Anchor Grind (H.S. / A.U.)

Chapter 3

Poppy loved the news of me spending time with her, and she accepted by first dragging me back onto the boardwalk where she found a food stand a few feet down. She grabbed us two sodas and heavily loaded up corn dogs. I had to talk her into not getting fries, cotton candy, and a funnel cake also. "We are two people Poppy, not the entire park, chill. We can grab more food before we leave, I promise."

"I just love food, what can I say!" Poppy laughs before taking a giant bite of her corndog and getting a bunch of condiment across her face.

"Oh my god, you are a total mess." I laugh while she tries to get a napkin to clean up. She succeeds about halfway before I just decide to yank away the napkin and wipe it all off myself.

"Wow, I think we just had a moment. Isn't this the moment we are supposed to stare into each others eyes and find out we are in love and screw the boys, running off into the sunset to be together?" She holds onto my wrist dramatically saying.

"Calm down jailbait. You aren't legal and aren't you with Niall?" I tease her.

Another giant bite, another mess. This time she succeeded to clean it though.

"Okay so here's the deal. Niall and I went to a school dance when I was a freshman right. The kid was so damn cute. The accent, the smile, the eyes, oh my god. Then he was just so funny. His laugh alone could cure cancer I think. Well I totally was like... that's the one."

"So you do love him?" I am sure my eyes grew in size but the story was cute and still surprising even though I was sure I already knew.

"EW. God no. Love at 17? No way. The one... like... the one." She says while making a hinting gesture towards her crotch again. "I let him take my V-Card." She whispers to me.

My face instantly flushed red, I was hoping I could blame it on the sun.... the heat... not me being embarrassed right? 

"Oh shut up. No way. Bitch. You're like 20 you said right? How are you a virgin still!?" She yells at my face while bouncing on the heels of her feet in excitment.

"I'm still 19. But yeah, so like... my dad is really strict, I didn't really have people over. The dudes in my school sucked. I thought for a while maybe I like girls. Then like I realized that everyone in my school was gross. I don't know. It's kinda' a scary thing. People make it seem like such a big deal." I rattled off a list of reasons why.

"That's cute as hell. But like... please... I am begging you... you gotta' promise me something." Poppy's happy face dropped and it was replaced with something more serious.

"Yeah, of course what's up..." I normally wouldn't make a promise so soon to someone, but this seemed really important and I thought I knew where the conversation was going to go.

"Please promise me you won't... like... I mean I guess you could... but really please don't.... just don't lose it and give it up to-" I knew what she was going to say. OMG did she really think I would do that to her? I knew we just met but no way would I do that.

"Niall." I say at the same time she says "My brother."

We both stop and look at each other and she laughs. "Oh dude, if you wanna fuck Ni, I mean it'll sting, but oh well. We aren't a couple so I can't be mad. Plus he is cute so I get it. But no way. Nope. No fucking Liam. That's just gross. He is like... I mean... did you know he literally eats his cereal plain... no milk... like just outta' the box. That's some serial killer shit right there. Also he literally has the smelliest feet ever. Boys are so gross sometimes."

I couldn't help but laugh at everything Poppy admitted.

"Okay so, no Liam. No Niall, 'cause just... well no. I like you too much for that Pops." I tested out the nickname I heard everyone else calling her. She smiled at me, okay cool, that's a go ahead to use it I think. "So I guess Louis is the winner. Ding ding. Lou come ravage me!" I say while I pretend to dramatically go running back to the skatepark.