You are summer to my winter heart
-gemma troy
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Ready to Run - One Direction
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AUDREY
Perhaps my sudden change of behavior from strictly-planning-out-everything-three-months-in-advance to heedless-happy-go-lucky-improvisation was not such a positive thing.
Or so it seemed to me taking into account the fleet-footed sixty minutes that I had left before my appointed date and the fact that I still had no clue about what I was going to wear.
Okay, let me rephrase that a little: I did have some clue. I had picked an outfit. Or, more precisely speaking, I'd picked two outfits. The only teeny inconvenience about that was the one undeniable fact that I occupied just one body.
The truth was unavoidable: I had to make a choice.
Resting neatly upon my bed were a pair of checkered pants that went with a pearl-white cashmere turtleneck and sneakers of the same color; or a terracotta corduroy skirt along with a ribbed blouse and sock boots.
My phone began vibrating mid-the decision-making process. It was an incoming video call from Big Sis. My lips trilled as I sighed out.
I swiped, accepting it nonetheless. "What d'you want? I'm in a hurry."
"Well damn, was that a friendly greeting." She was sprawled out on a bed, her head on her elbow.
"I'm serious."
"Oh, you certainly are." She mocked my facial expression, feigning an exaggerated frown as she pouted. "And by the way, I did miss you too," she spoke unclearly as she started chewing on something.
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah yeah yeah. What are you munching on anyway?"
"Banana chips."
"Banana chips?"
"Yeah, my roomie is obsessed with them. She fries it herself though, and they turn out delish. I'll make sure to bring some home next time."
"Okay, whatever. What did you call for?"
"Okay okay if you're such a busy lady, we can do this in the formal business manner- there are three main things I would like to discuss." She continued to mock me and was beginning to get on my nerves. "First of, in order of importance, have you seen my sunglasses around?" I palmed my forehead. That was first in her order of importance? "I think the last time I remember, I left them on the black table. Can you have a look?"
"Hailey." I faced the screen of my phone straightly, making sure to transmit my deadpan stare. "All of the tables in our house are black. Except for my desk."
"Oh yeah?" She scrunched her face up, in a bizarre way.
I sighed. "Just tell me the other two things."
"Oh. Well, I wanted to ask you," she drew her face ridiculously close to the camera, "have you got any news for me yourself? Any, you know, interesting news?" The way she wiggled her eyebrows made me understand exactly what this was about.
"Mom told you, hasn't she?"
She burst out snickering. "Told me what?"
I knew my sister and what she was getting at. "Fine, you want to hear it from me. Okay, yeah, I'm going out with someone. Happy? And by the way, that someone will arrive at my doorway in less than an hour and I won't have time to get ready. Thanks to you."
"Awwwwwwwwww but that's so cute! My baby sister's first lovey-dovey relationship! What was his name?" She over-enthused, completely ignoring my hurried and impatient state.
"Cameron. But shut up now and better help me choose an outfit."
"Ooooh. Cameron and Audrey sitting on a tree," she chanted, like a two-year-old, "K-I-S-S-I-"
"Hailey! You're such a pain in the ass sometimes, for goodness sake-"
"Oh I know right?!" An unfamiliar voice from Hailey's side of the call resonated. The owner of the voice soon appeared behind Hailey. She was a slim, brown-skinned girl of about my sister's age. "Who are you talking with? " She asked Hailey.
"My baby sistah," she continued with her toddler-tone, "Audrey, meet Cynthia-the banana frier. Auds going on her very first date with her very first boyfriend today," she divulged, blatantly, "let's help her pick the outfit. Show us the options."
"Hailey, shut up! And it's not my first date," I exclaimed, totally frustrated at my sister's annoying ass.
"Don't worry, girl. I can probably understand you more than anyone. I've been living with this booger of a roommate for a few years now."
I chuckled. She seemed very sweet. "Nice to meet you, Cynthia."
"You too, Audrey."
"You guys, stop bullying me and show us the outfits already!"
I turned the phone camera around, displaying the two sets of clothes.
"Hmmm, I'd go for the one on the right. What'd you say, Cindi?"
"Yeah, defo. The checkered trousers rock."
"Okay, girls. Thanks for the help. I need to hang up now."
"Wait!" My sister objected.
I didn't contain my impatient eyes from rolling. "What now?"
"Is mom around? I'm planning on flying home in two weeks or so. Can you put her on the phone?"
"You are? Why didn't you say before?" I dashed out of my room, marveling at my sister's priorities. She was such a mature person but sometimes acted so stupidly, honestly.
"Mooom," I drawled, running around the house in her search. I found her in the laundry room, loading the dryer with wet clothes. "Hailey on the phone. She wants to come in a few weeks."
My mom stood up, hands on her hips. I looked down at the unfinished chore, guiltily. "You need any help with that?"
She took my phone and waved my proposal away. "Don't you have a date in forty minutes?" My eyes widened. Forty?! "Go and get prepared! I'll deal with everything."
I darted upstairs, unused to feeling this out of control. I quickly pulled on the checkered pants outfit and literally plunged into the depths of my closet, rummaging for a white purse, the existence of which I was one-hundred-percent certain of.
A few minutes into the exploration, I had almost given up, accepting that it had betrayed me and happily flown off to the World of Lost Clothes and Accessories. However, just before I did, it finally appeared. Giving it a kiss (yes, I really did that), I sprinted towards the bathroom mirror.
Unlike the usual sheer torture that combing through my knotty hair is, today the process went by smoothly. It felt like brushing through silk. It must have been the new coconut-extract hair conditioner I decided to try out.
I made a mental note to buy more.
I left my hair to fall in loose waves onto my shoulders. I knew Cam preferred it that way. He wouldn't let an opportunity to play with my hair pass. My heart skipped a beat just from recalling the feel of his fingers running through it.
When done with applying mascara and nude lipstick, I looked back at my reflection, almost satisfied. Almost. Something was missing.
I scurried back into my bedroom and got the golden half-moon pendant out of its box. Somehow, I managed to clip it on myself. Now I was ready to go.
I was about to head back to the bathroom to take one last glance of myself in the mirror when I heard the doorbell below ring.
Crap. I hurriedly glimpsed at the time on my phone. He was six minutes earlier.
With a deep inhale, I swung my purse over my shoulder and retreated from the safety of my bedroom. The chatty voices of my mom and my boyfriend grew louder as I skipped downstairs, their sentences getting clearer.
"Well, Cammie, you're always welcome in this house, you know that, right?" Cammie? How long had they been talking for?
"Thanks, Nichole. I think I will be popping by here quite often now."
I finally appeared from out of the corner. His eyes glinted when they met mine. He wore dark jeans and a linen button-up shirt, the rolled-up sleeves hugging his tan arms. His hair was freshly cut. But not too short- just the way I'd asked him. I wanted to smile.
My mom twisted her neck to look at me. "Oh, you look delightful, honey! You both do." She took in the look of us, standing side by side, Cam's hand slipping into mine. The corners of her eyes crinkled in admiration.
"Okay, I'll let you two go now," she said, before I began throwing impatient glances at her. "Have a good time, alright?"
"We will, Mom. Bye!" I waved to her and followed Cam's lead towards his car. He kissed my cheek before opening the door for me. I tried not to blush, but I'm not sure how successful I was.
"I've missed you."
"It's been just a couple of hours, Cam," I remarked, beaming myself.
"I know. You do look delightful, by the way. Your mom stole the comment from me," he said as we began driving.
"You don't look so bad yourself," I uttered the good-natured cliché, my beam never waning. "What did my mom say to you?"
"Just. . .asked me where I'm from, what I wanna do in college, stuff like that." We came to a red light, and he looked over at me. "She also said I seem like a very smart young man," I could already feel the smugness making its way into his voice.
"Yeah, she probably adores you by now," I breathed out. He chuckled.
"Your mom's very sweet. By the way, nice necklace." He wiggled his brows. We had driven into the parking lot of the mall the movie theatre was at and were now scouring for a place.
I shook my head at him. "I'm glad you like it. A very smart young man gave it to me. I'll tell him."
"Please do," he was grinning as he killed the engine.
The closer we got to the movie theater, the more perceptible its bustling and high-spirited ambiance became. I could sense the liveliness of the people surrounding us- I could almost smell it, the way you can smell your neighbor's rich breakfast coffee aroma while still in your morning slumber.
It was reflected in their ebullient facial expressions, laughter, the vibrancy with which they talked, the animation with which they gave their kids piggybacks. I breathed in the flavor of popcorn, sweet candy and excitement, my lips spreading into a huge grin. It'd been quite a while since I last experienced that sparkling anticipation. The movie-theater excitement.
My gaze was fixed on the screen that displayed the movie titles and watching times, when I felt Cam's arms wrap around my shoulders from behind, his chin resting on the top of my head. And that's on how tall he was. Or better: how short I was. "What do you wanna watch?" he purred into my ear, raising goosebumps on my neck.
"Uhmm. . ." my choosing process paused as I felt him literally bury his head into my hair and. . .sniff it? I turned around, pulling away.
"Mmm. You smell of. . ." he shut his eyes. Opened them. "Coconut."
"Yeah, I know-I used coconut-scented conditioner."
He leaned in, intending to give my hair another sniff but I dodged him. "Cam!"
"What?"
"Stop sniffing my hair in public!"
"Why?" He asked, innocently.
"Why? Cause it looks. . .weird," I hastily bounced my eyes from side to side, making sure no one was watching us.
"I'm your boyfriend. I'm allowed to sniff your hair as much as I want."
"Let's just pick a movie," I said, turning back around to the screen.
We ended up choosing a drama that seemed like the best option out of the available. When the employee asked us what seats we preferred, I chose a spot four rows before the back one. I'd always loved the back rows, but I knew exactly what a couple sitting on one meant, and I didn't want to insinuate anything along those lines.
We walked towards the concession stand, the overpowering smell of popcorn intensifying tenfold.
My eyes fell on the display of suggested combos and prices and immediately bulged out. "Oh heck no! You can get five times more popcorn for that same price in the grocery store," I exclaimed, outraged.
Cam chuckled at me. "Welcome to the movie theater, princesa. That's how they make money."
A shot of determination surged through me as I turned around and tugged Cam along. "Come. We're going to Walmart."
"There's a Walmart in the mall?"
"Yeah, on the ground floor. Is this your first time here since you were twelve?" I asked, rhetorically. From his facial expression, I deduced that my guess had been correct.
With a skip to my step, I headed straight towards the candy aisle, my eyes roaming around the sweet paradise berserkly. They stopped their search on the glossy packaging of my dear Raisinets.
I grabbed four medium-sized packs, then paused to think for a while and got out another one.
Cam watched me with a raised brow.
"What? They're really small," I defended. "What are you getting?"
He scanned the options, his eyes settling on a large bag of Skittles. He took one. Under my unconvinced watch, he pondered.
"Okay, screw it-if we're going crazy, we're going crazy together." He scooped about five or six packets. I began giggling. "And since I'm sharing with you, it isn't that much in reality."
"How are we doing for time anyway?" I glanced at my phone, still giggling. "Ooh. Looks like we've yet over ten minutes to kill."
When I raised my eyes back up, he was suddenly inches away from my face, a playful look across his eyes. "I know of a very good way to kill time," he said under his breath, backing me into the candy-stocked shelves. The aisle was empty save for the two of us.
"What way?" I squeaked. But he had already lowered his mouth to mine, his eyes closed. When our lips touched, I seemed to forget about everything. About the candy, about the fact that we were in a public store, about the movie that was to start in a few minutes. His hands were holding my face and I wrapped mine around his solid shoulders.
I felt some indescribable energy when he deepened the kiss, our tongues meeting. It shot through me like electricity sparking off a live wire. Every single cell from my body lit up. Came to life. All I could hear was the frenetic beating of my heart. Or maybe it was his.
Or maybe it was them both, beating as one.
I leaned further into the shelf, my head accidentally knocking off a couple of Snickers bars to the floor- breaking off our heavy make-out session. Breathing hard, we both dropped to our knees, picking the fallen chocolate bars up. I began giggling again.
"Cam, we're gonna be late."
We sprinted towards the nearest cashbox, our hands overloaded with candy. We were still breathing uncontrollably when the cashier scanned our items, a hint of amusement in his expression as he eyed the two of us. We probably looked like two four-year-old kids.
"How are you planning on getting all of this through the employees?" He asked, when the cashier was done.
Oh. A very very good question, indeed. And my very very good answer to that was ". . .Looks like we're gonna have to improvise." What kind of attitude has gotten into me lately? I was never one to break rules.
Nor one to be grinning at the thought of it, throughout the whole of our race through the escalators and towards the movie theater.
"Phew. I think we made it just in time," he lit up his phone. My eyes widened the moment they fell on his lock screen.
"Cam!" I yelled, snatching his phone and taking him by surprise. "Mind explaining what the heck this is?" I gestured to the picture on his lock screen. More precisely, a picture of me.
A little lightbulb flickered in my brain. I remembered. It was from the day he took me to skateboard, the day he asked me out. He had been taking pictures of the views that extended in front of us from atop that hill. At least that was what I'd thought. Turns out he had been taking pictures of me. I was depicted standing on the lookout, my gaze lost in the beauty of the sight.
"It's. . .a picture of my beautiful girlfriend."
"It's a bad picture."
"But it's not. I think you look stunning," there was a heart-warming genuineness to his tone of voice. "It's. . .at least something for when I really miss you and you're not with me." My heart couldn't resist his words. It melted just like an ice cube in the sun. His words were that sun.
He was that sun. The sun that lit up my gloomy world.
"Okay, but we'll need to change that to a photo of us both together as soon as possible."
His eyes twinkled. "Deal."
We ended up stashing our precious packagings of candy under my capacious sweater. I hid close behind Cameron as he provided the employee with our tickets, a burst of laughter trapped in both our throats. We scuttled up the little steps, through the dark aisles of the auditorium.
I plonked myself into the safety of my seat, finally letting the dozen or so of packets free; and along with them, the chortle I had been holding in.
"Did we really just get away with it?" I asked, between titters.
"Shhh," he quietened me as the light faded completely, deep darkness pervading the area. I heard him rip the package of Skittles open. He offered me some.
I threw several sour-sweet droplets into my mouth, quickly falling into the cozy arms of the atmosphere reigning in the pitch-black auditorium. I got totally absorbed in the intense plot of the movie. There was a tinge of drowsiness to my state, when I became aware of Cam's arm wrapped gently around me. I found myself laying my head on his shoulder, blending into his comforting closeness.
Lying like this, bundled up in his woodsy cedar scent I was so used to, felt so homely. So right. I felt sheltered from any kind of torments existing in the world outside of these four walls.
I wanted to stay like this, close to him, forever.
Through my sleepy, engrossed state of mind, I think I discerned his lips lean into my hair. I thought he was just smelling it again, when they began to travel lower. A fervent turbulence stirred in me when his mouth came into contact with the skin on my neck. And for an infinitesimal moment, I let him. I let the flames begin to develop, to consume me. But the moment passed, and I pulled back, still dozy.
"Cam," I whispered, giving him quite a look.
"What?" He whispered back. "There's nobody behind us." My heart dropped into the gutter. I looked backward. He was right.
The whole point of me picking the seats a few rows before the back row, was to not sit at the back of the entire auditorium. How did I end up in this situation?
I shifted in my seat, somewhat flustered. The lights turned back on just a few minutes later, surprisingly. I'd lost the sense of time somewhere mid-way through the movie.
"Did you like it?" Cam stretched, as we walked out the auditorium, our eyes adjusting to the contrasting brightness.
"Surprisingly enough, yeah, I did. It's a good movie. Rare to find that," I came out with, in all honesty. "Did you?"
He offered me his hand, and I accepted it without a single doubt. "Uhm, yeah, me too. Didn't quite understand the ending though, like, why didn't the girl stay with her father?"
We continued chatting about it as we strolled towards the exit of the theater. A deep sense of calmness filled me. I was so at ease with him by my side. I smiled. I couldn't help it.
Was this really that easy? Was this all to the relationship I'd been so hesitant and scared to step into? That's it?
I was completely lost in our breezy conversation when a sudden voice from behind pulled me out of my bubble.
"Audrey?"
I froze. The voice fell a few notches short of familiar. It was a kind of familiar that'd matured since I last heard it.
I turned towards the voice, wishing there could be a way out of this. It was that same feeling of when you're sure you're late but you have to check the watch. When you're sure you've failed that test, but you have to look at the grade.
I was sure of the storm that was about to rip my buried scars open but I had to turn around.
Facing me -along with all the memories that came with those onyx eyes- was Calum Lee.
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a/n
mwahahahah :D
what's gonna happen next? any predictions?
on a side note, what did u think of cam & aud's movie date? uwu
until next time!!
please tap the star if you liked this chapter :)