The car ride felt excruciatingly long and we've only been on the road for 5 minutes.
The silence was killing me and I forgot my headphones in my room, which made it worse. I was looking out at the traffic ahead of me when Nova suddenly spoke.
"You can plug in your phone if you want to listen to music, or anything." She said, grabbing a cord and holding it up to me, while keeping her eyes on the road.
I was weighing my options because I wasn't too fond of sharing my music taste with other people, but we had about 40 minutes left until we got there and it felt like I was losing my mind.
I grabbed the cord from her hand and plugged my phone in. I was internally deciding which playlist I wanted to play. I had to choose wisely since I didn't want to regret this later.
I ultimately decided to go for a more R&B based playlist I had, so I pressed shuffle and soon enough the song was playing throughout the car. I propped my arm on the door and leaned my head in my hand, continuing to look out the window. It was actually pretty nice.
About 38 minutes have passed and we were almost at the restaurant, which I was happily anticipating because I was starving, and it was barely 9 o clock.
I was so hungry I wanted to go on their website so I could see what menu items they had, but part of me wanted it to be a surprise.
All of my food related thoughts came to a halt when I heard Nova start to speak.
"Have you always lived in New York?" She asked me as the car came to a stop at a red light.
"No, I've been living here for a few years now, I moved here to go to culinary school." I replied looking at her, her side profile was stunning.
"Where did you move from?" She questioned as the car started moving, indicating the light turned green.
"Hawaii, I didn't always live there though." I added, turning to face forward.
"Where did you live before that?" Nova asked while turning the wheel.
"I lived in California up until I was 3," I explained, "Can I ask you a question now?" I suddenly asked, feeling a bit of boldness.
"Go ahead."
"What do you guys do? and what is the event for? do you guys have a company... or..." I trailed off turning to face her, and the car completely stopped.
"We're here." She said not removing her gaze from in front of us. I didn't even notice we had gotten here, and early at that.
Soon enough Nova had opened her door. Stepped out of the car and closed the door again.
I turned around to face the door to try and get out but I couldn't spot a handle, and just like the outside, it was nowhere to be found. How was I supposed to get out?
I was in the middle of planning my escape route when the car door suddenly opened. And just like earlier Nova opened the door for me again.
I nervously unbuckled my seat belt and stepped out of the car.
"...Thanks."
I quickly took in my surroundings since I've never been to this part of the city. Almost like any other street in New York, there were brick buildings lined across and next to the unfamiliar diner.
The diner itself seemed really open, the outside was lined with large windows, giving you a glimpse of the inside fairly easily. There were yellow neon lights in shapes of stars next to the sign, which read 'Sunrise Diner'.
"Ready?" Nova asked, looking over at me.
"Yeah, definitely." I replied taking one last look at the outside. But what I didn't know was that being inside would be better than looking through the windows.
When first stepping in you immediately notice the black and white checkered floor throughout the whole diner. Looking around, the 50's theme was apparent with the vintage decor and the splashes of yellow scattered throughout.
I continued to peer around the warm colored diner as Nova and I walked toward the hostess podium.
Tearing my eyes away from the mesmerizing interior, I brought them to the person standing behind the podium.
"Hi, welcome to Sunrise Diner, table for two?" The younger woman asked, looking between me and Nova.
"Yes." Nova replied.
"Great! right this way please." The woman said, grabbing two shiny menus. She stepped away from the podium and began leading us to our table.
Looking around, the diner was pretty packed. I should have assumed since Camilla recommended it, she only goes to popular food places, telling Ethan and I about it after each one.
Soon enough we were at a cushioned deep yellow booth with a stained glass light hanging above it. I sat down at the booth, with Nova sitting across from me.
The waitress quickly placed the menus down in front of us before speaking, "I'll be back to take your drink orders soon." She said while starting to walk away.
"I'll just have a water thank you." Nova said, halting the waitress in her tracks.
"Got it, and for you?" She said facing toward me.
"I need more time, thank you." I told her with a slight smile, before she walked away.
"Do you always just get water?" I asked Nova while picking the menu and flipping to the drink page.
"What can I say, I like being healthy." She said lowly.
"Do you also like being secretive?" I asked, lifting my gaze from the glossy menu to meet her eyes, suddenly feeling a strike of boldness enter my thoughts.
"What would you like to know?" She said tilting her head and slightly raising a brow at me.
I didn't want to immediately ask her about the company, cause I really wanted to know more about her instead of what this whole thing was... and also because I just asked her and she completely blew me off.
I hummed in thought for a second before thinking of a question.
"Well for starters, how old are you?" I said, ultimately deciding to go for more of a simple question.
"21." She replied.
"Oh so you're in college?" I asked her, raising a brow.
"Graduated early."
"You have your degree?" I asked, challenging her.
"2 of them." Nova said with a slight smirk on her face, and I instantly hummed in response.
"Okay then... Nova Casper, if that's even your real name." I narrowed my eyes at her.
What I wasn't expecting was for a slight chuckle to leave her mouth.
I was brought out of my thoughts when the waitress appeared back at the table, I had completely forgotten about the drinks.
"Are you ready to order yet?" the woman asked me, placing a glass of ice water in front of Nova. I quickly picked up the menu and glanced back down at the drink section.
I ultimately decided to go with a hot chocolate with whipped cream just to be on the safe side.
"Alright I'll have that out soon and I'll be back to take your orders." She said walking away.
"Actually my real name isn't Nova." She said, replying to my previous statement.
"Really? wait, so what's your real name?" I asked her, completely shocked.
"Casanova."
"So Nova is your nickname?" I asked her with my brows raised.
"I guess so." She responded.
"I like Casanova, it's really fitting for you." I added with a slight smile.
I don't know why the moment became kind of intimate. Maybe it was just me.
"Here you go, are you guys ready to order?" The waitress said putting a white steamy mug in front of me.
"Yeah, I'll have the strawberry french toast with bacon and fruit please." I told her, putting my menu down.
"I'm good." Nova said sliding her menu over to the waitress.
"Alright, it should be out in 10ish minutes, thank you guys." She said while taking our menus from the table and disappearing to a different part of the restaurant.
"So what do you also not eat at restaurants?" I asked her while taking a sip of my hot chocolate.
"I ate what you cooked." She said narrowing her eyes at me, and I felt my face starting to get hot,
I was hoping it was from the hot chocolate.
"Is it my turn to ask questions now?" She suddenly asked me.
"I mean your mom knew where my apartment was, I assume you guys would have a lot of information about me." I shrugged, taking another sip of my hot chocolate.
"Of course we do, I just wanted to hear you say it."
I instantly cleared my throat, setting the steaming cup back on the table.
"How old are you?" Nova asked, continuing the conversation.
"I'm 21."
"So you're still in college?" she asked, mocking my previous question, "Why aren't you there now?" She questioned, taking a sip of her water.
"I'm on break until December" I told her. I've been trying to distract myself from thinking about college since I've had a lot on my plate recently. From rent, to work, to school it's all just been a lot.
"What's on your mind?" Nova asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
"It's nothing."
"Are you sure it's nothing becau-"
"Here you go," the waitress said, unintentionally cutting Nova off, "The french toast should be out in a bit, please let me know if you have any problems" She continued, placing the bowl of fruit in front of me, and leaving.
I don't know what changed but it felt like there was some form of tension in the air. I pushed the thought aside and began unwrapping the utensils on the table to start eating the fruit.
After 10 minutes, the rest of my food came out and after about 25 minutes I was practically done with everything, and that might of been the best breakfast I've ever had.
We were currently waiting for the waitress to come back with the bill and Nova hasn't said anything to me since the last question she attempted to ask and there was a bit of an awkward silence between us.
"So..." I trailed off playing with my thumbs. "You never answered my question," I said looking up at her, and I saw her jaw visibly tighten.
"What question?" Nova asked me flatly.
"The one about the company or whatever this is-"
"You know I can't answer that Ms. Breaux." Nova said, cutting me off.
"Stop calling me that, and why can't you Nova?" I asked slightly raising my tone. Her referring to me formally was upsetting me, especially how calm she was about this whole thing.
"It's complicated." She said keeping her tone expressionless.
Suddenly the waitress came back with the bill and set it on the table.
Nova instantly slid the bill toward herself and began pulling out her wallet.
"Who said I wasn't paying, and are you just going to ignore the question again?" I asked her.
"I'm not going to let you pay Mariah, and I already told you it's complicated." She said taking some money out of a black wallet and setting it on the table.
"Alright then Nova." I said scooting out of the booth, and making my way to the entrance to call an Uber.
On my way to the front I walked past the familiar waitress who was going in the direction of our table and shortly after I heard a familiar voice.
"Mariah, wait." Nova said, managing to catch up to me.
I continued walking and made it outside the diner onto the sidewalk. Until I felt a hand softly grab my wrist, turning me around.
"Mariah..." Nova trailed off looking between my eyes. Her tone was softer than before, "I'm sorry... I don't want to be secretive with you but everything is just really complicated right now and I don't want you getting hurt." She added, looking away.
"...I can't tell you but, I can take you to this place I know to make up for it." She said softly, looking back up to me.
I hummed before looking up to her, "Okay."
"Just okay?" she questioned letting go of my wrist.
"We'll see if it's just okay." I told her with a slight smirk, turning around to walk back to her car.
I wasn't going to let the situation go that easy, but I did want to see where she was taking me.
I wondered what she had planned.