Always a Frog, Never a Prince
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The weather that night was being difficult; it was one of those nights when a minute ago it was sunny skies and the now it was torrential rain. After taking refuge beneath a store roof both pink and black ranger waited patiently for the rain to subside, or at least lesson some.
However, it didn't seem like letting up anytime soon so they decided to enter the small diner and grab something to eat.
Taking a seat in the otherwise deserted shelter Kimberly ordered a slice of cherry pie while Adam settled on a steaming mug of coffee.
"So…" he began as soon as their respective orders had arrived, "You wanna tell me where we're supposed to be going tonight?"
Taking her time in both chewing and swallowing her mouthful of pie Kimberly smiled before deciding to explain, "It's that new place that just opened. You know it?" Adam shook his head, "It's called the..oh, um, what's it's name," she snapped her fingers, "The Outback," she said triumphantly, Adam smiled, "What?"
"Nothing," he tried to dismiss his smile with a wave of his hand.
But Kimberly was as persistent as ever, "Come on," she coaxed.
"How come you decided to wear black tonight?" he blurted out suddenly, taking the pink ranger a little bit by surprise, for some reason she'd expected him to put up more of a fight.
It took her a moment to recover, "Oh…Why? Do I look bad in it?"
"No, no," Adam protested, maybe a little too enthusiastically as he'd drawn the cashiers attention, "It's, just that I've never seen you in it before. You're always either dressed in pink or blue or…" he trailed off.
"White?" Adam nodded, "It's okay Adam, you can say the color white, I'm not going to burst into tears or anything over it."
The black ranger smiled, "You're right, I'm sorry. It was very, very stupid of me."
"Damn right," Kimberly agreed causing Adam to frown at her playfully, "And…to answer your question, I decided to wear black tonight because I knew you would, and I thought it'd be fun if we matched. That's all."
"Fair enough," the black ranger glanced out of the window, "Rain's stopped," he said while glancing back at Kimberly who was now also staring out of the window.
"Okay, then let's finish our things and go."
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Tommy twirled Kat around the dance floor, his wife to be giggling happily as he dramatically dipped her. "Tommy," she laughed, gently swatting him on the chest, "People are looking."
"So," the white ranger replied, "let them look, I don't care."
Kat smiled lovingly, "Then neither do I," the two began to dance again and Tommy suddenly realized that he hadn't thought about Kimberly all day. It was a huge relief to know that she and Kat had sorted things out, now he could keep his full attention on his wife to be, who at this moment in time was looking dazzling in a pink dress.
Kat laughed again as Tommy pulled her close for a light peck on the lips. She felt so free now, Kimberly was going back in a couple of days and once she was gone, she was staying gone. And Kat and Tommy would never be unhappy again.
"What're you thinking so hard about?" Tommy called over the loud music.
Kat realized that she'd been staring into space and quickly shrugged it off and replaced her thoughtful face with her smiley face, "Nothing," she replied, Tommy eyed her worriedly, "Don't worry, it's nothing, nothing at all."
Seeming to accept this Tommy's face broke into a smile again and they continued dancing, completely unawares of two very familiar people entering the club at that moment in time.
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Adam took a look around the cavernous dance hall in an effort to scope the place out. However, whichever way he looked, he saw nothing but people, strobe lights sweeping from the ceilings illuminating them in bright colors of red, blue and yellow for an instant, before gliding back up the walls. He wasn't impressed, but Kimberly seemed thrilled about the whole thing, and that was all that mattered to him.
She turned to face him, a huge smile on her face "You wanna dance?" she was doing all she could to contain her excitement.
Smiling Adam shook his head, "No thanks, I'm not really into this kind of music," Kimberly lost her smile for a moment, "But you go ahead. I'll be over by the bar, ok."
"Okay," she chirped, "but don't go anywhere coz I'll be keeping my eye on you Adam Park," pointing her index finger at him Adam smiled as he backpedaled a few steps, while keeping a vigilant eye on him before swinging around and vanishing into the teeming masses.
Shaking his head Adam made his way to the bar and sat himself down on the only available bar stool, turning back to the dancers, he smiled when he managed to locate Kimberly who was staring at him while she danced. Giving him a smile and a wink she turned around and began to concentrate more on the music as she danced her kind heart out.
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"So…what'd you think they're doing now?" Rocky asked for the fifth time in the last minute, holding out an arm he leaned off his chair so Trini could grab one of the many playing cards from his hand.
She glared at him, "How the hell should I know," she snapped irritably, "and stop asking me that, if I find out I'll tell you."
"We could call them?" the red ranger offered feebly while grabbing a different card out of Trini's hand, he cursed seeing the ace of spades.
Trini smiled, and with that her mood seemed to brighten, "Not a good idea, for all we know something could be happening right now, and then we'd interrupt it," grabbing a card from Rocky's hand she turned it over to reveal the ace of spades, "Fuck!" and with that word her mood was back to angry again.
"Ha!" Rocky gloated before continuing on with the conversation they were having, "Well, if I know Adam. He's definitely not gonna make a move on Kimberly."
"You don't know that?"
"Oh, trust me, Adam won't make a move," he successfully retrieved a card from Trini's hand.
"How can you be so sure?" Trini suddenly became suspicious, "Has he told you something?"
Rocky's eyes suddenly became panicked, "Um…" he trailed off unable to think of anything else to say. 'Quick' his mind whispered, 'come up with a clever yet conversation diffusing line'. "Maybe," Rocky's mind threw every curse it knew at him. Trini's eyes narrowed into slits, slowly she got to her feet. All the red ranger could plead was, "Please, not the groin," as the yellow ranger descended on him.
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Every time he got nervous, every time he got that same lump in his throat, and every time he felt that same sense of euphoric relief wash over him. He watched as Kimberly shot down another attempted dance partner with a simple apology, Adam breathed a sigh of relief for about the zillionth time as he watched the dejected male walk away. The way his body was reacting to every possible male that singled Kimberly out, he was about two dance partners away from having a stroke.
"Beer?"
Slightly confused Adam turned around to see the barman raise his eyebrows in expectancy, the black ranger passed for twenty-one easy these days, but he was broke. To affirm that fact he tapped his pockets and shrugged.
"It's okay pal, it's on me. You look like you need it," placing the bottle of Bud next to Adam on the counter the black ranger picked it up and twisted the top off.
"What makes you say that?" the black ranger asked giving the currently nonworking, and obviously bored, barman his full attention.
"Why else, it's that goddess on the dance floor isn't it," he motioned with his head towards Kimberly to which Adam shot a glance in her direction to still see her dancing away, "You two dating or something?"
"Why?" Adam asked suspiciously.
The barman immediately raised his hands in a mock sign of defeat, "Wow, I didn't mean it like that, she's a bit young for me. But she obviously digs you."
"Really," Adam replied nonchalantly while taking a pull from the bottle, "and how did you come to that conclusion?" like Adam was really going to trust the words of a barman who was probably only fishing for a tip. He realized how stupid that sounded when the barman had just given him a free bottle of beer.
The barman, seemingly not noticing Adam's indifference continued on, "What, are you blind? Do I not see that beautiful young woman dancing there alone?"
"So?"
"She's blown off at least eleven guys tonight, eleven guys, and now I'm not saying I'm into that kind of thing but some of those guys were lookers," Adam shook his head and even allowed a smile to cross his lips, "and every time she blows off one of those guys, around thirty seconds later she'll look towards you my man."
Adam just stared at the barman, "And that means what exactly?"
"Jesus," the barman muttered while running a hand over his head, "There's only one guy she wants to dance with in here, and I'm looking right at him," the black ranger opened his mouth to respond but quickly the barman cut in, "Don't look, here she comes, pretend we were talking about something deep and meaningful," and with those words he left.
Adam felt a little stunned, he'd never really thought barstaff would've had such a keen insight into human behavior. He was brought back to reality when he felt a small hand rest on his shoulder, "Hi," Kimberly smiled a weary smile.
"Tired?" the pink ranger exhaled loudly from her mouth and nodded her head, all the while she was fanning her face using her left hand. "You wanna sit down?" Adam made to get up.
"There's no need for you to get up just because I want to sit down Adam," she stated as if the black ranger was stupid, pushing him gently back down so he was seated the pink ranger surprised him slightly as the next moment she was perched on his knee.
Adam felt himself start to panic, but not in a bad way, it was that good kind of panic, however it turned into the real kind of panic due to the fact that the stools weren't very secure, the one he was seated on wobbled to the left nearly tipping Kimberly off of Adams knee. The black ranger was there to steady her though and managed to catch her by use of his hands on her hips.
Kimberly swallowed nervously under the feel of Adams touch, as soon as he'd placed his hands on her it was like an electric shock had been sent coursing through her body prompting her heart to beat twice as fast. "I'm sorry," the black rangers voice filtered from behind her.
He went to remove his hands but she grasped them gently, "I might need you to steady me again," even though she sounded completely neutral Kimberly's heart picked up the pace again which seemed to activate the butterflies in her stomach. 'Christ, what am I doing?' her mind asked.
'Christ, what is she doing' Adam's mind was running a mile a minute. He could feel himself shaking but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop. Kimberly was as light as a feather, he wasn't in any kind of discomfort at all physically, but emotionally he was a shambles.
Turning his head to try and focus on something else, he began to scan the dancers, there were a few people in the crowd that he recognized from campus. However there were two people dancing that made him freeze.
Was that Kat?
And Tommy?
'Oh shit' his mind once again voiced its opinion as Tommy glanced in his direction, his eyebrows furrowed up in confusion as he stared at the black ranger, he obviously didn't know whether or not he was seeing things. Adam would admit it didn't look very good from where Tommy was standing.
By now Kat had noticed her boyfriend was distracted and turned in the direction of his stare, catching sight of Adam she smiled and waved, however her smile vanished and her wave ceased when Kimberly turned around and said, "You want a drink?"
"Uh…" Adam struggled for an answer, out of the corner of his eye he could see the two other rangers approaching, "I think we've got something else to deal with first."
Kimberly's face changed to one of confusion, "I don't understand?"
"Hello Adam, Kimberly," Adam was positive the temperature in their vicinity just dropped by five degrees.
To Be Continued
By Boulder
Authors Notes
Well, good to get another chapter up. I'm back in Wales at the moment visiting my sister and it's bloody freezing over here. Anyways I'll be using my sisters comp to upload this chapter and maybe the next one if I write it in time. Surprisingly enough I started this fic because it was something I'd always wanted to try but never got round too. I kinda expected to do a couple of chapters, realize it was garbage and scrap it. But I have to admit that I'm really enjoying writing this fic, and part of that is because you've all been so supportive. So thank you.
Anyways, I'm blathering on now so as always if you like the fic, please review, as they are always appreciated
Regards,
Boulder
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The weather that night was being difficult; it was one of those nights when a minute ago it was sunny skies and the now it was torrential rain. After taking refuge beneath a store roof both pink and black ranger waited patiently for the rain to subside, or at least lesson some.
However, it didn't seem like letting up anytime soon so they decided to enter the small diner and grab something to eat.
Taking a seat in the otherwise deserted shelter Kimberly ordered a slice of cherry pie while Adam settled on a steaming mug of coffee.
"So…" he began as soon as their respective orders had arrived, "You wanna tell me where we're supposed to be going tonight?"
Taking her time in both chewing and swallowing her mouthful of pie Kimberly smiled before deciding to explain, "It's that new place that just opened. You know it?" Adam shook his head, "It's called the..oh, um, what's it's name," she snapped her fingers, "The Outback," she said triumphantly, Adam smiled, "What?"
"Nothing," he tried to dismiss his smile with a wave of his hand.
But Kimberly was as persistent as ever, "Come on," she coaxed.
"How come you decided to wear black tonight?" he blurted out suddenly, taking the pink ranger a little bit by surprise, for some reason she'd expected him to put up more of a fight.
It took her a moment to recover, "Oh…Why? Do I look bad in it?"
"No, no," Adam protested, maybe a little too enthusiastically as he'd drawn the cashiers attention, "It's, just that I've never seen you in it before. You're always either dressed in pink or blue or…" he trailed off.
"White?" Adam nodded, "It's okay Adam, you can say the color white, I'm not going to burst into tears or anything over it."
The black ranger smiled, "You're right, I'm sorry. It was very, very stupid of me."
"Damn right," Kimberly agreed causing Adam to frown at her playfully, "And…to answer your question, I decided to wear black tonight because I knew you would, and I thought it'd be fun if we matched. That's all."
"Fair enough," the black ranger glanced out of the window, "Rain's stopped," he said while glancing back at Kimberly who was now also staring out of the window.
"Okay, then let's finish our things and go."
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Tommy twirled Kat around the dance floor, his wife to be giggling happily as he dramatically dipped her. "Tommy," she laughed, gently swatting him on the chest, "People are looking."
"So," the white ranger replied, "let them look, I don't care."
Kat smiled lovingly, "Then neither do I," the two began to dance again and Tommy suddenly realized that he hadn't thought about Kimberly all day. It was a huge relief to know that she and Kat had sorted things out, now he could keep his full attention on his wife to be, who at this moment in time was looking dazzling in a pink dress.
Kat laughed again as Tommy pulled her close for a light peck on the lips. She felt so free now, Kimberly was going back in a couple of days and once she was gone, she was staying gone. And Kat and Tommy would never be unhappy again.
"What're you thinking so hard about?" Tommy called over the loud music.
Kat realized that she'd been staring into space and quickly shrugged it off and replaced her thoughtful face with her smiley face, "Nothing," she replied, Tommy eyed her worriedly, "Don't worry, it's nothing, nothing at all."
Seeming to accept this Tommy's face broke into a smile again and they continued dancing, completely unawares of two very familiar people entering the club at that moment in time.
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Adam took a look around the cavernous dance hall in an effort to scope the place out. However, whichever way he looked, he saw nothing but people, strobe lights sweeping from the ceilings illuminating them in bright colors of red, blue and yellow for an instant, before gliding back up the walls. He wasn't impressed, but Kimberly seemed thrilled about the whole thing, and that was all that mattered to him.
She turned to face him, a huge smile on her face "You wanna dance?" she was doing all she could to contain her excitement.
Smiling Adam shook his head, "No thanks, I'm not really into this kind of music," Kimberly lost her smile for a moment, "But you go ahead. I'll be over by the bar, ok."
"Okay," she chirped, "but don't go anywhere coz I'll be keeping my eye on you Adam Park," pointing her index finger at him Adam smiled as he backpedaled a few steps, while keeping a vigilant eye on him before swinging around and vanishing into the teeming masses.
Shaking his head Adam made his way to the bar and sat himself down on the only available bar stool, turning back to the dancers, he smiled when he managed to locate Kimberly who was staring at him while she danced. Giving him a smile and a wink she turned around and began to concentrate more on the music as she danced her kind heart out.
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"So…what'd you think they're doing now?" Rocky asked for the fifth time in the last minute, holding out an arm he leaned off his chair so Trini could grab one of the many playing cards from his hand.
She glared at him, "How the hell should I know," she snapped irritably, "and stop asking me that, if I find out I'll tell you."
"We could call them?" the red ranger offered feebly while grabbing a different card out of Trini's hand, he cursed seeing the ace of spades.
Trini smiled, and with that her mood seemed to brighten, "Not a good idea, for all we know something could be happening right now, and then we'd interrupt it," grabbing a card from Rocky's hand she turned it over to reveal the ace of spades, "Fuck!" and with that word her mood was back to angry again.
"Ha!" Rocky gloated before continuing on with the conversation they were having, "Well, if I know Adam. He's definitely not gonna make a move on Kimberly."
"You don't know that?"
"Oh, trust me, Adam won't make a move," he successfully retrieved a card from Trini's hand.
"How can you be so sure?" Trini suddenly became suspicious, "Has he told you something?"
Rocky's eyes suddenly became panicked, "Um…" he trailed off unable to think of anything else to say. 'Quick' his mind whispered, 'come up with a clever yet conversation diffusing line'. "Maybe," Rocky's mind threw every curse it knew at him. Trini's eyes narrowed into slits, slowly she got to her feet. All the red ranger could plead was, "Please, not the groin," as the yellow ranger descended on him.
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Every time he got nervous, every time he got that same lump in his throat, and every time he felt that same sense of euphoric relief wash over him. He watched as Kimberly shot down another attempted dance partner with a simple apology, Adam breathed a sigh of relief for about the zillionth time as he watched the dejected male walk away. The way his body was reacting to every possible male that singled Kimberly out, he was about two dance partners away from having a stroke.
"Beer?"
Slightly confused Adam turned around to see the barman raise his eyebrows in expectancy, the black ranger passed for twenty-one easy these days, but he was broke. To affirm that fact he tapped his pockets and shrugged.
"It's okay pal, it's on me. You look like you need it," placing the bottle of Bud next to Adam on the counter the black ranger picked it up and twisted the top off.
"What makes you say that?" the black ranger asked giving the currently nonworking, and obviously bored, barman his full attention.
"Why else, it's that goddess on the dance floor isn't it," he motioned with his head towards Kimberly to which Adam shot a glance in her direction to still see her dancing away, "You two dating or something?"
"Why?" Adam asked suspiciously.
The barman immediately raised his hands in a mock sign of defeat, "Wow, I didn't mean it like that, she's a bit young for me. But she obviously digs you."
"Really," Adam replied nonchalantly while taking a pull from the bottle, "and how did you come to that conclusion?" like Adam was really going to trust the words of a barman who was probably only fishing for a tip. He realized how stupid that sounded when the barman had just given him a free bottle of beer.
The barman, seemingly not noticing Adam's indifference continued on, "What, are you blind? Do I not see that beautiful young woman dancing there alone?"
"So?"
"She's blown off at least eleven guys tonight, eleven guys, and now I'm not saying I'm into that kind of thing but some of those guys were lookers," Adam shook his head and even allowed a smile to cross his lips, "and every time she blows off one of those guys, around thirty seconds later she'll look towards you my man."
Adam just stared at the barman, "And that means what exactly?"
"Jesus," the barman muttered while running a hand over his head, "There's only one guy she wants to dance with in here, and I'm looking right at him," the black ranger opened his mouth to respond but quickly the barman cut in, "Don't look, here she comes, pretend we were talking about something deep and meaningful," and with those words he left.
Adam felt a little stunned, he'd never really thought barstaff would've had such a keen insight into human behavior. He was brought back to reality when he felt a small hand rest on his shoulder, "Hi," Kimberly smiled a weary smile.
"Tired?" the pink ranger exhaled loudly from her mouth and nodded her head, all the while she was fanning her face using her left hand. "You wanna sit down?" Adam made to get up.
"There's no need for you to get up just because I want to sit down Adam," she stated as if the black ranger was stupid, pushing him gently back down so he was seated the pink ranger surprised him slightly as the next moment she was perched on his knee.
Adam felt himself start to panic, but not in a bad way, it was that good kind of panic, however it turned into the real kind of panic due to the fact that the stools weren't very secure, the one he was seated on wobbled to the left nearly tipping Kimberly off of Adams knee. The black ranger was there to steady her though and managed to catch her by use of his hands on her hips.
Kimberly swallowed nervously under the feel of Adams touch, as soon as he'd placed his hands on her it was like an electric shock had been sent coursing through her body prompting her heart to beat twice as fast. "I'm sorry," the black rangers voice filtered from behind her.
He went to remove his hands but she grasped them gently, "I might need you to steady me again," even though she sounded completely neutral Kimberly's heart picked up the pace again which seemed to activate the butterflies in her stomach. 'Christ, what am I doing?' her mind asked.
'Christ, what is she doing' Adam's mind was running a mile a minute. He could feel himself shaking but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop. Kimberly was as light as a feather, he wasn't in any kind of discomfort at all physically, but emotionally he was a shambles.
Turning his head to try and focus on something else, he began to scan the dancers, there were a few people in the crowd that he recognized from campus. However there were two people dancing that made him freeze.
Was that Kat?
And Tommy?
'Oh shit' his mind once again voiced its opinion as Tommy glanced in his direction, his eyebrows furrowed up in confusion as he stared at the black ranger, he obviously didn't know whether or not he was seeing things. Adam would admit it didn't look very good from where Tommy was standing.
By now Kat had noticed her boyfriend was distracted and turned in the direction of his stare, catching sight of Adam she smiled and waved, however her smile vanished and her wave ceased when Kimberly turned around and said, "You want a drink?"
"Uh…" Adam struggled for an answer, out of the corner of his eye he could see the two other rangers approaching, "I think we've got something else to deal with first."
Kimberly's face changed to one of confusion, "I don't understand?"
"Hello Adam, Kimberly," Adam was positive the temperature in their vicinity just dropped by five degrees.
To Be Continued
By Boulder
Authors Notes
Well, good to get another chapter up. I'm back in Wales at the moment visiting my sister and it's bloody freezing over here. Anyways I'll be using my sisters comp to upload this chapter and maybe the next one if I write it in time. Surprisingly enough I started this fic because it was something I'd always wanted to try but never got round too. I kinda expected to do a couple of chapters, realize it was garbage and scrap it. But I have to admit that I'm really enjoying writing this fic, and part of that is because you've all been so supportive. So thank you.
Anyways, I'm blathering on now so as always if you like the fic, please review, as they are always appreciated
Regards,
Boulder