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Chapter 10: Just Ask Her

Chapter 10: Just Ask Her

"Which one’s yours?" She scanned the lot, then landed on something sleek and red a few spots down, pointing at it with zero hesitation. "That one?"

Adrian followed her line of sight. His eyes landed on a Ford Explorer. Seems she’d rated him a little too highly.

"...Why’d you assume it’s that one?"

"Because you don’t strike me as a guy who drives something boring." She said it like a fact already filed and closed. "So...?"

"No."

He nodded toward his Corolla, parked crooked. Clean. But, obviously cheap.

She looked at it. Looked at him. Looked back at it, giving it a solid two seconds to reveal itself as a joke.

"You’re kidding."

"Wish I was."

"A freshman with a car." Not mean about it. Amused, filing it next to whatever else she’d already decided about him today. "Impressive."

Adrian blinked. "It runs. Most days."

"I wasn’t complimenting the car."

"Then what were you complimenting." A smirk drew on his face. "Me?"

"Don’t get cheeky." A beat. "Freshman."

A short laugh left his lips.

He reached the driver’s side a beat ahead of her and got in first. Coincidentally, he clocked the wrappers still scattered across the passenger footwell from the snack bars he’d eaten an hour ago.

Shit.

Definitely not ideal.

He leaned over fast, scooped the evidence off the floor, and shoved it into the door pocket seconds before she pulled the passenger door open.

She got in, looked around once, and landed on the actual point of interest. Bread, a case of water, and eggs, a whole bunch of them, like he’d raided a poultry farm on the way home.

"You’ve been busy."

"Oh." He paused. "Yeah..."

"That explains the bread and eggs." She picked the bread, gently felt the texture with mild judgment. "Doesn’t explain why it’s riding shotgun, though."

"It’s decorative."

"Sure it is."

Adrian grabbed the bread and tossed it into the back seat. She got into the passenger seat, and reached for her seatbelt instead.

Dumpster girl. The sophomore sitting two feet away, seatbelt already on.

Wait. The realization hit him. He still didn’t know her name.

He could have dwelled on it. But there were more pressing matters.

He put the car in reverse, and as he pulled out of the spot, his phone buzzed against his leg.

Investment Candidate registration pending.

She glanced over, catching the vibration if not the screen. "You gonna get that?"

"Spam."

He pocketed it without checking, angling it away from her out of pure instinct. Some things didn’t need an audience.

The drive settled into something comfortingly quiet for him. Streetlights sliding past the windshield, radio off, an older girl sitting a few feet away like it was nothing.

"So." She broke it first, eyes on the road ahead instead of him. "I never actually got your name."

"Oh. Adrian..." He blinked. "Adrian Hayes."

"I’m Rose." She replied. "Your upperclassman."

"That’s not how introductions go." Adrian shot back.

"Doesn’t matter. You impressed me, freshman" She raised her palms playfully. "You can call me Rose."

He didn’t dignify that with an answer. He focused on the street ahead. But still, he couldn’t hide the smile which drew on the corner of his lips.

Was this the best time to ask her out. Maybe not.

He passed a gas station, then a strip mall he didn’t recognize, driving with a mind trying to comprehend how he was to progress their conversation towards the date.

His eyes flicked, without meaning to, toward the passenger door pocket. Where the evidence of exactly how much of his budget had already gone toward snack bars sat, judging him quietly.

A few dollars. Easy. Just on snacks he didn’t need. On top of everything else.

He was, genuinely, an idiot.

A financially compromised idiot, driving a girl whose name he still didn’t know, all for a shot of spending on her. All so a system notification would finally stop sitting unresolved in his pocket.

Solid life choices, all around.

The store came up on the right, lights bleeding out onto the sidewalk the same way every one of these places did. He pulled in, parked crooked out of habit, and followed her toward the doors.

Cold air hit first. Then the smell. Floor cleaner doing its best against something the store had clearly given up on winning years ago. And the same lanky cashier, still looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

She walked straight for the drinks without hesitation, like her feet already knew the layout better than her eyes did.

She stood there scanning the shelf, hand hovering between two bottles like the decision actually mattered.

"Pineapple." A beat. "Or orange." Another beat, longer. "...Why is this harder than my coursework."

He didn’t answer. Mostly because he wasn’t really listening to the question. His attention kept drifting off the shelf and onto her. The way she chewed her lip weighing pineapple against orange like it was a real decision.

No wonder she calls me a hentai.

He turned away from her, making the executive decision to look at the cereal aisle instead like it had personally summoned him.

Still. He couldn’t escape the thought.

He already had the date sorted out. Well, kinda. She didn’t exactly answer it directly. But she hadn’t directly turned him down either.

He watched her from a few feet back, still debating, still no closer to picking.

It’s dinner. People take people to dinner constantly, every day, for no reason at all.

So why did this feel like proposing.

His phone buzzed once against his leg. Quiet. Barely there.

He already knew what it’d say without looking. Didn’t reach for it.

She grabbed the orange one, and the pineapple as well, decision apparently no longer required. She turned around to find him standing there with an expression he apparently hadn’t managed to clear off his face in time.

"So." She held the bottle up between them like evidence. "You’ve been standing there looking very serious for like thirty seconds."

A beat.

"What’re you thinking about?"

"Sorry." He paused. "What?"

"What’s on your mind?"

His phone buzzed again in his pocket, more insistent this time. The kind of buzz that wasn’t going to let itself be ignored twice.

Investment Candidate registration: 60% complete.

He stared at the number like it might reconsider itself if he waited long enough. It didn’t.

He opened his mouth.

"I wasn’t kidding." He said. "I would actually love to grab dinner with you."

~~~

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