Found You

Aaron: part 5

I reached the place where Mrs. Moore's Fundraiser was taking place. I was in the parking lot when Owen called me.

"Hey man where are you? The event is about to start and I have to head in with the other volunteers.." he kept on saying stuff. I hung up, I was pretty much there anyways. 

I parked the car and started to walk towards him. he was with two other girls,  super annoyed because of me of course. 

I started " I told you I was just around the corner! You're really impatient dude---" and she turned around, Olivia White. It was a surprise to see her there. Owen grabbed me by the arm and hurried us all to where we had to volunteer. I could see Mrs. Moore addressing the crowd that had gathered.  She was a benignant but poised woman. I've known her since I was very young, I would always go to Owen's house to hang out and she would always be so welcoming and would always cook us new stuff to try out. 

"Okay so in a few minutes the dog owners would come along with their dogs to any of these stalls where you all would of course wash their dogs. Simple isn't it? Lets get to work guys!" said Owen to all the volunteers.

"Yeah, let's all wash some dog ass today" I chuckled, Owen nudged me hard in the stomach. I glanced at Olivia and found her suppressing a smile. 

"Well now you all can divide yourselves into pairs of two and take a stall each, Hallie would you like to be paired up with me?" and we had one pair. People kept getting paired off and I kept looking at Olivia who was making no attempt at completing the task that was at hand. a few people asked me but for some reason I couldn't make myself leave until I saw her getting paired up with someone. It was already very unusual to see her in a setting where there were so many people. She never attended school functions or parties. I asked Hallie about it once but she just told me that Olivia didn't really like crowds and stuff like that I don't  clearly recall what was it that she told me exactly but it was something along those lines. Before I could realize it was just the two of us standing there. Olivia gave me a weak smile.

"Well we have no choice I guess?" she said. Indeed we didn't. "Let's go over to that stall over there " i replied. In a matter of seconds we had our first customers, ( can i call them customers though? well fuck it I am.)  "Remmi" a golden retriever and her owner Bill. I couldn't believe I was washing dogs now, all for the sake of this stupid friendship and what friendship? Owen bailed on me and went on with Hallie yeah yeah have fun dude. 

"I'll leave Remmi with you guys then, will be back in a few minutes" said Bill and left Remmi in our care. Olivia started the task and I followed. "Have you ever washed a dog before?" I asked. I  had never. "Yeah I had a dog back in Tennessee, my dad and I always gave it baths together very frequently." she replied, smiling. " Brings back good old memories i guess?" I asked observing her, she was scrubbing Remmi's fur now, " yeah" she replied smiling again, she looked pained this time though. I followed her lead and gave her a hand in scrubbing.

" Well I wanted to apologize for last time, I didn't mean to be rude to you but I realized later that I kind of came off  a little rude. " she said apologetically. " It's absolutely fine everything was practically my fault anyways." I replied. we worked in an awkward silence for a few minutes. Remmi was very patient with us. she played with Olivia all along. Olivia seemed happy then, she looked cute when she smiled, she should smile often..wait what am I thinking? I should clear my head. "All done!" Olivia said, we could see Bill in the distance. I waved him over and we said our goodbyes to both of them.

This went on and on for a few hours. I did get a hang of it after a few times though and let Olivia rest for a bit when we attended the nest "customers" as I Like to call them, she resisted at first but then gave in, she was a little tired anyways. " It's fun hanging out with you" I told her. It was true. "Thanks" she replied looking a little uncomfortable, I kept going on " We should hang out then! I mean if you want to of course." She didn't reply on the go, she was thinking, but after a few minutes she said " Will it be fine if we exchange numbers?" "Absolutely fine by me" I replied.

When everything was over, it was already 6:00 PM , we met with Owen and Hallie. " Everything went well guys?" asked Owen, " Yeah" I replied. Hallie's phone buzzed "Mom" she mouthed to us and went off to pick up the call.  We could hear faint words from her conversation. Owen was still a little pissed of about me turning up late at the event and was giving me his unwanted insights upon my behavior which I wasn't paying attention to at all. Hallie came back in a rush.

"We gotta get going Olive, my mom and dad are gonna head out to some place in thirty minutes and they need me to get back home as soon as possible" she said with urgency. We all said our goodbyes. " I hope to talk to you soon " I said to Olivia and she told me that she was looking forward to that to. Both the girls made their way back to their car and we watched them drift of into the evening traffic. 

"You wanna hang out for a bit dude?" asked Owen, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be angry with me. 

I had no intentions of  reminding him about that anyways. "Where are we off to then?" I asked. We both smiled, this was gonna be a great evening.