Second and third period came and went quickly, thankfully for Cassadee. She was so anxious to find Carter and get to know him better, maybe even apologize for cursing at him so much. She just had to know him. How could she not find out more about that brown haired boy? He was gorgeous, he was sweet, and he left a first impression that left her aching for a second one.
Once that bell rang releasing her from her History class, she was out of there faster than the teacher could even say that the class was released. She kept up a fast pace to get to the cafeteria, hoping he'd be there. He was new, he had to be there, he didn't know any of the good hangouts yet. She was sure she looked pathetic, hurrying so quickly to get to that damn cafeteria, especially because she never got lunch from the cafeteria, therefore was never inside of it.
Cassadee opened up the door to the cafeteria and walked inside, looking anywhere and everywhere, finally spotting Carter alone at a small, round table picking at his truly disgusting looking turkey sandwich. She laughed a bit to herself and made her way over to him, taking a seat right next to him and tossing his sandwich directly in the trash, "First thing you'll learn about Wellington High...Don't eat the food." She smiled a bit at him.
At first, the look on Carter's face just screamed 'What the fuck', then he found himself laughing, "You're cute, you know that?" He smirked and looked down. Was that too forward?
Cassadee's eyes went a bit wide, "Uhm...what?" She laughed as she spoke, "Well thank you. You're pretty handsome yourself, I guess." She found herself blushing as she spoke.
Carter shrugged "I'll take it. So, since you threw my lunch away, what do you expect me to do now? I mean, we have twenty minutes before the bell, and it is my first day. I don't want to get into too much trouble..." There was an awkward tone to his voice, followed by a quiet laugh.
"Well..." Cassadee started, Carter looked up at her, catching her eye, Cassadee blushed and began talking again, trying to hold the eye contact but failing, "I work at a place called Nick's. It's a little fifties style diner, and it's just around the block, I get free stuff from there all the time...I was just thinking you could come with me? That's where I usually spend my lunch period, there or at the outside stage by the football field where the dance team practices." She shrugged casually, trying to avoid sounding too forward. Carter looked at her for a moment with a smirk on his face that showed he was secretly laughing on the inside at her shyness, or what seemed to be shyness. For all he knew, she was just awkward. "What are you staring at? Take a picture, it'll last longer, kid." Cassadee snapped with a cute harshness. Yes, there is such a thing as cute harshness. Carter found himself laughing at her all over again, and this time he was definitely laughing at her, "Sure. Let's go. We've got about twenty minutes left, that should be plenty of time." he shrugged and got up "You'll have to drive though because I don't have a car, the bus dropped me off. I'm stuck without a car until I get a new one. I sort of crashed my old one and it wasn't worth salvaging before the move and my mom won't let me touch hers, so I also have to find a job...to pay for my new car." He rolled his eyes and offered her his hand.
Cassadee took his hand with a sweet smile, got up and let his hand go as she walked in front of him, heading out to the parking lot. Were they even technically allowed to leave campus? No. They didn't get that perk until they were seniors, but she did it anyway. She was a cheerleader, and cheerleaders got away with anything and everything. Carter nearly ran to catch up to her, and when he did he didn't say anything, just admired her.
The car ride was quick, just around the block, but it was silent all except for Cassadee singing along to My Happy Ending by Avril Lavigne, one of her favorite singers. Cassadee pulled into her employee marked spot and shut the car off, "Alright, we're here." She smiled, got out of the car and bounced her peppy little self into the building, hardly waiting for him. She was greeted by nearly everyone, including her boss, none other than Nick himself. "Hey Nicky!" Cassadee smiled and sat down at her favorite table, grabbing two menus. Nick laughed "Shouldn't you be in school? Your shift doesn't start until seven tonight." He brought over her favorite soda, a vanilla coke with three cherries in it and extra vanilla, "Who's this kid?" He said, eyeing Carter who'd followed her in almost silently and slipped in the chair across from her. Cassadee looked at Carter, then back at Nick and smiled "Oh, this is Carter. He's new at our school, he ran into me and knocked all of my stuff over, so I got mad at him, but then I realized that he wasn't too shabby lookin' so I took him here." She shrugged with a laugh, then looked at Carter "What can Nicky get ya?" She said sweetly. Carter laughed at Cassadee's sense of humor as he reviewed the drink menu and looked at Nick, "Uhm...I'll take the same thing as Cassadee please." He smiled. Nick nodded with a smile, "You got it dude. Hey, Cassadee never brings people here, so you should feel pretty damn lucky." With that, he walked off to make Carter's drink.
"So that's my boss, Nick. He's cool. I got the job because he's a good friend of my mom's. So tell me about you though, I mean where did you even move from? Are you like, a psycho serial killer?" She said with a giggle as she skimmed through the menu. She already knew the damn thing up from down, left to right, page to page, so it didn't take her long to settle on what to eat.
Carter chuckled a bit as he looked through his menu, "I'm not a phsyco serial killer, I promise. I did dress up as Jason Voorhees when I was twelve though," He winked "No, on a serious note, I'm seventeen, and I moved here from New York, Albany to be exact."
Cassadee smiled and looked at him "Oh, fancy. A New York boy, huh?" She opened up her straw, balled the wrapper up and flicked it at him, getting him in the cheek and laughing.
Carter laughed and flicked it right back at her, "You're damn right, skinny mini. I only moved here for my dad's job. He just got one managing a law firm somewhere here. He's a lawyer, so you know, duty calls so we moved. My mom didn't really want to move, but Florida is decent enough, apart from this hotness and humidity. It's fucking September. Shouldn't it be cooling down and being not so humid? In New York right now, the weather is decent."
Cassadee laughed and shook her head "Nope. Always humid. Always hot. November gets better. Also, since it's September, keep a lookout for hurricanes. Those are always in season in Florida." She winked. Nick came back with Carter's drink and set it down, "Sorry to interrupt, but have you two decided what you want to eat?" He took out his notepad. Cassadee nodded "Yup, but you already know." She grinned. Nick smiled and wrote down her order the repeated it "Chicken caesar salad, sweet potato fries with ranch as dipping sauce, and a cup of pickles just because you love pickles. You got it." He then looked at Carter "What about you dude?" He said with a kind smile.
Carter looked at the menu again and then back up at Nick, "Uh, can I have the roasted turkey club sandwich with sweet potato fries with ranch?" He smiled a shy smile.
Nick wrote it down and took their menus "You got it." then retreated to the kitchen again.
Carter looked at Cassadee again "Hurricanes? Really? I mean, I know obviously hurricanes happen here but now?" He looked almost scared.
Cassadee laughed "Don't worry about it. They're not all Katrina's." Then she realized what she had said, "Okay so that sounded kind of bad, but it's true. They're not all bad. It just sucks when it rains because it's hot, so it's like we have a storm AND hotness." She shrugged.
Carter nodded and frowned "Well, that's gonna suck. Okay, so I told you about myself, your turn." He smiled.
Cassadee's eyes went wide "No!" She laughed "You hardly told me anything! You told me your age and where you came from! That's like, it!" she threw her straw wrapper at him again.
Carter laughed "I'll tell you more, but you tell me the basics first too." He shrugged.
Cassadee nodded with an annoyed sigh, "alright, well. I'm also seventeen years old, just turned seventeen last month actually. Anyway, apart from being on the cheerleading squad and working here, I'm in a band with my friend Mike called Blake, but we're gonna stop with that soon, we met a few other people who were interested in starting up a different band but I'm not sure how that'll work out either. It so far doesn't seem too promising." She shrugged nervously.
Carter smiled, "Blake? Where did you come up with that name?" He leaned in, curiously, resting his elbows on the table.
Cassadee laughed a bit at his curiosity, "Blake is my middle name. My whole name is Cassadee Blake Pope. I really want to be a singer, make it big. I've done singing competitions around here, I mean ever since I was a kid, like three or four years old. I've been singing my whole life, and it's my dream to tour the world." She blushed and looked down.
In that moment, Carter adored her so much more, "Wow, really? I could tell you were a singer, just by the way you sounded in the car. I mean, I've heard girls sing well but I could just tell there was something different about you. You're really good, and whether or not you get a band or not, I know you could go places with a voice like that. I've never heard anyone else sound like you do before. It's kind of incredible, Cassadee." He said sweetly, trying his best to hold her eye contact, although she kept looking away.
Cassadee bit her lip and blushed "Really?" She looked down.
Carter smiled at her, "Really." He said softly.
