Scattered Pieces

Chapter Twenty-One

The words hung in the air after Jake's laughing fit, earning two astonished stares.

Ron had his mouth agape, staring at Jake. But there was an excitement to his next words.

"Jake?" He asked.

Jake smiled, throwing in a small salute.

"You-you're not really old!" Was the next thing that Ron blurted out, instantly turning red in the face.

Jake raised an eyebrow. "Thanks?"

Ron only turned redder.

"I- I just meant-" He didn't seem to know where to go with the sentence so he abandoned it half way through. "Holy crap, this is so weird."

The boy next to Ron, Conner, looked astonished too, as it all seemed to click into place.

"Wait, Jake?" He asked. "As in the guy you're always texting?" He turned to his friend, who grew impossibly more red.

Jake used the opportunity to actually look at Ron. He was pretty much how Jake pictured him to be - not that Jake spent anytime picturing what Ron would look like.

He had a long face, and easily flustered pale skin. Ears that stuck just too far out from his head, and eyes that looked permanently shocked.

Jake couldn't say he'd exected any of that, but put all together they just looked like... Ron.

An awkward grin slipped onto Ron's face as he scratched one of his ears.

Glancing down made Jake smile once more when he saw a familiar pair of black and white shoes.

The panda heelies.

Tearing his eyes away to look up once more Jake spotted Kayleigh weaving her way through people to get to him, clutching a blue and white plastic bag in her hands.

Her eyes darted to Jake's, and then glanced at the other two clearly confused.

"Hey, there a problem?" Kayleigh asked, eyeing Conner's employee shirt and badge, with sharp eyes. She turned to look at Jake. "Did you get the pictures?"

Jake held them up to her, and the smallest sigh of relief worked the ends of her mouth into a smile.

"Ready to go?" Jake asked.

"God yes." Kayleigh nodded enthusiastically.

Jake nodded his head, turning his eyes to where Conner and Ron stood watching them both.

His eyes stayed on Ron longer than strictly necessary, waiting for... Jake didn't know what he was waiting for.

Giving them both a small nod, he gestured to Kayleigh to start walking.

"Ah wait-" Jake turned his head at the call. Ron looked mortifird that he'd said anything at all.

"I just- wa- well- Nevermind." He said quickly, tripping over his words in his rush to get them out.

"I-I ac-ctually have to go too. In the other direction from you." He blurted, "so yeah- I- bye."

Ron all but sprinted out of the shop looking like he had invisible monsters chasing after him.

"Well that wasn't weird whatsoever." Kayleigh spoke dryly, blinking after an already long gone Ron.

_ _ _

It was well over four hours later, whilst Jake was getting lost in an endless loop of YouTube videos, that all played one after another, that his phone chimed with a message under Ron's name.

[08:37 Did today actually happen or am I having some horribly realistic dream?]

Jake clicked on the message to respond.

[today definitely happened]

[08:37 Fuck]

Before Jake could respond his phone started to ring, lit up with Ron's number.

He muted the tv, and hit the speaker button, resting his phone on his knee.

"Okay so I think I'm ready to die now." Was the first sentence Ron got out, before Jake could so much as say hi.

"Don't you think you're overreacting?" Jake offered.

Ron gave an unimpressed snort of laughter. "I fell on to my ass, and then quite literally ran away from you."

Jake's lips twitched in the effort to hold back a laugh at the memory.

"Why didn't you tell me you-" Ron cut himself off with a frustrated groan.

"Tell you what?" Jake asked.

"Nothing." Ron was quick to respond. "Forget that. I- I just- I was-"

"Surprised?"

"Yes." Ron sounded relieved that his message was getting across. "I figured you probably lived on the other side of the country from me or something like that. So yeah."

Jake could hear the sound of Ron swallowing.

"I promise I'm not always that weird."

"You know you dont have to explain yourself, right?"

"Can I have a do-over?"

"What?" Jake asked in surprise, that had been just about the last thing he'd expected Ron to say.

"I-it's just- It's really cool that you exist. And we get on well. And I just always thought it'd be really cool if we knew each other in person, but that seemed like it was never going to happen. And then all of a sudden you were actually there, and I kinda fucked it up by being weird." Ron rambled. "It'd just suck if that was it, you know? I mean I know I can do better."

"Ron."

"We could get coffee or something. Not like romantically. Just platonic, friendship coffee. Or maybe hot chocolate, do you even like hot chocolate? It doesn't really matter you don't, you can have some other hot beverage. Crap. That sounded better in my head."

"Ron." Jake tried again to inturrupt his spiel. And it worked slighlty better this time.

"Yeah. Good idea. I should stop talking. Probably forever."

"I like coffee. And hot chocolate." Jake informed him.

"Oh. Right."

"I'm fine with meeting up just..."

"I promise I'm not a psycho."

Jake smirked. "I was going to say 'just don't pick anywhere too hipster'."

"Ha, ha." Ron laughed dryly. "Don't worry I won't drag you into starbucks or anything. There's a stand in town, it does really awesome hot chocolate, that if you don't love, you probably don't have a soul."

"And those are the only two options."

Jake could hear Ron's smile. "Definitely."