RUNAWAY

Chapter 6- Gregarious Groceries

A/N: Okay I've set a goal for myself: 100 reviews…no no not for just this chapter…I mean eventually…and thanks to u…I'm half way there!:D Anywhoo…let the story or saga or whatever… continue! RxRxE. I unfortunately do not own Danny Phantom…but Emma, Brian, Spooks, Brenda and Mr. Lucas are (considering he is named after my history teacher xD) MINE.

Now what was that Emma needed? Right milk…and I better get some soy milk for me. How can an entire gallon of milk disappear in less than 24 hours when there are only two people plus a dog to a household? No idea. I reached the grocery store. No spaces, just my luck! I parked across the street.

Okay so I'll just sip in and out I thought entering the sliding doors. Then I'll hurry back home freshen up and viola! I'm at Tucker's.

I walked briskly down the dairy aisle. Soy milk check, now for the abused-cow milk. I tried convincing Emma to at least try soy milk, but she refused saying she will not eat fake food. Technically it's not fake, but I wasn't going to argue on the issue….again. I finally spotted the very-specific type of milk that Emma swears is the only kind she will drink. I reached for it, but another hand with a huge engagement diamond was also reaching for the milk. Looking up, I had to look twice at was …was that… "Valerie?"

Her teal eyes widened and then squinted "Sam Manson?"

So, we weren't the best pals during high school. But after he left, we gradually became friends. Though after graduation, we slowly drifted apart and lost contact. Nevertheless, when seeing a fellow classmate, a girl's gatta do what a girl's gatta do: Hug.

I never imagined hugging Valerie in the dairy section of the local grocery store. "Oh my God! I haven't seen you in forever! How's Tucker and Da….."

I gave her a look "…right. Sorry."

"You're getting married" I said pointing the enormous rock on her finger. I guess it was the right topic to pick since her eyes lit up immediately. She began to swing the ring around and gush how her fiancé Derek was so handsome and so strong and…..need I go on?

"Hey Val, as much as I like to stay and chat, I have to get going."

"Oh, Okay….here let me give you my number." She wrote her number on the milk carton. "Uhh…thanks." I smiled awkwardly, probably because I was holding two cartons of milk at the moment.

She hugged me again with the milk "It was great seeing you. Call me!" She waved off. Okay that was a completely random event in my life.

I quickly paid and exited in search of my car, only to be reminded that I had parked across the street. It seemed a lot of people have moved on with their lives, yet I still seemed to be in the same place. Maybe I could call Brian. Did I even have his number?

The light still said not to walk, but there were no cars around. The milk carton was wet on the outside and cold, so it began to slip. I readjusted it so I had a firmer grip. It was no use.

Three- quarters of the way my shoe caught the ground at and discomfited angle which sent me tumbling. "Crap. Stupid shoes." Lifting my clumsy self off, I began to gather the milk which fortunately did not explode.

Leaning up I realized a sound that I hadn't heard before. Whipping my head to the side, a massive truck was heading straight towards me. Oh. My. God. How is this happening to me? All I wanted was milk! I'm going to die. I tried running, but I was deer stuck in the headlights, frozen with fear. The roaring grew louder and all I did was shut my eyes waiting for the impact. My heart thumping, which was all I could hear besides the engine of the truck. Please slow down. Please, someone save me.

"SAM! MOVE!" yelled a voice. I opened my eyes to fine it blurred with tears. I wanted to yell back that I couldn't, but all of sudden a force hit causing me to crash against something hard. I almost blacked out. 'Almost' being the key word.

"SAM, Sam?!? Are you okay?" asked a dark figure above me. The first thing that came into view were hazel eyes.

"Hmmm?"

"How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked. Ugh. Did I have to answer the question, it would be much better just to conk out and deal with life later.

"SAM, stay with me here, how many fingers?"

They were slightly blurred but I was able to make it out. "Two."

Holding up four fingers, he put his hand down and helped me stand up. "Close enough." I heard a laugh in his voice. My vision began to focus more and I realized once again it was my art partner.

"You have a tendency to get into life- threatening situations." He chuckled.

"You have a tendency to follow me around and save me from these situations." I stated back.

We stood.

"The name's Noa." He said.

Confused at first, it dawned on me that I finally knew his first name. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"You know, for saving me from my 'tendencies'" I smiled.

Returning the smile "It was nothing. In fact, I do it all the time. You know eat breakfast, take a stroll find a girl about to get hit by an idiotic truck driver who did not stop even to see if the girl he was about to slaughter was alright. You know, the usual."

We laughed. "Here let me walk you to you're car." We walked down the block silently. The weird thing is that I felt comfortable with Noa, even if I just met him this afternoon. We eventually reached my car. "Hey, I'm hanging out with a friend tonight; you could come hang out, if you want?" I said. He did just save my life.

Stuffing his hands further into his pockets, he replied "Nah, I have plans. Apartment shopping." I unlocked the car and Noa reached out and opened the driver's door. "My lady" he said in a formal voice while mocking a bow. Laughing again "Why, thank you kind sir" I said in the same formal voice while tilting my head. I got into the car and he slammed the door shut. I rolled down the window "Thanks so much again." He looked straight down into my eyes over his round shades. "Your welcome."

With the window back up, he stepped away from the car and gave a two finger flick salute and walked his way back down the sidewalk. Smiling, I started the car and was about to take off when it hit me "Dang it! The milk!"

Even before I reached the door, you could see a small shadow and hear the whining of man's best friend or in this case, my best friend. Opening the door, Spooks began to pounce. "No jumping!" "Helllooooooo? Anybody hooome?" I knelt down and Spooks attacked my face with kisses. "How's my boy? Yes, yes I lube you too." I said in my baby voice.

"Jeez! He's been whining since he heard you on the stairs. What took you so long?" Emma replied. Walking to the left through an archway I reached our kitchen. "Long story." I was a trained professionally to hide my feelings. I didn't need to worry Emma with me being almost run over.

I tossed my keys onto the small white table only to realize that the space was occupied by a vase with two dozen red roses beginning to bloom. I had to admit that it was shocking but lovely at the same time. I bent down to smell them.

"Looks like someone got an admirer." Emma said with a smirk while sitting at the kitchen bar.

I saw a small card ripped opened lying next to the vase. I pointed at it accusingly and glared at Emma. "Hehehe….I couldn't help myself." She said while twirling her hair.

Her hair. It was….different. Her light brown hair was straight with a couple faint red streaks and wisps of hair that formed bangs. "Ah…wow."

Now suddenly a bit self-conscious Emma replied "I know it's a bit extreme, but I've been dying for a change." She gave a little twirl. "So, what do you think?"

Giving her a sincere smile "I adore it!"

Emma laughed "Hmmmm…miss proper are we? Well I'm glad you adore it…but open the card already!"

Averting my attention back to the card, I opened it.

Looking forward to seeing you on Friday.

Much Love,

Brian

I could feel my cheeks give off a small blush and I smiled because of it. "OOOoooooo…someone's in lloooovvveee." said Emma in a sing-song voice. She was now dancing around the very small kitchen.

I swatted her with the card. "Am not!"

She held up her hand as if in surrender "Uh huh…whatever you say."

"Okay I have a plan." said Emma now excited, "Since we have class again in the afternoon, and we have all morning free…"

"Yes, continue."

"Let's have a watch-girly-romantic-comedies-be-a-bum-marathon night!" she asked with pleading eyes. Sad to make her disappointed I replied "I'm sorry Emma, but I already promised to go hang out with Tucker. Apparently he's going to die of a boredom stroke."

I started to put the milk away to avoid her pouting glare.

"You could come with me…"

"N-O." She said shaking her head "Between Tucker and I there's no chemistry."

"You know, just because Tucker is a guy, doesn't mean you have to fall in love with him. You could just actually be a friend towards a boy. There's no contract that says: IF EMMA DOES NOT MAKE OUT WITH A BOY, THAT CERTAIN BOY IS NO LONGER ABLE TO BE IN HER PRESENSE." I said while pretending to read a huge sign.

"We don't have anything in common." She whined completely ignoring the fact that I would be there with her.

"Besides, I'm working on something new for the competition." She skipped out to the living slash family slash dinning room area. I followed her only to be stopped with shock. Everything was everywhere. It seemed every article of clothing from BOTH of our closets were thrown on the furniture, food, Spooks toys, canvases, paint, brushes, everything.

We had a designated room for painting in the back; apparently Emma can't keep to one room.

"Is it possible for you to work with out being chaotic?" I yelled.

Emma popped out of the hallway that leads to our rooms "It's not chaotic!" she retorted.

"Ah, forgive me, everything is artistically arranged" I stated with crossed arms and a raised brow.

"Exactly." She nodded to affirm it. I began to pick up some of my clothes when I saw something silver and shiny. What the heck? "Wait…is that…our toaster?!?" I asked very confused.

"And why is MY bra and dog food in it!?!" Emma snatched it from my hands while stuffing her nose in the air "You never know when inspiration will hit you."

"Well try to keep your 'inspirations' to one room and OUT of my underwear drawer!"

I grabbed my bag and keys and looked back. "Last chance! Are you sure you don't want to come?"

"Positive" came a thumbs up from the couch.

Just as I get out of my car, it begins to pour. Great. I ran towards the apartment building and rung the buzzer that was labeled "Foey"…the 'l' got washed away. No one answered. I rang a second time getting drenched each passing second. I heard crackling. FINALLY!

"Hello?" came Tucker's voice.

"Hey 'Foey'! Let me in!"

I could hear a laugh and then the door buzzed, yes! No more wet! I looked to the elevator hoping that the message had changed. No such luck. "Out of Order" It's been 'Out of Order' since Tucker moved here and that was four years ago.

Now drenched, I have to climb up seven flights of stairs to reach his apartment. I am such a nice friend.

Knocking on the door, I was cold, tired and hungry. So when Tucker opened the door, I punched him.

Okay. Not really, but it would have made me feel a lot better. He answered the door trying to keep his face neutral but busted out laughing anyway. That's when I really did punch him…on the shoulder. "Look what the cat drug in."

"Hi Tucker. Lovely to see you too." I then imitated Tucker's voice to have a little imaginary discussion. "Nice to see you too Sam. You're such a great friend coming over here, getting wet because I wouldn't open the door and climbing up seven flights of stairs. Here let me give you a million dollars for your efforts."

"First off," Tucker said while getting a cup of ginger tea "The elevator is not my fault." Now handing me the cup, "And second, I don't have a million bucks. If I were made of that money, I wouldn't be having you over."

Grabbing the cup I said with a hint of anger "Wow. You really know how to make a friend feel special."

"Sorry."

"Forgiven."

"Great! Cause you're going to psych when you see what me and the guys got!"

"Meaning, you're tech friends?" I asked sipping on my tea. Yummy! The tea, not the guys.

"Bingo!" He then pulled something out from behind his back. It was a Doom 3 computer game. I grabbed it. "No way!"

"Yes way." He said smiling like a little kid at Christmas. I think my face began to mock his. I sat down on the navy blue couch. "I haven't played the original Doom in forever! Is this even available to the public yet?"

"Nope." He said as if he were quite proud of owning an illegal game. "You get things, when you try to design video games or improve the technology in the world. What we give, we get back."

He ran to his computer like a big kid and inserted the disc. "It has all these new features and better graphics and characters."

I looked over his shoulder to see his character pop up with the name Kert Ley.

"Kert Ley?" I asked.

"Oh! That's one of the new features, it has an anagram scrambler. Pretty cool huh? Now you don't need screen names, well, unless you want one."

"Amazing." I said sarcastically.

"It gives you a middle name too, but I just cut out that part cause it sounded stupid." He said now enjoying his game.

"What was it?

"Cofu."

I snorted into my cup. Tucker turned and glared at me. I returned the playful glare. "I saw your flier" I said casually.

Tucker stiffened and replied with the same tone "Oh did you now?"

"Still no luck with the roommate part?" I said now flipping through the TV magazine.

"Nah! Turns out being a bachelor is not as easy as some think." He said now paying attention to me.

My cell phone began to jingle. Digging through my purse I said "I actually know someone who might be interested. It just hit me that he was looking for an apartment. It's a guy I met in class today, Noa Fidlen."

"Never heard of him." Tucker said waiting for me to see who was calling. The caller ID read 'Evil Parents'. Sigh. I answered it anyway, they usually don't call at night. "Hello?"

"Samantha?" said my Dad in a panicked voice.

Now worried, "Dad, what's wrong?"

Tucker must have seen my distress as I slowly began to shake. "Okay, I'll be there."

"Sam, what is it?" He was now sitting across from me on his couch

I looked up with teary eyes, trying to be strong, "It's my grandma. She's in the emergency room…the hospital."

A/N: OH NO! not granny! Sry for the wait, but be grateful that I'm not one of those who just give up on their stories! Well, we finally know mystery boy's name Noa….without the 'h' cause I'm all for unique names; plus I did it in the honor of my friend Sara who spell's her name without an h too. Awww…Brian sent her roses! How sweet! Mucho lurve Oogles