Page 14 – First Thing
The crowds in town were thinner than if it were a piedday night right before the weekend, but that was what they'd been hoping for.
Its namesake illuminated by an ostentatious spotlight mounted on the building across the street, the Red Shoes Dance Club already had a small line of teenagers waiting outside the velvet ropes for the doors open. Taylor and Cerise hurried to get in line before some other couples walking up, even though there were so few it still looked like they'd have most of the dance floor to themselves.
He was a little out of breath when they got to the stairs, and Cerise was smirking over her caped shoulder at him.
"Looks like we have to have go running after all!"
"It's because of what I had to do this afternoon," Taylor puffed grumpily. "And don't you even joke about that, or this is gonna be our only thing."
"Okay, okay!" she said placatingly, but looped her arm around Taylor's as they waited. Then she took a step closer to him, and the couple behind them started to whisper. She didn't pay attention; here they were, away from all the Royal vs. Rebel stuff, all the Dark Mirrors and Seekers trying to force people back onto their Destiny tracks.
Just a couple of teenagers in like, finally getting a chance to be just a couple of teenagers in like.
Finally, the clock struck six, and the doors to the club swung open by themselves, giving a vermilion glow as the spell was broken, and again fun-seeking couples could come inside and find it. Strobes were already scraping the dance floor, and a thumping beat that was hard to actually identify was coming over the amps suspended from the ceiling.
"Want to get a drink, or just hit the floor?" Cerise half-yelled to be heard.
"Let's dance," Taylor offered, extending his hand. Instead of taking it, Cerise smirked again and twirled away on her own, her cape whipping out dramatically around her shoulders. He danced after her a little awkwardly, but as soon as he got close, Cerise jumped away.
Again, Taylor pursued her, and Cerise leaned against the wall, where she let out a melodramatic sigh.
"Looks like I've been hunted down already…"
"My, what athletic legs you have, my dear," Taylor smiled over at her.
She gasped and it faded into a giggle. "Oh my godmother, that was flirting, wasn't it?"
Taylor shrugged. "I'm kinda new at it."
He noticed her cheeks were turning as red as her hood, though. "It's okay, me too," Cerise replied as quietly as she could while still being heard.
"Want me to try again?" Taylor grinned, looking much too cheesy.
She grabbed his hand, raised it high, and laced her fingers through it. "You can think about what to say while we dance," Cerise said before whirling him back onto the floor with her.
They danced. With the grace of two teenagers who didn't dance.
One out of a whole room of teenage couples who didn't dance much.
Cerise was leading the way the whole time, and after two more songs had started and finished, they were both panting and glistening with perspiration. They slipped over to the bar to recover, where the troll behind it observed, "You two look like you could stand some hydration. Soda for you?"
"Please," Cerise affirmed. Taylor passed him a pair of gold coins and got a pair of bottles, handing one to Cerise. She chugged half of it down in one go, sighed, and looked up at her date. "Come up with any good lines?" she asked.
"You…dance pretty good?" Taylor offered.
She laughed and nudged his shoulder. "Careful, mister! You might have too many other girls for me to get another night out, with skills like that!"
Smiling back at her, he asked, "Want to dance some more?"
Cerise answered by grabbing his arm and pulling him onto the floor.
Eventually the couple staggered out of the club, legs wobbling, but Taylor's much more than Cerise's. They stumbled down the street to the glowing golden lights of the Chicken Little's Shack.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Cerise asked.
Taylor's stomach growled, answering for him.
She marched the two of them up to the counter and placed her order: "Meat."
"Uh…can you be more specific?" asked the unsettled-looking fairy girl behind the register.
"She means a large bucket, with a side of mashed potato," Taylor interpreted, "I think. I'll have a medium, please."
"Yes, sir!" the fairy replied, back in her element. She took the payment and handed them a slip with their order number, but the couple had barely taken a step away from the counter before it was called and they turned back to collect their dinners. A spot by the window was open, and they claimed it before any other hungry teens could.
Taylor was unwrapping his bucket when shreds of Cerise's slapped against his cheek and stuck there. He looked over to see Cerise had torn open the wrapping on her own bucket of chicken with her teeth and was, well, wolfing down her food as fast as she could.
"Wow," he said, and started eating his own. Slowly. He had dropped the first picked-clean bone onto a napkin when he realized Cerise was holding up the cup with her mashed potatoes.
"Trade you this for that leg," she said, pointing at a particularly meaty chicken leg in his bucket.
He took the cup. "Uh, sure." Cerise nodded in thanks, grabbed the leg and tore into it. Seeing it, Taylor couldn't help but chuckle. "When we said we were gonna wing it tonight, I didn't think it'd mean chicken wings."
She chuckled too, gagged, thumped her chest, swallowed hard, then seemed to be okay. "Hey," Cerise replied, "you don't really want to go to some fancy-schmancy sit down restaurant where we'd have to wait forever for our food, do you? I bet the Royals are all eating at someplace like that right now."
Taylor shook his head. "Not after the day I've had. I feel so…regular, right now."
Suddenly, Cerise leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a shiny lip mark of chicken grease. "You seem regular," she agreed. "It's nice."
He touched the mark on his cheek, and squinted at her in amusement. "You seem really relaxed, to be able to do something like that to a guy."
Her tongue ran over her lips, and Taylor realized he was shivering as he watched it travel along her mouth. "I always know I can count on you, T," she said quietly, and drew an imaginary circle around her ears with her finger. "There aren't a lot of people at school I can just relax around, like I can with you."
"Hope I can keep living up to that," Taylor said, and looked away, but Cerise cupped his chin with her grease-covered fingers and pulled his face around to look at her again.
"Hey," she whispered, "We're not thinking about that tonight. We're thinking about our first thing. That's all. Understand, mister?"
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, but wiped his face with a napkin as soon as she pulled her hand away again.
Soon, Cerise had decimated her order and patted her belly with a contented sigh. While Taylor was finishing up, she turned her head slightly to look at him. "That doesn't count as our first kiss, by the way," she explained.
Swallowing, he replied, "Wasn't even thinking about that."
"Why? Afraid I'll bite you?" she asked, and made a mock chomp in his direction.
Both of them laughed.
When they laughed the restaurant a little bit later, neither of them noticed the eyes of a glowing predator on them, watching the couple from the darkness.
Turned out they were close to a craft store, and Taylor asked if they could go in, where he picked up a roll of faux white fur.
"What are you gonna do with that?" Cerise asked after they were back on the street.
"There's this girl I know who wears a really cool cape, and I thought I'd decorate it for her if she was okay with that."
Cerise giggled for a second before it expanded into a full laugh. "Maybe. Is she a girl who's gonna have to stay there and watch you work, the whole time?" she asked after stopping, tracing a circle around the location of her ear again.
"Yep, the whooooole time," said Taylor. "Might take me fifteen minutes with that new machine I just got."
"And we'd have to, like, talk, and tell jokes or play games, or watch movies maybe? The whole time?" Cerise asked, aghast. "With nobody coming in, so they can't see a girl who hasn't cleaned her ears?"
"I know! What if we had fun when we were hanging out?" he echoed her horror.
Both of them laughed again.
By then they were passing a park, where a lot of other teens were hanging out. Some were kids they recognized from around school, but didn't really know. An impromptu bookball game was forming on one side of the grass, and as they walked past, one boy called out, "Hey, you're Cerise Hood, aren't you?"
The couple stopped, and Cerise looked at him for a second without answering, gauging why he might be asking such an out-of-the-Little-Boy-Blue question. Finally, she answered. "Yeah, I am. Why?"
"We heard you're pretty fast," the boy told her. "Wanna join in, maybe?"
She looked at Taylor and back at the game about to begin. "Can both of us play?"
"Sure!"
So, a pickup bookball game broke out.
A shuttle pulled up to the front stair of Ever After High, spilling out the last of the students who'd gone into town after school. Getting off last, their smiling faces streaked with sweat, were Cerise Hood and Taylor Valiant.
"Somehow, you seem even faster when you're just…normal," Taylor observed.
"You'll have to race me to find out," Cerise smirked.
"We're not hanging out to go running," he reminded her.
She sang, "Then you'll neeeeeveeerr knoooooooow!"
The students split up. Some complained about thronework they still had to do, others about the results of the game Cerise and Taylor had been part of, some about princesses they were crushing on.
Apple White sounded like she was the prime choice, but for some reason she looked so depressed lately…
Only Cerise and Taylor were in the common room between the dorm, about to head back to their own rooms for the night. The couple stopped, and turned to face each other, waiting for the other to say something or do something first, before they declared the night over.
Taylor froze. He spotted a shadowy shape rising from behind a couch, and was just about to summon his belt when they dashed out.
They grabbed Cerise in a headlock, then started giving her a noogie. Cerise squawked and squirmed, but the impression Taylor immediately got was of two people who'd been doing this for a long time already.
The other girl was tall, and Taylor was about to think lanky with the way her hair swayed, but "wiry" seemed more appropriate with the hold she had on Cerise. She had long hair that was an extremely rugged shade of brown, with a swoop of wine-colored dye going across her forehead and down her right side. Her face was twisted into a wicked grin that would've done the villainy professors proud.
She wore fur boots bound with cord, looking almost barbaric, but it was the claw-like texture on her dark leggings, the wolf's head design on her blue shirt, and for that matter on the charms on her gold necklace, that made Taylor realize how she and Cerise must've known each other.
"Cut it out, Ramona!" Cerise yelled, and elbowed the other girl in the gut. She slipped free and retreated to Taylor's side, but not behind him. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in reform school?"
The other girl, Ramona presumably, shrugged, a dismissive sneer still on her lips. Showing, Taylor noticed for the first time, lupine fangs. "Dad called in a couple favors to get me out. He said there was some kind of 'rebellion' thing going on at this school I might be perfect for. Seeing what I'm seeing right now, maybe he really wanted me to deal with your boyfriend here." She leaned over and inspected the wolf amulet fastening Cerise's cape, and sneered even wider. "Did he get you this?"
Cerise snatched it away. "Yeah, kind of," she answered. Obviously trying to steer the conversation away, she asked. "You're starting kinda late, aren't you?"
"Pffft. What's a little more thronework to blow off?"
"Who the hex are you, lady?" Taylor demanded, more than a little annoyed to have the end of his night spoiled by this wolf-woman showing up.
She didn't answer him, instead looking over to Cerise. "Does he know? Is that why you two went out?"
"He knows," Cerise admitted, but gave his hand a squeeze. "Taylor, you have to promise to keep it a secret, but this is my sister." She gave the other girl sharp side-eye as she said so. "Ramona."
"Is that why you two are going out? Because he knows?" persisted Ramona. "Is he blackmailing you, or something?" she showed her teeth, almost as if waiting to hear the answer was yes, so she could dish out some payback.
With a sigh, and even a gentle facepalm, Cerise replied, "We went out, because we like each other. Maybe someday you'll meet a boy who likes you, but I wouldn't hold my breath." She turned to Taylor and said, "Sorry about this." Then she hopped and kissed him on the lips. "Goodnight."
While she walked up the stairs past Ramona, the wolf-woman pointed her two fingers at her eyes, then at Taylor.
He did the same gesture right back, and walked up the stairs to his room.
It had been a long day, but in the end, worth it in so many ways.