The drive towards town was much less stressful and Ari had to ponder what she was going to tell James when she got back. Clearly he was gonna have questions that she wouldn't have any answers to. Unless she told him that Sides was from there.

James wouldn't ask too many questions and if she told him that Sides didn't want to talk about it then she knew James wouldn't probe...but Sides would have to know some base knowledge. And that wasn't something she wanted to get into. She wanted the past to stay there and for it not to rear its ugly head to mock her again. She didn't want to dredge up the time in her life that she had little care about herself and the things she was getting into. The times where the only person who cared if she lived was Starr cause Ari herself just couldn't.

But she also knew that James wasn't just going to let Sides stay near them without some solid reason, even if Ari said she knew him from some random point in her life. James and Starr were the only people who really knew about that time in her life. Sure, there were quite a few people who knew about her childhood but only those two knew about the things she got into as a teen and she preferred that no one else learn of it.

However for some inexplicable reason she felt that Sides knew a little of the darkness she once walked through. She felt it in her bones, but she didn't know this man. Was man the way they referred to themself? She would have to ask.

Her eyes watched the red sports car as it traveled at a moderate pace down the road that was slowly becoming more civilized and less urban. She wasn't at all sure about anything about him. He was an alien, so were their customs even the same. He seemed to have body language down from the brief interactions they had. Was handshaking a thing? What about friendly hugs? Kisses, high fives? Were metaphors complicated for them or were they fluent in human culture? What about history? War? Science?

Her thoughts were derailed as her phone went off with a number she didn't know. She quickly answered, flipping the phone open and pressing it to her ear. "Hello."

"I can hear you thinking all the way up here." A laughing voice echoed from the other side of the phone. She quizzically looked at the car ahead of her before flipping him off. "Hey, that isn't nice."

"How did you even get my phone number?"

"Easy, the technology is super simplistic so I just threw a frequency it recognized at it and linked it to my comms." The alien said as if this were such an easy thing to do a baby could do it. And for all rights maybe a Cybertronian baby could do it. "What are you doing back there that is making you make such a face?"

Ari wanted to retort that her face was fine but she didn't know what face she had been making just following this red car which didn't take a whole lot of brain power.

"I was just thinking," She muttered. "About what I'm gonna tell James about you and how you act like a human."

"So many questions...Let's start with why you have to tell James at all?" Sideswipe's voice rang through the phone, a feat that still mystified the young woman.

"He owns the house I am staying in and the garage that you will be parked in. He has the right to deny you access to those two things. But I don't want to fight with him. I owe him too much. If he says you got to go, well you won't be able to stay unless you sneak around. I won't argue with him." Ari knew that it might be unfair to deny him access to his brother but if worse came to worse she could always rent out a small slot in a storage unit or something for the brother's to stay in.

"I can respect that." Sides said. "You didn't say I couldn't come, just that I would have to sneak around and I really appreciate that. You are pretty nice considering you sprayed my optics with that fluid."

A flush colored the woman's cheeks as the car referred to her embarrassing reaction to his transformation. "A human would have been really hurt by that 'fluid'. It's pepper spray." Sides was quiet for a moment before his voice drifted from the phone again.

"I didn't mean to scare you so badly. I just wanted Sunny."

"Well that's your family, most humans would go through hell for their family so it's not like you've committed some kind of atrocity."

The silence flowed between the two of them for a few minutes. "You plan on letting me stay next to Sunny?"

"Do you not want to?"

"NO." The shout startled her and had her hands tensing on the steering wheel. "I mean, I wasn't suggesting that I didn't want to. I haven't seen him in a long time so it's hard on us to be apart for a long time. Split sparks are meant to be together. I just didn't realize that you were planning on it. I thought I would have to beg you to stay with him or something like that."

"What's a split spark?" It probably wasn't the most prudent question to ask but she wanted to know.

"Oh, that is actually a bit of explaining. If you want to, I can explain it and any other questions you want to know when we go sit down at the park." She looked at him, meaning his back window and tilted her head.

"I mean that's fine but...you'll tell me if I ask something too personal right.?"

"Yeah. I get that you are a different species and curious. Just return the same to me when I get confused.

"So how are you paying for this?"

"I am bending the rules a bit for credit cards." Sides' voice was smug.

She narrowed her eyes at him and asked. "Are you committing credit fraud?"

"No...not really. I just am using this thing that tells the machine that it was paid for." The voice coming through her phone was strictly innocent. Arianna knew better than to believe that tone. "Look there is McDonalds. It won't matter there. They have a set amount of funds that just go to loss. They throw out a lot of food anyways. Noone buys it so they chunk it."

"How do you even know that?"

"The internet. Do you know what you want from here?" Sides asked and the woman informed him she wanted a #1 with Coke no ice. "Alright I'll be back if you want to go to the park. Don't worry about me losing you Princess."

Before the woman could protest the name he hung up on her. When they arrived at the light he took a left turn while she took a right.