Althea

|𝟯𝟮| 𝗟𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗱𝗲

Fuck. I'm turning into her overthinking ass.

"You want to hear more of my jokes?" She pipes up as I turn the corner onto a street. We're almost to the house.

"No." I say.

She shrugs. "Suit yourself" then she goes back to playing with the rings on my fingers.

I glance up at the rearview mirror when I see something moving frantically. It's Gio, her eyes wide, waving frantically and then pointing to Althea and then out the window.

I furrow my eyebrows. The fuck?

I follow her frantic pointing to Althea who's still looking down at my hand with a small content smile on her face and then I look outside the window and I squint at the little table on the sidewalk coming closer and closer the more I drive.

Then I see a little girl behind that small table with glass pitchers and cups on it and a women sitting in a chair beside it on her phone.

Shit.

I press down harder on the peddle as we continue to get closer to the table. When Althea starts to look up from my hand, I quickly rush out to say; "Actually, how about you tell me another one of your jokes."

She looks over at me, a confused expression on her face. She's probably wondering why I want to hear one of her jokes after I told her no.

And to be honest, I still don't want to hear one of those shitty dad jokes but anything is better then her seeing that lemonade stand and wanting to stop to get some.

Especially since I don't like children. And there's a rather annoying looking child standing behind that lemonade stand.

"Okay..." she says, still looking at me suspiciously. "Where do fruits go on vacation?" She asks, now a smile on her face as she leaned towards me slightly.

I glanced at her and then at the road, pushing my foot down on the peddle to make the car go faster. So close to passing that fucking lemonade stand. So fucking close.

"I don't know, where?." Gio says from the back, glaring at me through the rearview mirror. Probably trying to get me to go faster so Althea won't see that stand.

"Pear-is!" She says, smiling. I look over at her and when I see that cute little smile on her face, I can't help but smile to.

Which was a mistake because I started to slow down and she turned her head to look out the window, still slouched in her seat with her arms crossed. But then she suddenly sat up and I already knew I was fucked.

"Stop!" She snaps her attention to me.

I hear Gio groan in the back of the car and I pinch the bridge of my nose.

"Maybe we should just get to the house before it gets dark-" I hear Gio mumble.

"No way. It's bad luck to pass on cheap lemonade," she says, looking between me and the rearview mirror as if she can't believe that we don't like kids enough to want to get lemonade from them.

It may not sound like a big deal to get cheap lemonade real quick but that little girl looks oddly familiar and oddly, annoying.

"Where did you even hear that?" Gio mumbles.

"I made it up," Althea says shrugging and unbuckling her seat belt before opening her car side door and jumping out of the car.

I hear Gio groan again and then I see her put her earphones back in through the rearview mirror. I glare at her through it and she so happens to glance up at me. "What?" She purses her lips, taking one of her earphones out.