12/27/07

The drive off of campus and to his place was in silence.

The music from the radio was playing and the sunroof was open, letting in the bright sun and wind. But otherwise the two were not speaking with each other.

Both of them had on their sunglasses and were busy looking everywhere else but at each other.

He shifted the gears of the car, navigating them back to his place. She was looking out the window and was also covertly looking at him through her dark Chanel shades.

He was doing the same through his own dark Ray-Ban sunglasses. 'What is going on?' he thought. How he got into the current situation was obvious enough but his mind still couldn't understand how it fell into place.

Sure they had the same group of friends but that didn't make them really good friends. The first time they met, they had rubbed each other the wrong way and were more stand offish towards each other and sometimes down right hostile to be actual friends.

Some of their friends had pointed out to them that maybe it was the sexual tension between them but they both laughed it off, but their friends remained unconvinced. It seemed that the more they tried to fight the chemistry between them, the more obious it was to everyone else around them.

Now, Serena had a problem and something akin to Fate decided to nudge her conscience towards picking Darien.

Serena knew she was acting weird but there really was no other way to go about the situation. She had to be clear and direct and to the point to get the plan to work. Hopefully he would accept and things could more on steadily. If he didn't, well, Serena didn't really want to go too deep into thinking about that.

Rejection and humiliation weren't feelings that Serena was a stranger to but that didn't mean that she wanted them either way.

Traffic wasn't bad since they made it off campus before rush hour. He lived fairly close to campus, but it was still a drive.

"Are you hungry?" he asked her. Hoping that she was. It was common knowledge that Serena was always hungry and a bottomless stomach despite her petite and trim figure.

"Oh, no I'm okay actually"

'Liar' he thought to himself. Something was definitely wrong if she wasn't hungry.

"Do you mind if I pick something up?"

"No, that's fine. Where are you thinking of going?"

"I thought you weren't hungry?"

"Well, since you're eating, how can I pass it up?" She smiled at him and he smiled back as they both knew about her bottomless stomach despite her thin and fit figure. He was relieved to find that it was really her politeness that was holding her back and not something else.

"How about Jimmy John's?"

"Sounds good," she told him. He turned off the main street and headed towards the sandwich shop. He pulled in the small parking lot and parked.

They both got out of the car and he pushed the button on his keychain to lock the car. He opened to door to the shop for her and walked in after her.

They were both greeted by the enthusiastic employees and looked to the menu.

The shop was relatively quiet as it was too early for dinner and way past lunch time.

"I can get your order whenever you guys are ready" said the girl at the cash register. Serena noticed that she was eyeing Darien appreciatively. She narrowed her eyes slightly but the girl was oblivious as she continued to stare at Darien. As she raised her eyes from staring and practically drooling at Darien's tight ass, she caught Serena's glare and jerked her gaze away, blushing.

'Mine,' Serena thought. 'Wait, mine?' She shook her head slightly and turned back to look at the menu.

Not yet of course. She still had to propose the plan to him and he still had to accept it before. But then again, the plan that she had in her mind had nothing to do with exclusive rights on each other.

Instead, she wanted a more friends with benefits kind of deal. But she wanted it wiht someone she wasn't too close with so that in case something happened, the friendship lost wouldn't be one close to her heart.

It made her seem callus, but she really didn't think of any other solution and Darien fit what she thought she needed.

Sure she had been in relationships before but she never loved any of them. She wanted what Rei had. The sexual chemistry, someone to stand toe to toe with her, someone to just be there with her and know everything about her just by looking at her. But that was next to impossible even though she thought that Rei had achieved that.

She shook her head slightly again to clear her thoughts and concentrated on picking something to eat from the menu. She never noticed the staring from the male employees from behind the counter. Serena was generally oblivious to that sort of thing.

Darien turned his head to ask her if she was ready and when she nodded, he turned towards the girl at the cash register to order.

The girl was blushing as she took his order and was about to tell him his total when he stopped her and told Serena to place her order as well.

"Hey, I got this"

"No, it's okay"

"No really it's my treat"

"...Thanks"

Serena place her order and grabbed both of their cups and Darien told her what he wanted to drink. She walked towards the soda machine located closer to the back of the shop. She filled both their cups with ice and Coke before putting the plastic lid on each and grabbed two straws.

She went to a booth near the window and sat down. Darien stood near the counter to pick up their orders and watched her do all of this and noticed out of the corner of his eye that some of the male employees were also watching her.

'Mine,' he thought. 'Wait, what?' He was confused by his thoughts. Did he want a relationship with Serena? The girl that drove him crazy to no end but also the girl who he couldn't seem to get out of his mind or his dreams for that matter.

He'd be a fool to not recognize the attraction between them but he also noticed the tension. He denied what their mutual friends had said about them but the idea was already planted in his head. The thoughts that accompanied them were lodged in his mind as well as he could and sometimes did fantasize about her.

But everytime he told himself to be nicer to her, to show her a different side of him, the plan backfired.

Before he even registered it, they were arguing with each other over something. Usually it was over the most meaningless things but with both of them being stubborn neither would back down. They were almost like an old married couple, except with the make-up sex afterwards.

He sighed to himself and tried to rein in whatever it was that was making him be nicer to her.

'I want her' he thought to himself. And for some reason, after admitting that to himself, even though he was in a sandwich shop, it made more sense to him. Everything just suddenly made sense. He felt right about it. He didn't feel scared by the idea but comforted by it.

He was never in a monogamous relationship before. He had dated a few girls here and there and certainly had his fair share of fun with the ladies but he never had the urge to take it more from there.

He knew that there were times when he was with a girl and the girl wanted more, even though they denied it, but he always knew. He would always gently let them go. Some left quietly with dignity but there were also a few who who begged to stay with him, tricked him, lied to him and those were just delusional.

Like the last girl he got with – Beryl Addison.

He shuddered at the thought of her. Sure the girl was tall, gorgeous and was great in bed but she was like a snake. She was conniving and manipulative, but that wasn't really what turned him off. It was her control issues that triggered his commitment issues.

Thus the break-up and the inevitable stalking that Beryl was currently resorting to to get his attentions again. The last thing she had told him was that she was pregnant but he soon found out that that was a lie and he had changed from try to be nice about it.

As an orphan, Darien knew the importance of family. In fact, he was starved for it. But it wasn't something he broadcasted or shared. The death of his parents happened when he was quite young, but he had an elderly grandfather who was his only remaining relative.

Unfortunately shortly after he had come to live wtih his grandfather, his grandfather passed away. Leaving Darien even more alone but also even richer. He had a trust fund that was given to him by his mother that he recieved when he was 18 years old. It was a significant amount of money. Then there was the multi-billion dollar corporation that his father and grandfather ran together. The company had been around for almost 5 generations and Darien was also to inherit it upon the death of his father. But since he was very young when his father died, his grandfather had come out of retirement and taken over the company despite his ailing health.

After his grandfather died, the company was rightfully Darien who was still only a few years old. Thankfully, a good family friend of Darien's father and grandfather stepped in to manage the company in Darien's behalf until Darien was ready to come in and run the company.

But that wasn't happening anytime soon.

In fact, Darien was happy with his life and he didn't picture himself running a Fortune 500 company at all.

Darien was shaken out of his memories when their order was ready. He picked up the sandwiches and gave the male employees a hard glare that signified that he wanted them to stop staring at Serena and back off. He walked over to the booth that she had chosen near the window and sat down. He unwrapped his sandwich and she proceeded to do the same and they started eating.

Even their meal was in relative silence between them. There were moments when they caught the other staring at each other. There were no successful attempts to keep a conversation going between them that didn't have a large percentage of chance of them getting into an argument.

Finally, unable to take it anymore, Darien straight out asked Serena what was going on and why was she acting so weird.

A little bit shocked by his sudden direct questioning she choked on the bite of sandwich she had in her mouth and grapped her drink to wash it down the right pipe.

She finished chewing what she had in her mouth and was about to tell him when the door to the shop opened and in walked Anne Hearst.

Anne was an attractive girl with short wavy red hair that fell to her shoulders. She had piercing green eyes that were tilted upwards towards the corners – like cat eyes. She had a sharp nose and chin and even sharper mouth.

She always had something against Serena and was always putting Serena down whenever they ran into each other. Anne was in one of Serena's discussion groups in a past semester and always made Serena feel like a completely idiot.

It also wasn't a secret that Anne, like many other females and even some males on campus, lusted after Darien.

Darien had his back to the door didn't notice Anne coming into the shop but Serena did. She froze and almost had a deer in headlights expression on her face when she saw Anne. Hoping that Anne wouldn't notice them, Serena jerked her gaze down at her sandwich and prayed to whatever god was listening to make Anne not notice her.

'Please, please please'

Darien on the other hand was still waiting for Serean to answer his question. He was about to call her name when he interuppted by a loud shriek that sounded like it was right by his ear.

"SERENA!"

He winced and turned slightly to see Anne Hearst. His own eyes widen slightly before he narrowed them at Anne.

"OH MY GOSH! DARIEN! I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN LIKE FOREVER!" Anne screeched as she dragged out 'forever' making it seem like she said 'for-everrr'.

"Anne, hey," he replied with as much enthusiasm he could muster.

Which really wasn't all that much considering that he wasn't really a fan of Anne even though she clearly a fan of his.

"AND SERENA! GIRL WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" Anne continued to screech much to the dismay of everyone around her.

"Hey Anne. Just –" Before Serena could finish, Anne had already turned back her attention and her body towards Darien. Her rude gesture was not lost on Darien as he narrowed his eyes at Anne and scowled.

"M'am you're order is up"

Anne ignored the employee and contined to look at Darien. She angled her body to stand with one hip jutted out and placed on hand on her hip. Hoping to look sexy to Darien, to entice him. Instead, Darien saw right through her.

He wrapped up his sandwich and looked over to see Serena staring quite avidly at her own sandwich. He found it strange that she hadn't done more when Anne had been so rude to her. She never lacked the courage to stand up against him.

He reached his hand across the table and grabbed Serena's hand. She jerked and looked up at him in surprise.

As Anne was about to start one some meaningless chit chat, Darien cut her off and annoucned that he was just about to leave.

"Sorry Anne, but I just realized Serena and I have to be somewhere." He wrapped up Serena's sandwich for her and stood up. Anne moved over slightly to let Darien out of the booth seat and watched as he grabbed both his and Serena's sandwich in one hand adn his drink in the other.

Serena continued to sit in the booth with a dumb founded expression on her face.

"Come on Serena, we have to go to that thing that you were talking about earlier"

Serena jumped up. "Oh yeah, that thing. Yeah let's go".

She grabbed her own drink and followed Darien out of the door.

"See you later Anne!" Darien called out to her right before he was out of the door. He didn't miss that dirty look that Anne had shot Serena as Serena followed him out of the shop.

He walked briskly to his car and unlocked it. Slidding into the driver seat and slamming the door shut, he turned the ignition and Serena got in right before he shifted the car in reverse and with tires screeching, he pulled out of the parking lot.

"What the hell is going on Serena"

And at that moment, that's when she knew that life wasn't going to be easy or the same anymore.