"So, what do you think she's like?" Chris asked me as we were walking to the park to meet the gang, which included Vern's girlfriend Maddie, and Teddy's new girlfriend…We still don't know her name, or even what she looks like.
"Didn't we already cover this? She's crazy – I mean, she's going out with Teddy isn't she?"
Chris looked at me as if I was the stupidest person ever to walk the earth. "Yeah, but do you think she's nice, or a total bitch? Crazy people can be nice, you know."
"Suuuure Chris….You know, those chainsaw-wielding maniacs that want to make a mask out of your face are just so pleasant!"
He laughed and replied, "That's not what I mean and you know it!"
"Yeah, yeah I know. But who's to say if she's nice? Knowing Teddy it'll be some blonde bombshell with the brain the size of a pea." As an afterthought I added, "And has a lot of guts."
When we turned the last corner to the park, I saw that at least part of my guess had been correct. She was a blonde bombshell, with hair down to her waist and quite a bust, and she stood at least 5'7". I looked over to Chris to see his reaction, maybe out of slight jealousy I'll admit. He was looking at her too, but not in an 'I wanna throw her down and ravage her' kind of way. More like he was making a comparison or an assessment.
He tilted his head down to my ear and whispered, "You're prettier than she is."
I blushed and hit him playfully. "You're lying," I accused him, laughing. "She's gorgeous!"
He smiled at me. "Maybe so, but I said you're prettier, not she's ugly. So I guess that makes you super gorgeous!"
I threw my arm around his waist and buried my head in his shoulder as we neared them. "You always make me feel so loved!" Before we got close enough for them to hear us I said, "I'll bet you a quarter the first letter of her name is in the last half of the alphabet."
Chris looked at me funny. "Why do you say that? There's no possible way you know if it does or not…Or do you have some inside information I missed out on?"
I laughed and shook my head. "No, I really have no clue. C'mon it's just a fun bet. Fifty-fifty chance you'll get a quarter! I'll even throw in a mind-blowing kiss!"
"Fine, it's a deal." He shook my hand. "But sometimes I really do think you're retarded."
"Really! That's what I've been hoping for all along!"
"My point is proven," Chris affirmed, and squeezed my waist affectionately. "But I love you anyway."
We were only about ten feet away from them now, do they heard the last comment. "And these two lovebirds," Gordie announced dramatically to the mystery girl, "are Callie and Chris. They've been going out most of the summer."
I smiled. "Hey, mind telling us her name now?" I prompted when he just stood there, and Teddy seemed too preoccupied with staring at his girlfriend's chest, and she didn't seem to even notice he was doing it. He seemed to snap out of it and jumped in before Gordie had a chance.
"Oh, yeah sorry. This is Kadance Mathers. She's from the View."
"Hi!" I greeted her enthusiastically. I looked over at Maddie, who was tucked beside Vern, her golden hair in two cute braids. "Hi, Maddie!"
Maddie greeted me back and Kadance smiled, her eyes curious. "How come I haven't seen you around before? I've seen Chris, but not you."
I felt Chris stiffen slightly beside me. I doubt anyone else noticed, but since his arm was around me and vice versa, I could feel it. The View? I vaguely remembered the guys telling me that's where the rich snobs lived. Maybe Chris thinks she's going to make some snide comment because he's a Chambers, I thought. If she does, I'll personally kick her ass. But she didn't look the type who liked putting others down. Sure, she was a tall blonde with – as I saw now – ocean blue eyes that could probably get any guy in Castle Rock, rich or poor, but she looked nice. Genuinely.
"Callie's new here," Vern piped up. "She came at the beginning of the summer. She lives beside Chris and hasn't been up to the View yet."
"Oh," she responded. "Sorry, I haven't been around lately. My family and I just got back from our vacation in California."
"That's okay. Hey Chris?" I asked, trying to divert his attention, seeing how he was still tensed. He looked at me and I flipped him my quarter. "You won." He caught the quarter with a grin and I knew he hadn't forgotten the other part of the deal. "Now or later?"
"I could really use it now," he replied, still grinning.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the gang. "Excuse us, please." And then I gave him one of the best kisses of his life, I'd bet. I put a little extra into it because he seemed to be a little down. Maybe it reminded him of what he'd face the coming school year. I heard cheers from our audience when we finally broke apart and grinned. "Good enough for ya?"
"Even better than good enough," he replied, looking into my eyes.
"Good," I smiled. "Because it's not polite to do it in front of a bunch of people! We're hypocrites you know, because we always complain about PDA with other people, and then we do it ourselves…Yeah you get my point. Sorry guys, it was just a stupid bet Chris and I did, about what letter Kadance's name started with."
"It was your idea –" he started to defend himself before I kicked him in the back of the shin in a way that nobody would notice. He gave me a glare and I smiled innocently, and he couldn't help but smile too.
"So, anyone have any good ideas on what to do?" Maddie asked quietly.
Everyone looked at each other blankly, searching for an answer and Chris said, "I thought when you guys told us to come here you already had an idea of what we were gonna do."
"Chris, sweetie, sorry to tell you this but not everyone is so prepared everyday like you are," I joked in a sugar coated voice, as if talking to a two year old.
The gang laughed, even Kadance, although she seemed a tad uncomfortable around us, but Chris was unfazed. "Okay, well if we're not prepared to do anything, I can think of something us two can do on our own," he retorted with a smirk, eyes twinkling.
"I think you'd need to prepare for that, Chris, unless you plan on supporting a kid," Gordie pointed out, snickering along with everyone else.
"OKAY change of subject," I declared, not liking where that was going. "How about we go to the diner?"
Everyone agreed to that, seeing how it was near lunch time and I think everyone's stomachs were rumbling. When we started on our way, I detangled myself from Chris, much to his chagrin, and pulled Maddie and Kadance with me, falling in pace behind the guys, so I could talk to them. When the guys looked back at us, I called out, "Girl talk! Just ignore us!" and they did, luckily.
"Girl talk?" Kadance asked, questioningly.
"Just thought we'd get to know each other better without all that testosterone breaking in every second," I replied with a grin.
So we talked about how they met Teddy and Vern (Kadance met Teddy at summer school, which explained where Teddy had been some of the time, and Maddie was the daughter of friends of Vern's family) and other things, such as what they liked, disliked, mellow stuff like that.
"So what's your favourite ice cream flavour? Mine's vanilla. Plain vanilla," I told them.
"Mine's strawberry," Maddie answered, twirling her hair absently. "And rocky road."
"Umm, what's that fruity stuff called? It starts with an 's'," Kadance said, looking as though it was on the tip of her tongue.
"Sherbet?"
"YES!" she exclaimed, and the heads a ways' ahead of us turned, but she took no notice. "Orange sherbet! It's so good!"
"Great, now I'm hungry," I sighed loudly.
"We're at the diner," Maddie pointed out, and indeed we were.
We caught up to the guys, and unable to help myself, I gave Chris a kiss on the cheek (yeah, I know, PDA, but he was just so cute! How could I resist?). We picked one of those long booth tables and managed to fit ourselves on it, with Gordie, Chris and I having one side to ourselves and Teddy, Kadance, and Vern on the other, with Maddie fitting on his lap easily, she was so small.
The waitress was a pretty girl with red curly hair that looked about our age, and I noticed Gordie sneaking glances at her while she took everyone's orders.
"I'll have a burger and fries, please, with a cherry soda!" I said when it was my turn. She nodded, wrote it down, and turned to Gordie who seemed too busy staring to realize it was his turn. I elbowed him and he sat up.
"Huh? Oh, I'll have the same," he ordered, blushing, and added on a "please" when he realized he hadn't said it. The waitress – wait her nametag said Sara – giggled and headed back to the kitchen. After she came back with our drinks, I spoke up.
"You got a thing for her or something, Gordie?"
"Am I that obvious?" he asked, his blush fading and he looked anxious.
"Uhh…just a tad," I answered, grinning. This is great, I thought. Then all the boys will have girlfriends! None of them will feel like tagalongs. "Look, if you like her, ask her out."
"What if she doesn't like me?"
My mouth dropped open and I looked at the others. They were all hiding smiles, so I knew they had noticed too. "She was being just as obvious as you, Gordie. And if you're that worried, just ask her to hang out with us, and then ask her out on a date later."
"C'mon Gordo, go for it. Don't be a pussy," Chris told him, leaning over me to talk to Gordie. Then he directed his attention to me. "That's Sara Brody. She's in our grade; Gordie's had a crush on her since 7th grade."
"Have not," he retorted, staring off at where Sara was taking another table's orders. Chris snorted disbelieving, as did Vern and Teddy. "Okay, so maybe I have." He sighed. "Fine, I'll ask her when she brings our food."
I sipped my cherry soda and nestled into the crook of Chris' arm, which was resting comfortably on my shoulders. He smiled at me and kissed the top of my head.
Sara came back not too much longer, with a huge amount of food. After all, there was seven of us. And all of the guys ate like horses. She smiled longer at Gordie, her cheeks a rosy pink and her hair messed in that cute way I could never figure out how to achieve.
"Would you like to umm maybe," Gordie started asking her. "Hang out with us? I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to…"
Her grin only widened as she said, "I'd love to!" She checked her watch and looked towards the kitchen, then turned her head back. "My shift's done in a half an hour. Can you guys wait that long?"
While Gordie stumbled for words I took the liberty of answering. "Sure we can!"
So we sat and ate our food, flicking the occasional fry across the table. Sara came back to our table almost exactly thirty minutes later, changed out of her work clothes and wearing a light yellow sundress, and a huge smile.
Seemingly unaware of Gordie's open-mouthed gape at her, she spoke in a cheerful voice. "So what are we going to do?"
I'd heard that question too many times. When it's winter and you go to school, you beg for it to be summer. But when summer finally comes, and it wears on, you run out of things to do. Well, at least that's what happens in Castle Rock. We managed to pass the time somehow, having hilarious piggyback races down the street (Chris and I won, naturally…a couple times anyway. Vern and Maddie won the rest, because Maddie's so light) and roaming around the town. I got to know Maddie, Kadance and Sara a lot better too, although Sara was more my kind of friend, and I had only known her for a couple hours. Kadance wasn't as crazy as I had expected her to be, but she was loud.
The sun was lowering in the sky when two by two we split up, Vern walking Maddie home and Teddy walking Kadance home. Soon it was just Chris, Gordie, Sara and I walking down the empty street, listening to those crickets chirp their last song before nightfall. I've always loved that sound; it was so peaceful, calming. It's one ofmy favourite things about summer.
Sara and I were walking ahead of the boys so I took the chance to talk to her about Gordie, since they weren't going out yet. "So you really like him, huh?"
She smiled happily. "Yeah. I've had the biggest crush on him forever!"
"He's had one on you since the 7th grade, or so I'm told."
"Really?" she squealed excitedly. "Do you think he'll ask me out?"
I laughed and kicked a stone down the dusty road. "If he has any sense in that head of his he will!"
Soon Sara and Gordie also wandered off to their own houses, leaving Chris and I alone. I rested my head against his neck as we walked, my small hand in his calloused one.
"You know," Chris began, his voice sounding tired. "The gang's great and all, but at then end of the day I'm happy to just be with you."
"I feel the same way," I murmured. "Our gang's growing."
Chris put his head on my head, his silky blonde hair tickling my forehead. "Yeah. I have this feeling that we're gonna drift apart when school starts."
I looked up into his marine eyes, which looked just as tired as his voice. "Why do you say that?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. It's just one of those feelings, ya know?"
"Yeah. You'll never lose me though," I assured him. "I'm here to stay." I moved my head and leaned in for a kiss, which he returned, wrapping his strong, protective arms around me. I felt so safe in those arms, so shielded from the world, that I never wanted to come out.
Tomorrow I'd get my wakeup call to reality.
A/N: Yeah, this chapter was really boring, so feel free to say so! It's another filler, because I have a HUGE project due June 3rd or something and it's taking me so long to do! I have to make a whole newspaper that revolves around the book Forbidden City and events that take place in it. I'm so sick of it! So please bear with me, I'll try my best to update soon. Reviewing helps! And the next chapter's when her daddy's gonna come back! I already have it planned out in my head, I just need the time to write it! I also noticed my writing's getting slack and careless but I'll write the next chapter – and hopefully the ones following – with greater detail and description. Oh, and my cousin's over and she always takes over my computer! Haha so yeah I'll thank my reviewers now.
Kibel: Thanks! I've been reading a few of your fics once and awhile, they're good!
Snykurz: Thank you! I love River too! I keep meaning to rent a bunch of his movies lol. I miss him!
Hippie-girl13492: Awwe thanks for the offer! I didn't get your review until just now, because the email notices went screwy, but I can work in your character if you want! Just send me and physical description as well as her personality, what she likes to do etc. Thanks!
StormShadow21: Ramblings good! I do it all the time, except I usually make no sense! Yep, so you met all of the guys' girlfriends….And Gordie's sorta got one! Sara's probably gonna be Callie's best friend out of them. You'll have more to comment on the next chapter, I promise! It'll be a good one!
Tracia: Haha yeah I'm a perfectionist, so of course I HAD to look them up lol. The next chapter won't be so happy, unfortunately….at least not half of it! No I haven't seen those movies yet, I keep meaning to though! Thanks!
Icy-dropletz: Yeah, I wasn't sure if I wanted things to get bad or not, but then I decided that in chapter 12 there's gonna be enough bad stuff happening! Hehehe I can't wait for it myself! You're fic still rocks! Thank you!
Screaming666: Thanks, and you're not a dork! You're funny! I could so picture someone doing that hahaha. Don't miss the next chapter I put up, no matter what! I'm so excited to write it!
I'll have the next chapter up as soon as possible, because I'm looking forward to it too!