Saturday November 28th, 2009

It's been two days since Thanksgiving, which meant the Christmas shopping season has already begun. This also meant that Kaylee's shifts at the Newbury Comics were extended by a half hour. She checked the time on her phone at least twice every minute. Now it was 4:20 – she should have left twenty minutes ago if it weren't for her lengthened work hours. Not much was going on in the store since there were multiple other stores in the mall that attracted the boring crowd of people who did their shopping that day. This gave her extra time to work on her French homework, which she desperately needed.

Leaning against the cashier counter, she dropped her head into one hand and began to answer the questions typed in the foreign language. She answered them with flying colors and put the assignment back in her sleek black binder then slid that into her school bag. Kaylee let out a sigh and buried her face in her hands, slowly but surely dying of boredom behind the register.

"You okay there?" Someone from the other side of the counter asked. Her head popped up to see Joey there, leaning at her level with a sweet smile. His hands were tucked away in the large pouch of his crimson sweater and no glasses were worn today, so nothing was in between the two pairs of brown eyes. The edges of her mouth curved upwards as well now that he was here.

"Yeah, just want to get out of here. Nothing's happening." She pulled herself up and yawned, followed with a simple stretch of her arms.

"Well, when do you get out?" He asked, standing up straighter and admired the posters on display behind her. Kaylee grabbed her phone from the pocket of her jeans and frowned at the time.

"Two minutes ago…" She motioned for Joey to wait at the counter as she went to the back room to get the next coworker in line to the register and then swooped one arm through her bag strap. "So what brings you here?" The ginger spoke a little louder so Joey could hear her over the drone of the shoppers.

"Just came to browse, look around for possible gifts for Christmas." He shrugged and glanced at the commotion on the escalators, "I actually used to work in there, too." He nodded over his shoulder back to the Newbury Comics where they had just left from.

"How long ago was that?" Her eyebrows snapped together in question as they passed the food court.

"Like… about two years ago." He looked up for a split second to try to remember when he had his job. "But it was only for the summer." They went through the glass revolving door that led to the front parking lot. Clouds started to gather and the wind howled, taking the remnants of leaves along with it.

"Do you have a ride back?" Kaylee asked Joey when her arms had goose bumps starting the form. She made a mental note that she probably should start putting the short sleeves away or at least get a sweater.

"Yeah, I can get my way back." The two came to a halt at the driver's side of Kaylee's car that Joey still found interesting. She turned to him and tilted her head to the side in doubt. "What? Public transportation isn't that bad."

"I'll be more than happy to give you a ride, you know." She offered, starting the car with the remote on her keys.

"Are you sure? I mean I could just-"

"Just let a friend do you a favor." Kaylee insisted, grabbing his shoulders from behind and guiding him around the car to the passenger side.

"If you say so," Joey shrugged and opened the door.

"So, you're going back to your apartment, right?" She questioned, checking both ways through the windshield as she pulled out of the parking lot.

"Yeah. Thanks for the ride, Kay." He gave a warm smile and then stopped himself for a moment. "Is it okay if I call you that? Like, as a nickname or should it just be Kaylee?"

"Kay's fine with me." They got off of the highway at the first exit they came to. He watched as the speedometer slowly started pointing to the left and the car slow down to a comfortable 25 miles per hour. They sat in silence, stuck in front of a red light for some time until they actually started driving again when the light changed back to green. Joey glanced at Kaylee and had to do a double-take out through her window.

"Kay!" She looked at him with worry for a moment and suddenly stopped herself from saying anything further when a blue sedan hit one of her headlights. "Are you okay?" She ignored his question and stepped out of her car to check the damage. To at least make an attempt to be helpful, he got out too and stood by her side.

"You cannot be serious right now," Kaylee muttered to herself as she crouched down to be at level with the busted headlight, tracing over the new dent made in her front end of her muscle car. Pressing her lips into a thin line, she walked over to the driver who finally decided to go check on the damage they've done. She had her jet black hair pulled up into an effortless bun with an Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie and black yoga pants. "You do know you'll be paying for this, right?" Kaylee's brown eyes shot daggers into the icy blue ones of the woman, whose endless apologies didn't mean anything at all. "Do you know what she is?" Joey watched as his friend pointed back to her car, "She's a 1970 Buick 'GSX' Stage 1. She is better than your piece of shit Mazda and yes, I will be seeing your ass in court!"

Joey saw this as a great time to step in and restrain Kaylee before she went completely apeshit. Usually screaming in people's face meant that a punch was soon to be thrown, so he used his common sense and grabbed her by the shoulders and retreated back to her vehicle. "Hey, I know you're pissed off right now but beating people isn't going to solve much." He tried to explain but knew that his message wasn't fully getting across to her. He noticed that Kaylee's freckled cheeks were now a dark pink from her rage. Pulling out her phone, she opened up to a memo page and returned to the driver.

"Name?" She rather demanded than asked through clenched teeth to keep herself from losing it.

"…What?" The woman looked at her strange and Kaylee was ready to full out rant.

"Have you taken driver's ed before? This is what you do when some dumbass bashes into your car: you get their name, address, phone number, license plate, details of the car model, and their VIN. Now just answer my fucking questions and we won't have a problem." Her mouth pulled into a tight frown and it took all her strength not to turn into the Incredible Hulk and destroy everything. "You know what – forget it. I can't stand you and I don't even know your name." Exiting from the memo composer page, she dialed 9-1-1 with trembling fingers and waited until an operator got on the line.

Joey knew that the night wasn't going to end pretty for them and felt sorry that he couldn't do anything to help her out. Soon enough, he could hear sirens wailing from around the corner and flashing blue lights. Kaylee paced in front of him and kept a weak fist up to her mouth until a cop with a buzz cut approached her for questioning.

His bald backup officer was trying to talk to the woman who caused the accident and from what Joey saw, wouldn't listen to any requests. His phone buzzed in his pocket with a text from Darren.

"Where are you? We're ordering Chinese you know, it should be here sometime soon."

Shaking his head to himself, he typed back a reply. "I'm gonna be a while. Kaylee and I kind of got into an accident and I'm pretty sure that the other driver isn't sober."

"Ma'am, did you mind if we take a look in the vehicle?" Joey overheard the backup cop talking to the deranged driver. She crossed her arms, saying something incoherent, and rolled her eyes to let him poke and probe through her glove compartment and middle console. After Kaylee was finished with her questioning, she walked over to Joey with her hands in her pockets.

"Sorry for keeping you out here, if you want I could get you a cab or –"

"Don't apologize. After this, do you want to stop by for dinner? Everyone already ordered Chinese."

"Sure," She said with an exasperated sigh and ran a hand through her hair, looking back at the two cops, who were instructing her to lean on the front of her Mazda with her hands behind her back. "Arrested already? Jesus, that was easy."

"I think it's probably because of the massive amount of pot that he just found." Joey stated when the bald officer put the Ziploc bag of weed in the cop car.

"She still better be paying for this…" Kaylee sounded more satisfied and crossed her arms, shooting daggers with her eyes at the high woman in handcuffs. After another brief conversation with one of the officers, they were free to go at 5:58.

"Do you mind if I put on music or?" Kaylee turned to him with her index finger hovering over one of the buttons of the car radio. Joey shook his head and gave a polite smile, watching as she plugged in her iPod and put on her John Mayer playlist. Once situated, she drove off and relaxed at the sound of his voice.

"What song is this?" He asked to hopefully move onto a lighter subject.

"Stop This Train by John Mayer." She sighed and turned onto the street where he could vaguely hear the conversation and laughter from the open window. She twisted the key out of the ignition and stepped out of the car, checking the dent again before walking with Joey up the two flights of stairs, following the saltiness of soy sauce and fried food in wafting from their front door. They had left it unlocked for the two so no one noticed them come in.

"…So I think that a sequel would be –"

"We're finally here!" Joey called over Brian so that he wouldn't give away the surprise since Kaylee was there.

"Sorry about your car, Special K." Jaime sympathized with a frown on the couch, nibbling at lo mein off of a Styrofoam plate. "Sit your ass down and eat some food before it gets cold." Lauren scooted a little closer to Joe Walker on the edge of the couch and away from Jaime to make room for Kaylee.

"Thanks, Jaime," She sat in the empty space and pulled a chicken wing out of the greasy white box, "I really need something to nom on right now before I evolve into a pterodactyl and fly into the sun."

Joey joined the boys who sat around the table of food on the floor, and listened to the conversation around the room.

"Is there anything you want to do?" Brolden suggested, "that we could all do like as a group?"

Looking onto the scratched surface of the old coffee table in deep thought, Kaylee stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth until she came up with an idea. "Do you guys want to watch Rocky Horror by any chance?"