Alaric carries the bucket filled heavily with the silver coins, the veins of his hand becoming more prominent underneath the inky black tattoos of his hand that disappear up his sleeve.
Despite having said I would no longer stare at him I couldn't help letting my gaze linger on his hand that held the far too real looking image of a huge spider that looked as if it were crawling up his hand going to disappear under his sleeved shirt. Everything about him was beautiful, from his eyes to his master pieces of art drawn on his skin. I wondered what other tattoos he had. Ughh it was none of my business i need to stop thinking about stuff like this.
No more looking Emalia; I refused to lose a friend because he thought I was some sort of stalker or something.
"Thanks for hanging out with me." I smile up at him. He said nothing, didn't smile or nod but it didn't matter him being here was enough. The dinging of a bell breaks away his gaze, "That's the pizza come on."
We walk the short distance, towards the counter where there sat the beautifully freshly done pizza with grease surrounding the perimeter of the pan and the cheese looking perfectly gooey with the dozens of pepperonis sitting on top. "It's mesmerising," I whispered feeling my mouth water with anticipation.
Alaric went to reach for the pizza but I automatically stopped him "I got this, you're carrying the bucket already." Alaric didn't need to hold a heavy bucket and also burn his hand. Every time I'd ordered a pizza, the pan was always extremely hot, I'd even gotten a second degree burn last time but that was a small sacrifice to pay for how delicious it was.
The familiar burn was nothing to break my love for the pizza. "Let's go sit." I motioned towards the little booths in the corner trying to pick up my pace as the pain increased without letting any of the grease spill from the pan and onto my skin or the ground.
"Why do you look like that?" I heard Alaric ask just as we made it to the table and I quickly laid the pizza down.
"When my parents had me I came out looking like them." I quickly answered thoughtlessly glancing at my inflamed hands and sliding into the booth.
" That's not what I was referring to." He answered as he sat down across from me and reached towards my wrist flipping them palm side up. At the sight of the deep red and small blisters already forming Alaric slowly turned his gaze up towards my face, he let go of one of my wrist touching the pan then grabbing my wrist and bring it closer.
"Why did you let this happen?" He said roughly in total contrast to his careful touch as he ran a finger over the blisters and the bandage on my left hand.
For a second my mind drew only towards our point of contact, each swipe of his warm fingers causing an increasing pain that was irrelevant when compared to the butterflies swirling around my stomach.
"Meine schöne?"
I looked at up at him his gaze blaring with accusation, "It's nothing, really."
"Why didn't you let me grab it or used something to grab it." He asks shooting an accusing look towards the pizza.
"There was no need for any of that, this will go away within the week don't worry." I brushed him off, slipping my hands out of his grasp and grabbing a slice.
"What's the bandage for?" He doesn't budge reaching for left hand again.
"A cut." I say over while chewing on my pizza. "Hurry up and eat so we can play." I said looking towards the blinking lights of all the games.
"How did you get it?"
I glanced back at him; it took me by surprise to see the intent angry look in his eye. "It's really not that bad, I just put the bandage so I wouldn't make it worse. I get anxious sometimes and end up digging my nails into my palm but I'm trying to stop." I told him the complete truth trying to ease his anger because I know it wasn't good but nothing would happen I was fine, more then fine, if anything i was ecstatic in this moment. I was finally making friends, i had a job, and this was my final year in college.
It'd taken me an over a year to have enough money to afford college and go to it, though i still owe, I made it. I've made it .
"You won't do that anymore. You won't do anything that can potentially hurt you."
I smiled at him "Who knew you were so kind? We'll be friends forever."
"I'm not kind." He said a dark look moving into his gaze.
"You are, now come on get a slice let's go play."
I grabbed the bucket with one hand, quickly stuffy the rest of the pizza with my other and slipped out of the booth. I took off the apron around my waist that I was still wearing and threw it on the booth, Alaric already standing next to me with his hands tucked into the pocket of his suit.
"Take that off." I motioned to his suit jacket, he raised his brow in what looked like surprise "You need full range of motion." I explained moving my arms in a full circle at my sides to show him how much range he needed. Reluctantly, he shrugged it off the white of his shirt stretching over his chest and biceps from the action. No staring Emailia, I quickly reminded myself averting my gaze to the ground.
Once he finished, we moved to the arcade going to the closest game available which was one that allowed for two players to team in order to kill the zombies with guns.
"This ones a good one!" I quickly inserted the coins needed for each of us and soon the screen filled with a cluster of zombies. I quickly picked up my gun motioning for Alaric to hurry up and do the same,
"Point at the zombies Alaric!! We can't die!!"
Alaric grunted in response picking up his weapon and surprisingly having a right on aim, moving the plastic weapon quickly and skillfully missing none of his targets while I simply just shot around hoping it would hit my target. As if sensing I was the weakling, all the zombies began making their way over towards me rather then span out throughout the screen causing me to hurry up on the trigger.
"Alaric! Help me! Help me! I don't deserve to die!" I cried getting way too invested with the game as sweat began to appear on my hairline and I moved the weapon back and forth as quickly as I could, accidentally hitting Alaric in the progress. "Sorry!" I muttered clicking the trigger as fast as I could. Alaric quickly coming into the play, shot at them focusing all his attention on my side that when one sneaking son of a gun zombie ended up getting to him and ending our game.
As the numbers of how much each player killed came into view I could not help gasp at the lousy twenty one I'd killed as apposed to Alaric's two hundred and seven. "You cheated!" I accused pointing at him with the gun.
"No, you're just terrible."
"Me!?!" I asked pointing at myself with confusion and offence. I was terrible but that wasn't the point. "I'm great." No I wasn't.
"No you're not." He was right.
"You're wrong, that was a practice round again."
We played again and somehow my score ended up getting lower as his got higher.
"You're killing the ones I'm aiming for!"
"You're not aiming."
"Again."
We played again, then again, and again, and not once did I even touch on his score. I wasn't actually mad but the game was funner if you actually got into it.
"I guess now I know who to call when I get into a shoot out." I commented watching him nod in response. "You can call me too, I'll play distraction." I smiled.
"You're the last person I would call." He said sounding too serious.
"That's rude, I'm useful."
"For other things." His gaze turned dark, a glint of what I wasn't sure how to interpret but somehow making me blush in response.
"Let's go play another one."
After playing just about every game in that place, multiple times, and me arguing each time he won, I learned he was good at everything. Everything. I had only won once and I suspected he'd let me after I'd complained he'd cheated again.
"All right, that's enough of playing with a person who's clearly cheating." I said huffing in annoyance but quickly giving him a smile to let him know I wasn't serious. I would have stayed there all night with him, watching him succeed over and over, but they were closing soon and I had school the next morning. We'd been in here for hours already going through a second pizza, this time he'd grabbed it, and we'd gone through all of our coins.
"Okay, I'll take you home." He said collecting our trash and throwing it.
"No, that's okay. I came in my car and need it tomorrow but thank you. I could take you home, though." I said knowing I should try to finish my homework and get to sleep but I still wanted to be around him.
"No." He said as we stepped out and made the walk back to the restaurant.
"Oh, okay." I said looking away. I should be giving him breaks; spending too much time around me is tiring.
"You shouldn't drive alone at night. I'll take you and have someone deliver you your car."
Deliver my car? Who said that? That seemed expensive. "What do you do for a living?" I knew he was better off judging from the endless stream of expensive suits, eating at the restaurant, and overall the way he carried himself like he had no hurry and knew that people would do whatever he wanted; I was growing curious of what he did, maybe I would start doing the same so could buy more expensive tooth brushes or something.
He looked down at me taking a moment to decide if he wanted to answer the question. "I own businesses."
"What kind?" I smiled at him, enjoying a better insight to his life.
"Everything."
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Word count- 1735
Didn't even read it over, so there are probably a lot of mistakes 😬 but I'll go back over it...one day.
Anyways, thanks for reading don't forget to vote if you liked!!!
Almost to 4K how exitinggg!!