy. She went to set her phone down again, but it buzzed once more.

'How about tonight? We can meet somewhere.'

The message caught the brunette off guard at first, but she believed she knew what he was meaning.

'Haven't been cleared yet to drive by the doctor, how about tomorrow in the library?'

Send again, she figured it'd be another fast reply.

'I'll come pick you up in an hour, pizza on me and in return you can explain the lesson to me.'

With that message, Anslee immediately got butterflies in her stomach. Did Nico just ask her to hangout? No, this was strictly a school oriented study session. And she really wasn't trying to get her hopes up at this point, but as long as the offer was still standing, who was she to pass it up?

'I'll be ready' she typed, while attaching her address to the text and sending it.

'See you then.'

And with that last response, Anslee had the largest smile on her face as she leaned against the kitchen table, holding her phone tightly. Footsteps approached the kitchen, Rachel had entered and saw her daughter with such a wide smile. The mother raised an eyebrow with a chuckle.

"You seem...happy," she commented, "What's making you so smiley?"

Anslee looked to her mother, "Nothing," she lied, "Just going to get pizza and study with a friend from school."

Rachel crossed her arms with a curious smile, "Seems like it's more than just pizza and studying...are you going with a boy?"

"Mom!" Anslee exclaimed with an even wider smile, her face flushing red.

"Anslee Grace, what's his name?" Rachel laughed, seeing the embarrassment on her child's face.

"It's no one special, nosey," Anslee snickered, "But since you're curious, Nico Gargano," she smiled.

Rachel nodded, "Alright, alright," the mother smiled, "I'm happy you're reaching out to new things, dating is unusual for you, but you deserve a nice boy, Ans, might let you stop stressing and take a deep breath."

Anslee rolled her eyes, "Okay, mom I get it, I'm a loner."

"Not what I meant, but that's besides the point," Rachel smirked, "I need to run an errand really quick, I'll probably be gone before you leave, so have fun, and be back at a decent time, and no funny business."

"Mother!" Anslee exclaimed wide eyed.

"I'm joking, partly, just have fun, alright? I'll see you in a bit." Rachel gave her a look before heading out the front door to the apartment.

Anslee smiled to herself, she was going to hang out...study, with Nico, perhaps things were starting to look up after.

The girl fixed herself up a bit, running a brush through her hair and applying a little more concealer over her bruises around her stitches on her forehead. She didn't want to get too done up since it was kind of open ended on what this really was. But the hour she spent cleaning herself up and reorganizing her room to keep herself occupied out of anxiousness went by quickly. It wasn't too soon until she'd gotten a text that Nico was downstairs waiting outside in his car.

Anslee typed back an 'On my way' before she grabbed her school bag and headed out the apartment door, slamming it behind her in a rush to get down to the first floor so she could meet the boy. When she'd finally made it, she smiled seeing him with the passenger window rolled down, smiling at her.

"You gonna get in the car or keep standing there?" he chuckled.

"Hush," Anslee laughed in return before walking towards the door, opening it, and getting in.

"I'm feeling Aurelio's, thoughts?" Nico looked to Anslee.

The girl nodded, "You read my mind," She smirked as the boy started driving.

After a ten minute drive filled with small talk, the two had made it to the pizza place and ordered, they now sat as one of the table, notes spread across the table as Anslee held a pencil in her hand, pointing at bullet points and explaining them, "So the Cuban Missile Crisis was basically a highlight of John F. Kennedy's presidency before he was assassinated in 1983, during this time, the US was using U2 Planes to fly over Cuba and get documentation that the Soviet Union was storing missiles there that could pose potential threats on the United States," she explained to him, looking from a bullet point to Nico, who was nodding in response.

"So I'm assuming the USSR knew the US was spying on them?" he looked to her.

"Most definitely, it's not everyday that you see high altitude planes with cameras on the bottom documenting your illegally stored missiles," Ans laughed, "The President of the USSR even lied straight to JFK's face about having the missiles in Cuba, pretty ballsy thing to do if you ask me."

Nico laughed before nodding in agreement, leaning back in his chair, "You make history sound so much more interesting than Mr. Bright does."

Anslee smirked to him, "That's a bold statement, he's quite the character."

"That may be so," he shrugged, "You've just got this spark in you that really shows you enjoy it."

Anslee smiled, "I love history, honestly, it's always just clicked with me."

"Yeah," Nico smiled at her before the two were interrupted by the waiter dropping off their drinks along with their pizza.

"I think a break is in order to eat?" Anslee laughed, taking a slice of the pizza and setting it on her plate in front of her. Nico had done the same and the two sat in silence before the raven-haired boy across from her had sent down his pizza and looked to her.

"So I saw you were looking at prom dresses earlier," he looked at her.

Anslee paused, swallowing her bite as she looked back at him, "They were just a few things that Jenni had found that she thought I might like, nothing special, I really don't think I'm going honestly."

"You mean to tell me that no one has asked you to prom?" Nico asked almost astounded.

Anslee shook her head, not really finding the statement as out of the ordinary as he had, "No, it's not a big deal though, I'm not one of those people who take it super seriously."

"Well I think it'd be a huge waste of your senior year to not go," Nico announced, sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, "And I think the dark green dress would be stunning on you."

Anslee looked to her lap, pursing her lips into a thin smile, "Thank you," she blushed, "I told Jen maybe I'd go, but I wasn't for sure," she looked back up at him.

"Well just so happens I don't have a prom date," the boy commented, looking at the girl across from him.

Was he really insinuating what she thought he was? Was this REALLY happening? She wanted to pinch herself, but she figured it would make her look dumb.

"Now that's a surprise," she spoke, picking up her drink and taking a sip of it.

Nico smirked at the girl across from him, reaching forward to take a slice of pizza, "Anslee, I know this is cheesy, but would you like to be my prom date?"

The brunette nearly spit out her drink before she started laughing, "Incredibly cheesy, dork," she laughed more before finally regaining her control, giving him another smile, "I accept your invitation to prom, Nico."

The boy let out a sigh of relief, looking to Anslee with an even wider smile, "I've been waiting to ask that for a few weeks, really, I just never could figure out how and we'd really never actually hung out or really had a conversation before, I'd really taken an interest with you this year in history. You stand out in that class and it's amazing."

"You've held in a thing for me nearly all year and choose prom time to tell me?" Anslee laughed, "Props to you, I'm impressed." she spoke, finishing off her first slice of pizza.

"What can I say?" Nico laughed as well, finishing off his slice.

"So you really think the emerald green one looked nice?" she asked, reaching for another slice of the pizza.

"Stunning," Nico smiled in return, reaching for his drink and taking a drink from it.