I feel like I'm pushing the relationship with Sienna and Braden too much, but thats only because i have so many ideas for this story that i want to get them out real quick b4 i forget them! l0l anywayz...enjoy
Disclaimer: I don't own Summerland or it's characters.
Braden lay awake that night his thoughts filled with Jay, Erica, and, "Sienna" he breathed out loud. He didn't know why he couldn't get this girl out of his head because while she was strikingly beautiful, he had seen other girls just as gorgeous if not more so. He didn't stay up at night thinking about them, however. Braden tried to think what made her so god damn special. The only thing that came to mind was her impeccable ability to make the people around her feel like shit. This should make him dislike her, because to him that was a quality that only the beautiful and stuck-up could obtain, but something about the way she did it, made him think that it had nothing to do with her thinking that she was better; he thought that it was because she simply just found other people's discomfort hysterical.
That was another thing. Maybe it was because she was always smiling, even though it was to silently laugh at other's shortcomings, but it was smiling nonetheless. There was nothing like it when a beautiful girl showed that million dollar smile. Braden mused as he thought of the other gorgeous girls that had strutted their way through Playa Linda. They had never smiled, but simply put on a look of disgust as they viewed those unworthy of them. He rolled over in his bed while he asked himself why he thought Sienna was so different than these other gorgeous girls. He had only had a brief (and fairly embarrassing) conversation with her. He had no way of knowing how she really was.
Then Braden smiled as a very nice thought came to mind. He would have two whole weeks to get to know the real Sienna. With them working side by side for hours on end, he was bound to find out more about her and get closer to her. He took comfort in this knowledge and closed his eyes groggily. Maybe he did actually have a shot at being with Sienna.
………………………………………………
"So you've lived here since you were five?" he asked Sienna as they lifted a surf board together to go on display. He had been successfully finding out everything he could possibly think of about Sienna since ten o'clock this morning.
"Yeah, but I went to a private school in New Hampshire, until just last year. Then,my parents let me go to school here." She replied while struggling to click the board into the notch that would hold it safely in place. After a couple more tries, Braden gently leaned over and did it for her. He noticed how close their faces came to each other and from close up, he could see faint, miniature freckles on her petite nose. Damn, she was hot.
He smiled as he straightened up, slightly proud of his smooth move to get closer to Sienna. "Why'd your parents let you switch?"
She meekly smiled and said, "It's a long and dramatic story about my dysfunctional family that I don't think, in our five hours that we have left, I could tell."
He nodded at her, careful not to press the subject, but thinking about it in his mind. He was very curious about her and this past that she didn't want to tell. "Now now, what makes your family so dysfunctional?"
She grinned, "My, my, aren't we curious?" Braden had quickly discovered in this first hour of conversing with her, that she was excellent at avoiding questions or topics that she didn't want to discuss.
"Well what can I say, I have a soft spot for stories about crazy families," he said, hoping that he sounded half as casual and relaxed as she did.
In case his face deceived him and showed the eagerness that he had inside himself to know, he turned and motioned for her to follow him to the shelves on the other side of the store.
"I guess I can summarize the heroic little tale just for you," she stated wickedly. The way she said 'just for you' made Braden's hear soar and then he quickly reminded himself that he was in fact the most pathetic man on the planet for getting excited over that. Sienna cleared her throat and started, "Well, my father was a pretty damn wealthy man and he always wanted everyone to know it. That's why he sent me to that private school. That school had only the richest, snobbiest girls I have ever had to endure."
"He was a very wealthy man?" Braden asked while emphasizing her use of past tense.
"He died last year and that's why I was allowed to go to school here." Sienna was smiling but her grin dimmed a little as she then added, "But I would have had to leave that school either way because, in my father's will he made sure that nothing was left to me or my mother. We couldn't afford the school anymore."
"Whoah.." Braden said before he could stop himself. She gave him another one of her little smiles that appeared to mock him before adding, "Your family really is dysfunctional."
He was afraid that she might get angry or slap him because that was a highly insensitive thing to say and that is what most girls do when a guy says something like that, but she merely laughed and remarked, "I told you! I do not lie, Braden Westerly; out of all the things I do, lying is not one of them." She winked at him and he couldn't help but feel like she was making a joke but one that he was left out of. One that maybe she had slightly with herself.
"Really and what are these other things that you do, if you don't mind me asking?" Braden liked the way they could go back and forth with each other. She was always so damn happy all the time, that eventually his intimidation by her melted away. His infatuation with her though, only grew.
Her yellow eyes grew bigger in an innocent manner as she replied, "I don't mind you asking at all, but I don't think I will answer you. I'll leave that up to your imagination" There she was again, avoiding another topic, thought Braden to himself.
They were stocking surfing gear as they spoke and Braden took his time while folding a particular garment trying to think of what to say. As he placed it on the shelf he asked with one eyebrow raised, "Any more family drama that you wouldn't mind telling me?" He was shocked at how fun this was talking to her. For everything he dished out, she gave back to him with excessive force. She was quite witty and Braden found that he liked that in a girl.
"You want to know who my dad left all that money to?" she looked at him devilishly as she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. He nodded with an anxious smirk on his face as she declared, "My cousin Wynnie and her dog Rufus!"
"her dog too?" he asked while chuckling. He didn't even know you could leave money to a dog.
"Yep" she responded while shaking her head. "That left the entire family with a bit of a shock. Though my mom thinks he left the money to the dog as well just to spite us."
Braden thought it was weird how she could find matters like these so humorous but decided not to say anything. Sienna and him were getting closer and that's exactly what he wanted. He couldn't shake though the wonderment in how someone could just not care that their own father had screwed them over.
"He was quite a feisty old man" she added thoughtfully when Braden said nothing.
"Hey you two!" there came an extremely chipper Australian voice from behind Sienna which startled her as she looked kindly at the smiling Jay, "How are you doing on your first day?"
"Magnificent" she said with laughter in her voice and a smile that crept up onto her lips "And by the way, love the accent you got there."
Jay gave a small snort and laughed at her before professing a "Why thank you!"
Braden took this chance to steal a look at the clock and was surprised that they were already due for their break, which was probably why Jay had come. As if reading his mind Jay commanded, "Now it's time for you two to get out of my store for a half hour"
They both gladly obliged and Braden wondered if Sienna was planning on spending her break with him or not. He really hoped that she would and sure enough, she turned to him and asked, "Where do you want to go?"
"Hmmm…" Braden thought to himself what he was in the mood for. He stood there thinking about it for a couple moments.
"You do know that this is not, in fact, a life or death situation and that if you don't decide within a minute where you want to go, I will just have to chose!" she spoke these words in a lively way while spinning to take in the heat from the sun.
Braden was taken aback how the sun glared down upon her hair and managed to light up her face in a simply breathtaking way. Braden was so intent upon staring at Sienna that she started tapping her foot at him, "Fine. We're going to eat some slimy Chinese food then" She grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the restaurant that had a sign with what looked to be Chinese letters on it.
Braden groaned; he hated Chinese food. She gave him a satisfied grin, "You should have chosen faster than."
He shook his head and as he was doing so he finally noticed the hand that was on his arm and just looking at her hand on his flesh surged him with some new found confidence. Before it could wear off he asked Sienna, "After work, do you want to hang out?"
He held his breath for the answer, but he did so in vain, "Sure," came that heavenly whisper.
