How I Met You

Chapter Fifty Six

         Patience—it was never one of my strong suits. In fact, impatience was one of my most prominent qualities.

        A horn blared once again, boisterously and right into my ears. It was the same person that had honked the first time. I looked through my window to the very plump man with a red face that sat in his minivan, his car lining up perfectly with ours next to me. I guess I could say that impatience sat right at the top of his list of prominent qualities, printed in fat, bold letters.

         I sent the man a death glare, clearly annoyed, but not nearly as much as he seemed to be. The guy could seriously use a chill pill. I didn’t see why he was honking to begin with, because it was pretty clear to just about anyone who had eyes that he, along with everyone else on this godforsaken street, would not be going anywhere any time soon due to the traffic jam.

         “Some of these people are just really persistent,” Jake commented with an eye roll. “Even a blind man could see that we’re not going to be going anywhere any time soon.”

         “For real,” Danielle said grumpily from the back seat. “With all this freaking honking every two minutes it’s hard to get back to sleep.”

         “Just put some earphones in. Here, you can even use mine.” I fished them out of my bag and tossed them to her.

         She smiled. “Thanks.”

         “What are best friends for?”

         “Buying Starbucks for each other,” she chimed, giggling.

         “Oh, of course. How could I possibly forget that one?” I mused sarcastically.

         “I don’t know, it’s basically Rule Number One in a best friend-sister relationship.”

         “I’m sorry, it just seemed to have blown past me.” I couldn’t help but giggle at our pointless conversation. “I promise to buy you Starbucks if we happen to see one.”

         “This is why I love you,” she said. “But I love Starbucks more.”

         “Oh come on, can Starbucks quote every line of Mean Girls with you?”

         “Okay, fair point made, Alexandria.” I scowled at the use of my full name, as to which Jake snickered.

         “Jake, oh my gosh, do you see what I’m seeing?” Mason questioned from the back, causing all of our attention to dawn on him.

         “What?” he replied, his eyebrows furrowing together in that adorable, I-want-to-kiss-him-right-now kind of way.

         “Two wild basic white girls have appeared!” he exclaimed, quoting Pokémon.

         “Hey! I’m not basic,” Danielle pouted.

         He smiled at her, and with the slightest bit of sarcasm laced in his voice said, “Oh yeah, of course not.”

 * * *

After what seemed an eternity later, Mason cried out, “Thank God! The cars in front of us are finally moving.” He said it as if a massive weight had just been removed from his chest, honestly relieved.

         And I was too.

         “Well it looks like we won’t be here for too much longer,” Jake observed. It took a while for all of the cars in front of us to return to their normal pace, but when they did, I was grateful. We were finally driving again with a little bit of time left to get to where we were going. The traffic jam set us back a hefty amount of time.