Pre-Author’s Note:

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated. Sheepish grin here Don’t throw tomatoes at me! Because, believe me, if you do, I’ll just steal them and make killer spaghetti sauce to put on my pasta. But anyways, the story has been revived! It continues to live, after like a year of neglect. I know, shameful, shameful me

So, for the all the old readers who are still reading my story YES I LOVE YOU GUYS!, here’s a short recap of what happened. I didn’t even remember everything from my story…I had to go back and reread everything. As for you new readers, you don’t need to read this, it’s basically a summary from the start.

Okay-

Adriana, the main character, goes on a blind date with Cameron, falls in love with him over the summer. He breaks her heart. The school year comes. Turns out he’s in her school. They get back together, partly because Cameron’s very charming and partly because Adriana likes to piss off all the other girls chasing Cameron.

A second guy is introduced into the picture, Nick, who is Cameron’s cousin. Adriana is failing physics whereas Nick is acing physics. Nick becomes Adriana’s tutor. Adriana, with her hurt pride at failing a subject for the first time in her entire life, is slightly mortified but right now, in this chapter, she’s getting a ride from him because she can’t drive and she doesn’t know how to use her own cellphone.

/end long author’s note.

Commence actual chapter.

Chapter 13: Something to Say

I sat silently in Nick's car, staring at the dashboard and silently cursing myself. How could I get in such a similar situation, just the same one as last week- first it was an awkward car ride with Cameron, now it was another awkward car ride, this time with Nick. Oh god- I hope it doesn't turn out the same like that other one with all the tension…and coffee…and Starbucks…not Starbucks…

“Hey, Adriana, do you want a cup of coffee? There’s a Starbucks right here.”

Oh damn it. Come on. Can’t I just get a break some time? Who the hell ever thought of putting a Starbucks right by the high school so some sleep-deprived teenagers could get their morning cup of sunshine?

Some brilliant person, that’s what.

They were making a fortune, because stupid people like me got into cars with guys and then went to drink coffee after school.

Nick was still looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

I sighed. “Okay.”

“You don’t look too happy about it. Just because I’m your physics tutor, does that mean that you refuse to spend any time with me now?”

I grinned. “Not if it’s on your bill. If it’s on your bill…”

He smiled sideways. “If that’s going to make you come into Starbucks with me, then okay. Don’t order too much though.”

“Not that much. Just about half the store’s selection of coffee. I’m thinking…fifty cups. How about you?”

Nick scoffed as he maneuvered the car into the parking lot of Starbucks. “How about one?”

“No, how about all of them, then?”

“How about no?”

The car stopped and we got out of the car. I laughed lightly as he shut the door. “Okay, fine. You’re money pinching. I’ll just get one frappucino, okay?”

“Exactly. By the way, you have to pay me for gas then.”

“WHAT THE-,”

He laughed again, “I’m kidding Adriana. Don’t turn red and match the color of your shirt.”

I glanced down quickly. “My shirt is green.”

“Exactly.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re taking too long. I want my frappucino.” And then, with those words, I dragged him into the entrance of Starbucks.

Inside the store, it seemed like it was a lot louder than when I had come there with Cameron. The lighting was brighter for some reason. And even though the coffee smell overwhelmed my senses and drowned out everything else, I could look around the shop now and see several people that I recognized.

Nick bent down and murmured in my ear, causing me to almost jump at how his breath tickled my ear. “I’ll go get a coffee for you.”

I steadied myself and shook my head, remembering how last time’s coffee encounter had turned out. “No, we’ll both get coffee together.”

He looked at me from the side of his eye but didn’t comment. “Okay.”

And, not for the first time, I was grateful about how he, being Nick, did not choose to pry about things like that.

The line was surprisingly short and we soon got our coffees and situated ourselves by the window so we could see people passing by with their purchases from the nearby mall complex. Nick quietly sipped his coffee as he watched a middle aged woman walk by the window. “Do you ever think about what kind of lives these people lead, when they’re not walking past windows and when they’re not being watched by nosy people like us?”

I laughed. “Maybe they have secrets to hide and maybe they’re not just normal pedestrian shoppers.”

Nodding his head while sipping out of his cup again, Nick pointed to a black haired man on the sidewalk. “See how his hair seems to be mostly balding from one side? I bet he’s having a divorce with his wife because he doesn’t like how she snores. He only sleeps on one side of the bed now, the side that’s facing away from his wife. That’s why his hair goes bald only on that side.”

The man walked closer to the Starbucks and I noticed how indeed, his brown hair was mostly on one side. Pointing out the window, I indicated to a young and petite blonde woman. “She’s probably a receptionist at some big company and she’s having a steamy affair with her married boss. In fact, her married boss just happens to be that balding man that you pointed out. They do it in between coffee breaks and by the company copy machine. That’s why she has to wear a zipper suit, so it’s faster to unzip than unbuttoning many buttons on a blouse.”

Nick grinned in response to my remark before inclining his head at another pedestrian coming up the street. “That woman with the bright red hair, she likes to give out toothpaste tubes for Halloween because she was a little mermaid for Halloween. Down in the deep, deep sea where little mermaids live, they don’t have toothbrush or toothpaste. They just brush their teeth with seaweed and it makes their mouth green.”

I tried not to smile but the sides of my mouth went up anyways. “That’s so random.” A man with a crew cut and a strong upper body caught my eye. “That guy. He listens to Celine Dion as his secret obsession and he knows all the lyrics to the ‘Power of Love’. When his military mates can’t hear him, he sings Celine Dion songs in the shower. He cried when the Titanic went down and Jack died in that movie.”

“Sounds like you’re describing me.”

I punched Nick playfully in the arm. “Are you coming out of the closet to me, Nick?”

He scoffed. “You’re coming out with me, too, aren’t you, Adriana?”

We laughed and then Nick pointed to someone else on the sidewalk. She seemed like a typical college student, except she dragged her feet along the ground as she walked. “Looks like she failed a couple tests in her first semester of college.”

“Like physics tests, huh.”

“Yea. And now she has to get a physics tutor because she failed a couple of physics tests.”

“Just a wonderful physics tutor that resembles you, right.” I said sarcastically.

“Exactly. So very wonderful.” His tone changed slightly and I looked up at him in surprise. Did I hear…regret? Or was it just something else?

There was a lapse in conversation as we both fell silent.

His eyes turned away from the window and looked straight into mine. “Adriana, I would like to help you in physics, however, if you really would like someone else as a tutor, you can tell me. I’ll go straight back to Mr. Chuck and tell him that I won’t tutor you. I don’t have a problem with teaching you, in fact, I would like to teach you, but if you really can’t do it, I don’t have a problem with working with your requests as well.”

My mouth stopped midway before I could even get any words out.

“I won’t take any offense at all if you don’t want me to tutor you.”

My mind was working in overdrive. Too much information! “What?”

Nick looked at me for a moment more, trying to decipher my eyes before quirking the sides of his mouth into a grin. “Please don’t tell me I have to repeat that again or else I’ll have to damage my pride permanently.”

“Please?”

“In a nutshell, if you don’t want me to be your tutor, just tell me so, okay?”

I paused before opening my mouth again. My mouth closed again. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Well…actually, I could say that. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“That’s so very eloquent.” Nick’s amused expression made me flush a little bit.

“But it’s the truth, I don’t know what to say.”

Nick’s eyes slid to something past my shoulder and he quickly drained the rest of his coffee. “It’s fine Adriana, I’ll go tell Mr. Chuck then that I decline his tutoring proposition.”

I looked down into my, now cold, frappucino and stirred it. Such mechanical motions seemed better than looking at him in the eyes. There was a slight movement by my arm and I looked up to see Nick disentangling himself from the chair so he could throw away his finished cup of coffee.

“Wait.”

I didn’t know where I got the courage to say something in response. What surprised me even more was that I caught onto his hand to prevent him from moving any further away from me. It was…warm. And even though he now stood there and it was okay for me to let go of his hand, I didn’t put it down. Instead, I just held it in my hand, transferring warmth.

He looked from our linked hands and then his brown eyes slid up to look at me, waiting patiently for me to say something to follow up that one syllable word.

Forcing myself to keep eye contact with him, I swallowed nervously before opening my mouth again. It didn’t help that it seemed like his brown eyes were steadily turning a golden tint. “I bet you would teach me physics better than Mr. Chuck would be able to teach physics.”

There was a moment of silence as we just looked at each other, his eyes summing up the expression on my face and my eyes, trying to decipher his unreadable, but gentle smile.

He broke out into a real grin. “Okay.”

And that small word just meant everything.