We finally made our way to the closest jewelry store near us, "Kacy's Jewels". Cameron starts to get out of his car and then quickly runs over to my side and opens the door. I look up at him, the color pink painted on my face.
"Why did you do that?" I say with confusion in my voice as I start to get out of the car.
"Don't ask, just come on, I have things to do." He says stiffly. I really don't understand why he was being so harsh towards me. I didn't have to go out and buy these things for him but I did because I hate leaving things off on bad terms. But I shrug it off and follow him into the small but fancy store. We enter the store and Cameron makes his way to the cashier.
"Hey, do you mind if we look at your tennis bracelets?" He says.
"Of course not, follow me this way." She says with a small smile. We both follow her and we spot the tennis bracelets. Cameron starts to search for the tennis bracelet that he had gotten or at least something similar to it. He continues to search for the tennis bracelet until he pauses and picks up this beautiful silver bracelet that had small diamonds circling around it. I grab the bracelet out of his hand.
"This one, this one is the one." I say while quickly handing it over to the cashier to just buy it and get it over with.
"Okay that'll be $3,000." She says.
"Do you take cash?" I say crossing my fingers.
"Yes we do, we take both cash and credit." She says while smiling. I let out a sigh of relief and handed over the 3,000 dollars that I had taken out of my summer savings. She carefully grabs the money and then boxes up the bracelet and hands it over to me.
"Thank you, Have a nice day!" She says.
"You too!" I say. Me and Cameron both start making our way to the car. He opened my door for me and then made his way to the driver's side and sat down. He kind of just was sitting there, so I looked over to him. I was tempted to say something, but I didn't. He opened his mouth, but then decided not to speak. I looked away and just sat there until he either said something, or started driving. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him look at me. I think he was waiting for me to look back at him.
After an awkward couple of minutes of not speaking, he finally started driving. He turned the radio on.
"Do you wanna change it?" he asks, "The radio, I mean."
"Sure." I said. I scroll through the stations until I found one I liked. There weren't many good songs on the radio, so I had to settle for Snap Out Of It by Arctic Monkeys. Not that it isn't a good song, but not my first choice. The song was halfway over, anyways.
There wasn't much traffic coming home, but once we were a little over halfway to my house, it started to rain. And not just drizzles, or a little rain, like I mean full on torrential downpour. There were still barely any cars, but you could barely see out the windshield.
"Jesus, how did this rain start? It was sunny and clear 5 minutes ago. I can't even see out the windshield." he said. His left arm was stretched out and holding the wheel. His right was resting on the arm rest, his hand facing me. My arm was at my side, my hand facing myself. What would happen if I reached for his hand? I thought to myself. The thought made my stomach knot. I quickly shook it off.
"Maybe pull over? I'm sure it'll stop soon." I said. He nodded and pulled over into a street. It was pretty empty.
"Hey are you hungry? I know a restaurant that's pretty nearby." he said, looking at me. I looked back.
"Yeah," I nodded, "Yeah, I am a little hungry." He nodded and moved his hand. Well, there goes the thought of holding his hand, I thought. Not like I was going to do it anyways. Not like I even wanted to do it.
We arrived at the restaurant a couple minutes later. It wasn't like a fancy restaurant where you'd go out on a date. More like a diner. This time Cameron didn't open my door for me.
"Oh so no more Mr. Nice Guy now that I bought you your stuff?" I asked him, smiling. I saw a slight smirk appear on his face.
"Yep. Sorry." he said, shrugging.
"Oh so you're like a gold digger, huh?" I asked, walking up to the doors of the diner. On the doors, in big red and black writing, it said "Grandma's Kitchen." I pictured a little old lady with kind eyes and a sweet smile cooking and baking in the kitchen with her grandchildren.
"Well when you put it like that..." he said. I laughed and he opened the door.
"After you," Cameron said.
"Why thank you," I smiled. We walked in together and saw the hostess. She was an older woman, probably my moms age.
"How many?" she asked.
"Just two, please." Cameron said. She smiled.
"Right this way," she said. We followed her and she led us to a booth.
"Thank you," I said.
"No problem," she responded, "And you two are very cute together." She winked and walked away before either of us could say anything. I sighed. Why was everyone assuming that we were a couple? Why can't a boy and a girl just be friends? Well, enemies, for that matter. I guess he could tell what I was thinking.
"Can't people just be friends with no strings attached?" he asked. My eyes widened.
"Oh, so we're friends now?" I asked him. His face turned a little red.
"No, you know what I mean." he said.
"Oh yeah, uhuh, sure I do." I said, with a smile. Before he could say anything, our waiter came up.
"Hey, how are we doing today? I'm gonna be your waiter, my name is Carl. Are y'all ready to order your drinks?" Carl asked. He had a heavy country accent. He was wearing a button down shirt and had short gray hair.
"Um, yeah can I get a Sprite?" I asked. He nodded, writing it down in his little notepad.
"I'll have a Pepsi, thank you." Cameron said. Carl nodded.
"I'll be back with your drinks shortly." He walked away. I watched him walk away and then looked at Cameron.
"Did you hear that country accent?" I asked him, laughing.
"How could you not?" Cameron said, in a country accent. I laughed even harder. I had mixed feelings about tonight. I mean, one second he's not even talking to me, and the next he's making me laugh like we've been friends forever. I looked at him again to see that he was laughing too. His smile was so contagious.
"What are you going to get?" he asked me.
"I don't know, I haven't even looked at the menu yet." I said. I picked up the menu and as I was looking through the many options, I felt his eyes on me. I looked up for a split second to see if I was right. And I was. Then my attention focused on the song playing from the restaurant speakers. It was Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. One of my favorites. Well, one of my dad's favorites. Whenever it played on the radio, he would always scream-sing it in his off pitched voice. He would call my mom his "brown eyed girl." I thought it was corny, but secretly wished that I could have something like that. A type of romance that never died down, never got boring. And I have yet to find it.
I put my menu down and took a sip of the water that Carl had already brought out to us. I looked around at the people in the restaurant. I saw a family with three kids, a young couple, two older ladies sitting together, and before I could keep looking I felt something hit the side of my head. I turn around and see a straw wrapper on the table, and Cameron looking insanely guilty.
"Wow. I can't believe you would do that." I said to him.
"Do what? I have no clue what you're talking about." He with a smirk.
"You're a terrible liar," I said to him, crumpling up the straw wrapper and throwing it back at him. He shook his head and put the wrapper on the table.
"So do you know what you're getting?" He asked, with curiosity.
"Yup. Chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries on the side. You?"
"An omelet with homefries." I nodded.
"Sorry y'all. It's a busy night," Carl said, "Here your Sprite, and here's your Pepsi." He handed us our drinks and put down two more straws.
"Are you two ready to order?" He looked at me first.
"I'm gonna have chocolate chip pancakes, and can I have a side of strawberries?"
"Of course. And for you?"
"I'm gonna have the omelet with home fries please?"
"I'll be out with your orders soon." He walked away.
"Oh by the way, are you going to Britney's party tomorrow?" I asked him. I saw his face turn a little stiff. I completely forgot about the whole situation that got us in this mess.
"Oh, um. I don't know." he said.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up." I said.
"Don't worry about it. It's okay." He said. I took a sip of my Sprite. It was good.
After he said that, we didn't really talk that much. It was really awkward. When I saw Carl come back with our food, I took a big sigh of relief.
"Here's your food, enjoy!" He said, setting down our plates. I picked up my fork and knife, and started to cut it into pieces.
"You act like such a little kid." Cameron said. I looked up at him.
"Rude!"
"No, it's cute," he said. My eyebrows furrowed, "No, not like that. I mean-"
"I know what you mean." I said. I smiled, and so did he.
After we were both done eating, Carl came to the table with the check. He immediately reached for his wallet.
"I got this one," I said. He shook his head.
"No. Absolutely not. You've done enough today." Cameron said. I tilted my head to the side.
"Come on, Cameron." I said. He wouldn't budge. I sighed and let him pay for it. Carl came back to the table a little while later, and then we left. When we got into the car, I realized that I had spent the whole day with Cameron. And honestly, I kind of enjoyed it. I guess he wasn't as bad as I thought.
"Thanks for dinner, by the way." I said.
"No problem. Thanks for coming." I smiled and looked out the window. We only had to drive a little bit further, because we were basically already at my house, but it was still pouring, so it took a little longer then expected. The radio was playing some random pop song, but it was already over before I could even see who was singing it. The next song started playing, and from the very first second I knew what it was. Wildest Dreams by Taylor Swift. My favorite music artist ever.
"I love this song." I said. He looked over to me and turned it louder. Everything about this song was perfect. The lyrics, Taylor's voice, the beat. It made you feel like you were experiencing the song. I watched out the window as she sang "He's so tall, and handsome as hell. He's so bad but he does it so well." I watched the houses and cars that we passed while driving. Then we finally stopped at the top of my street.
"Which one is your house?" He asked, "I'm dropping you off in front of your house cause this weather is insane."
"It's the light blue one on the right. It has the black car in the driveway." I said. He nodded and drove beside the sidewalk of the house. I didn't get up, and he didn't tell me to get up. We both just sat there, not looking at each other, while Taylor Swift's heartbeats played on the radio. I unbuckled my seatbelt, and he looked at me. I looked at him and he unbuckled his. Why did he just do that? I asked myself, and I was going to ask him. But before I could say anything, his hand was on my cheek and he was kissing me. I didn't know what to do. So I kissed him back. I put my hand on his neck, while his other hand went into my hair. Ironic, I thought. Because on the radio the lyric was "His hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room." We didn't even allow ourselves to take a breath and stop, we just kept kissing. I figured we couldn't be doing this all night, even though a part of me wanted to. Really wanted to. I stopped kissing him but didn't pull away just yet. I started smiling, and he smiled too. I didn't move my hand and he didn't move his. I moved away a little bit, but then I looked at him, and he looked at me, with those eyes. Those incredibly dazzling eyes. And we were both tempted to kiss again. But I couldn't.
"Uh I better get home my parents are probably waiting for me. Thanks for everything." I say while I open the door.
"I'm sorry." He quickly says. I turned around and focused my gaze on him.
"Sorry? You're sorry for what?" I say with a hint of confusion in my voice.
"The kiss. That was so random, I don't even know where that came from. I'm really sorry if it made you uncomfortable." He says. A small smile appears on my face.
"Don't worry about it, besides it was just a mistake, right?"
"Yea.. a mistake." He says slightly, smiling at me. I exit the car.
"Goodnight Cameron." I say smiling at him.
"Goodnight Syd" He says smiling back at me and then he drives away. Syd? This was the second time he called me Syd. But that wasn't what I was focused on. Cameron Adler, the guy who claims he hates me, just kissed me. Words couldn't even explain how I was feeling. I know I said it was just a mistake but it didn't feel like one. The way he grabbed my cheek and slowly pulled us together. But what if it really was a mistake. I mean he even agreed with me. All I knew was I needed to tell Madi and Stella. After I walked into my house, I ran upstairs and pulled out my phone. I had over 90 notifications on my phone from our group chat .
Me: Jesus! You guys literally blew my phone up!
Madi: GIRL. You have A LOT of explaining to do.
Stella: Yeah you literally went MIA for the whole day!
Me: Did you guys forget that I was literally with Cameron the whole day.
Madi: Oh no really?
Me: Very funny Madi
Stella: Okay enough with the silly little jokes, did anything happen between you and Cameron today??
Me: You have no idea.
•••••••
This chapter is insane
Thoughts?
Update: Thank you so much for 100 reads!!