Into the Country - Jenzie

Five

"Hello? Anyone in here?" I called out, my voice echoing throughout the small barn. "Hello?"

I heard a neigh, and I turned around to see a small horse inside a stall, it's head poking out.

"Hello there. What's you're name?" I reached out to pat it, when I felt my foot sink into a mushy substance. I looked down and saw my foot in a pile of horse manure. Better yet, they were my Gucci sneakers.

"Fuck," I mumbled under my breath.

"Hey there." I turned around and saw a dirty blonde haired boy, around my age, with green eyes, and a soft smile.

"Hi," I said. Unfortunately, it came out more grumpy than I wanted. He looked a little taken aback. "I'm sorry. I'm visiting, and my car broke down at the bottom of the hill, so I had to walk all the way up, and to make it worse, I just stepped on this horse shit, so yeah."

He stared at me for a second, and then started shaking his head, chuckling.

"What?" I asked, confused how he could find this situation even the slightest bit funny.

"City girl?" he asked, smiling. I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, so? What does that matter?"

"No reason..." He was still struggling to stop chuckling. I glared at him. "Sorry. Um, I can help you with that, and then we can go check out your car, if you'd like."

"I would, thank you."

I followed him out of the barn and through a small gate, towards a house.

"Oh, is this your house?"

"Yeah. It's not much, but it's home," he shrugged, and I smiled. Back home, in the city, everyone had such high expectations of the conditions they stayed in, and it was warming to see that people could be so happy with a house that wasn't super modern, or had the 'inn-est' furniture.

Once we walked in, I was greeted by a small white dog, who started jumping at my feet.

"Aww, it's so cute!" I exclaimed, patting it, and he returned it with a lick.

"Yeah, he seems to like you. His name's Bentley." 

"Hello, Bentley! How are you?" I said, laughing at how enthusiastic he was.

"Anyway, you still wanna get that off your shoes?" he said, glancing at my now not very white shoes.

"Um, yeah, probably a good idea," I chuckled, following him upstairs to what looked like his room.

"Just sit on here, I'll get it off." He pat a spot on his bed, and I fell back almost immediately, tired from all that walking.

"Woah, someone's tired!" he laughed, grabbing a cloth and starting to clean my shoes.

"Yeah, let's just say I'm not used to walking that much," I said, sitting back up. As i watched him clean my shoes so carefully, I realized that I was a complete stranger to him, yet he still helped me. If we were in LA, people wouldn't care if your shoes were dirty, and they certainly wouldn't take you into their rooms and clean them for you. He was doing this completely of his own will, and I admired that. There should be more people like him.

Then I realized that I didn't even know who 'him' was.

"Um, I didn't catch your name..." I said awkwardly. His emerald green eyes looked up and met mine, smiling slightly.

"It's Johnny. Johnny Orlando."

I smiled. "Kenzie. Mackenzie Ziegler." 

I only realized what I had said after it had come out of my mouth. Now he's probably gonna start fan-girling over me, and ask me to sign everything. Although I don't say it, i actually hate people being like that. They always treat me differently, and I just want to be treated like an average 16 year old girl. I looked down nervously, preparing myself for all the outbursts, but instead, their was a comfortable silence. I looked up again to see him smiling at me.

"Nice to meet you, Kenzie," he said, before going back to cleaning my shoes.

Huh. Maybe in the country they don't have as much of a internet craze, and don't think as much about celebrities. Maybe this place was different.

"Nice to meet you too, Johnny."

After a few minutes of silence, Johnny looked up at me again, smiling proudly.

"There. All done, Kenzie."

I looked down and smiled. To be honest, they looked even better than before they got dirty. They were spotless, and super shiny. The Gucci stripe on the sides were as bright as when I first bought them, and i got to say, I was impressed. You wouldn't get this good of a clean in LA, even if you did pay money. Then I realized, I've got to pay him back in some way. I started grabbing my purse.

"Here, take this," I said, handing him a 50 dollar note. "I really appreciate this."

His smile turned into a frown. "No. No, no, no. Please, I don't want your money, Kenzie. That's what we do here in the country; we help each other, no matter what. If you're sticking around for a while, you've gotta remember that." He smiled warmly, and I returned it, putting the cash back in my bag.

"Thank you, Johnny."

"No problem. Now, let's go check out that car of yours."

(A/N) Hehe, she finally met Johnny! Yeah, i know this book isn't moving that fast, and it ain't that great, but please don't judge. It's my first book, and I do have some great ideas planned for the rest of the book... i'm just not the best at writing them down. Anyway, hope you're enjoying the story so far. I love you all!