Love on the Radio

Chapter 21 - Picture perfect

Another short chapter, sorry for that, but at least it's a chapter, right? 

I hope you like it. 

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Chapter 21 

“Are you serious!?” Ramona was furious. She had her fingers curled in fists, her breathing was heavy, eyes fierce. Evan backed away, searching for help from Howard, who stood there frozen, shocked to see Ramona’s rebellious response. “I’m not sitting down in the middle of the freaking highway!”

“Listen,” Evan slid out behind Howard, “it’s really not a big deal.” As soon as Ramona switched her eyes from Howard to him, he threw his hands up in surrender, murmuring a weak ‘okay’, and ran to me. I raised my eyebrow at him, but couldn’t be a bit mad at him because of his big puppy dog like eyes. I sighed, shaking my head slightly, thinking of ways to make this happen. How else could we stop traffic? We wanted to win, didn’t we?

“Ramona,” I calmly said, “we don’t have to do it here. We could simply set it up, you know – fake it, like with the date. Jenna’s street is quiet, right? So, let’s ask for someone’s help.” Three pair of eyes had landed on me. Even Evan had gathered himself enough to step out of my shadow. I swallowed. “Like I said, nobody told us to be fair, then why not take advantage of that?”

It was Howard turn to speak. “Don’t you think it’s kind of boring?” he simply said, looking at me. “It was supposed to be fun, now it’s just pure scheming.”

“Hey, don’t judge!” Ramona pointed her index finger at him. “It’s what girls are best at.” Her eyes were still fierce, piercing.

Howard shrugged. “Good point. That’s why, for a change, we could do it all right,” he half-agreed. I gave him credit for not making Ramona flip out, but thinking before speaking his thoughts out loud. That was a smart move. “We don’t have to lay down on the road to stop traffic. We could put a roadsign or something on the way and quickly take a picture.”

“I agree,” I nodded. Ramona was a bit surprised by my reaction to Howard’s proposal.

Some time later we were standing next to a fast food place, where the menu board stood. There was also a figure cut out of carton that had a cartoonish man on it.

“Excuse me,” Ramona approached the waitress with a smile, “could we use those things for a project? It won’t take long, I promise.” Her convincing abilities were great. It took some time as she had to explain what our project was about – she told them it was modern art – but soon enough we were carryig the signboard and the cartoon guy, well Evan and Howard were. We placed them on the road, when there were no cars driving along. Evan grabbed the camera and waited for the perfect shot.

“Looks like our prize is the loss,” Howard murmured crossing his arms on his chest. “No car will ever come.”

He was right, about the car. But we were lucky enough to stop a motorcycle.

“Now!” Ramona shrieked, jumping up ad down at her spot. “Snap the damn picture!”

Flash! We had completed our task.

The driver lifted the see-through cover of his helmet, his dark eyes staring at me. It was like time froze, though I could hear how footsteps were leaving me. He shook his head and slid the cover back, and avoiding the menu and the carton, he rode off on his black bike.

How random, I thought. I felt how somebody grabbed my hand.

“Evan, you loser!” I tried to yank myself free, but he didn’t let that happen. Instead, he chuckled, showing a dimple, and kept dragging me. I saw how Howard and Ramona had removed the ‘roadblock’ and were taking it back to the fast food place.

“Did you finally meet your prince charming on a unicorn?” he made a sweet face with puppy dog eyes and stared at me, still holding me by my wrist.

“What?” I frowned.

“Ugh, you women are complicated,” he rolled his eyes, “you were staring at that biker dude – prince charming, on a unicorn, get it?” He gestured, and when I didn’t answer, he growled, throwing his head back. “I repeat – complicated!” He released my hand, and instead of fully letting go of me, he put his arm around my shoulders. Ramona and Howard were approaching, and I didn’t spot any sign of jealousy on Howard’s face. He was impossible.

“So, one final thing,” announced Ramona, relieved, “a pictured with us in it. The first thing we had to do – boys with girl clothes and vice versa. But let’s not waste time, We have plenty of time at Jenna’s.”

I admit, we hadn’t been very creative with the scavenger hunt. In fact, it had been kind of boring. No, scratch that. It had been…interesting. The swim, the date, the clothes swap, the song, the roadblock – all of it together had made this birthday special, different, but I felt like something was still missing. Right, there was still no sign of my admirer, but the whole night had taken my mind off of it, so that had to count as positive.

“So,” Howard approached me with a smirk. He slid his arm around my waist and pulled me to face him. I raised my eyebrow, waiting for him to continue the sentence, but he seemed to have forgotten about it as he was just staring down at me. His eyes were mesmerizing, dark, calling. I noticed how he lowered his glance and stopped at my lips.

“Are you going to kiss me?” I whispered. Immediately his eyes shot back to meet mine.

“Huh?” He asked, confused.

I rolled my eyes. “And you say we are complicated. You have no idea what it’s like to figure you out.” I gently pushed him away and ran up to catch the others. Ramona was looking at the pictures. Suddenly, she stopped.

“Um, Madison, I think you need to see this,” she slowly said and turned around. She reached ot her hand holding the camera. I swallowed, what is there to see? I locked my fingers around the camera and took back my hand. My mouth fell open when my eyes dropped on the photo. The picture was simply a piece of paper with words written on it with a black marker. It said: I heard you sing. You have a beautiful voice. 22:35

While I understood part one and two, I had no idea what those numbers meant.

“Who did this?” I asked, glancing up at Ramona, then frowning Evan and shocked Howard. “It had to be one of us, right? Or…or maybe Joe…George.” I ran my hand through my hair nervously. “Is this a sick joke?”

Admirer or not, he sure had some weird ways of showing the admiration. Nobody had had this camera except our group of people. It had to be one of us, then, right? 

A/N: What do you think? Too creepy? Don't make up your minds just yet. But tell me what you think. Leave a comment.