Freeze
From the corner of his eye he spotted Tara looking at him funnily. 'Ok Ron, quit acting like an idiot, be a man and take a drink already, it's only a smoothie.' Ron flicked his tongue out and caught the tip of his straw, bringing it deftly between his lips. He took a sip. 'Not bad.' Then another. 'Actually pretty good.' Followed by another much longer one, so long in fact that the sides of the cup began to collapse in. Releasing the straw he finally answered. "You were right Tara, that's totally badi…" Ron stopped mid-word and suddenly clenched at the sides of his head, "Aaah… Brain freeze!"
Tara chuckled, 'he's so cute.' lightly shaking her head from side to side. "That's what you get for drinking it so fast."
"Ah, huh, ah…" Ron began breathing deeply, attempting to thaw his head.
Data
'Hmm... Information from the chip shows Ron experiencing some sort of strange highly localized body temperature fluctuations.' Wade began to enter commands into the computer in order to narrow down what was causing the odd readings.
BEEP-
"…Not again…" Wade groaned and let his head drop into his hands.
BEEP-
"What do you want Kim?" He asked curtly, not even bothering to look up at the screen when he answered her call.
She could tell that Wade was less than happy to see her again, so soon. "Sorry again Wade, but…"
Wade interrupted her. "He's still at the mall with Tara."
"Have they…" She began to ask.
"They went to Club Banana." Wade quickly listed everything he figured Kim would want to know... again. "He bought your lotion. And now they're sitting in the food court, together, drinking smoothies."
'Smoothies?' Kim was taken aback by his abruptness. "Uhh... Thanks Wade."
"Sorry, Kim." He apologized. "I've been really busy this afternoon… with, ah, working on, umm, the Ronnunicator. I have the direct link with your Kimmunicator set up now. So now if you want him… you can beep him."
"Thanks again, Wade." She smiled apologetically. "You continue to rock."
"Later, Kim." He shut down the link from his end and went on about his business.
A Date by Any Other Name
"How many more smoothies are you going to drink?" Ron was currently working on finishing his third Peach Jasmine Fusion.
Wiping a napkin across his chin he answered. "I think this is going to have to be my last one… I'm almost out of money."
Tara smiled, Ron was… Ron was… she just smiled. This day had been almost perfect, there was only one thing that could make it any better. "Well if you're ready to go, we should probably head for home."
"Sounds like a plan to me." Ron scooped up their bags and stood up. They headed out of the food court toward the parking lot. Hoping that maybe it had stopped raining, it hadn't. In fact it was coming down even harder; they could barely see 50 feet in front of them.
"Maybe we should wait and see if it lets up." Ron suggested.
"Afraid of getting wet?" Tara teasingly asked.
"Are you?" He shot back.
She smirked and Ron returned hers with one of his own. That settled the pair made a mad dash for the car. Remote in hand, Tara frantically pressed the unlock button as she scampered for the car. Ron followed close behind, weighed down by the many shopping bags he carried.
x.
'So I can call him direct now… I wonder if I should.' Kim nervously twiddled her Kimmunicator in her hands as she paced the floor of her room. 'I don't want him to think I'm checking up on him or anything.' Deciding that she could wait until after dinner to call him she put the Kimmunicator down on her desk and went downstairs to hang out with the family.
x.
Tara pulled into his driveway and put her car into park. "Do you have everything?" She asked, wanting to make sure he didn't forget anything, although that would give her a reason to come back sooner.
Ron glanced into the backseat. "Looks like I got all of my stuff." 'One, two, three bags. Yep that's all of it.' He turned in his seat to face Tara. "Thanks again for taking me to the mall Tara. I had a great time."
She smiled happily. "I had a great time too."
Ron fidgeted, unsure of if what he was about to do was the right thing for him to do. "Would it… be ok if…" He looked away briefly before looking into her eyes. "If I… If I called you later?"
