꧁𝙺𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚐𝚒𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚒𝚜𝚍𝚘𝚖꧂
-𝙰𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚝𝚕𝚎☘︎︎
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I woke up to the feeling of someone nudging my shoulder. I groaned as I peered one of my eyes open, seeing a blurry blue figure right next to me. Then I heard, "Dude, your alarms been ringing for like 4 minutes. I just shut it off but you gotta get up."
Realizing it was Sully and not some random that broke into our room I finally got up, letting out a huge yawn as I popped my back. I turned to my nightstand where I had previously set my phone before passing out and looked at the time, 6:04. Great, at least Sully actually woke up this time and didn't let it ring forever. "Did Johnny call?" I asked Sully as I stood up from my bed and started stretching my arms. "Nope, but if the reservation is for 6:30 we should be leaving soon."
And as if the universe planned it, my phone starts vibrating and the screen lights up with Johnny's contact picture. I picked it up, "Hello?"
"Hey you guys ready?" I looked up at Sully as he asked, he nodded yes.
"Yeah we're good."
"Great. I'm outside then, so hurry up and come down so I can take us, the rest of the guys went ahead in another car," He said before hanging up.
Sully twisted his torso before hearing a pop and grabbed his phone from his bed and putting it in his pocket, "You heard the man, let's go."
I sighed and grabbed my keys from my desk and putting them in my pocket along with my phone and thanked Sully as he held the door open for me. We both headed down the 3 flights of stairs and made it to the front of the dorms in about 2 minutes. "I call shot gun," I said as I ran towards the car Johnny was sitting in.
Sully entered the back and reluctantly sat down, "No fair, we didn't talk about this."
Johnny just chuckled at our antics as he began to back out of the parking spot after we buckled up, "Dont worry, it's not like the ride is going to take forever."
Johnny exited the parking lot and made it onto the main road where luckily there didn't seem to be that much traffic. Johnny reacher over it his center console and turned the bluetooth setting on, "You're welcome to connect if you want."
"Don't mind if I d-"
"Nope! I've heard your playlists, never again," I interrupted Sully as I set my phone and connected it instead.
I chose one of my playlists I was sure everyone would enjoy and left it at that.
"You got some good taste," Johnny said as he smirked at me.
I wasn't sure why that comment made me flustered, but it did.
—-
A couple of minutes later we made it to the restaurant. Johnny found a decent parking space, but cursed quietly under his breath as he had to maneuver around other people's horrendous parking. He finally shut off the ignition, pulling his keys out. We all hopped out of his car, careful to not hit the cars around us. Johnny looked at his phone as we walked towards the entrance, "They should be sat by know."
We got the entrance. Johnny being the gentleman he is he hurried ahead and held the door open for Sully and me. He tiled my head and smiled at him as I walked passed him as a sign of gratitude. After we were all inside, a hostess came up to us asking "are you guys part of the RORs table?" she eyed out jackets.
"Yep," Johnny spoke up from between Sully and me.
"Right this way," She said as she turned around and led us to a bit table where everyone was sitting.
She led us towards the middle of the well lit restaurant, where everyone sat at this long table, deep in conversation as they looked through their menu. There chairs available were the two at at each end of the table and one more next to one of the empty ones. Sully and Johnny chose one of the chairs at the ends and I chose to sit at the empty chair next to Johnny's. "You guys come here often?" I asked as I grabbed the menu in front of me and started to open it.
Johnny looked down at the open menu in his bands as he thought, "Not really, I think we've only come here once before, seemed pretty fancy though so I thought I'd be good for the occasion."
I nodded my head and hummed as I listened to his response. Soon a waitress comes over and asks us what we would like to drink. Everyone else had their drinks already since they got here before us. Johnny asked for some kind of refresher, Sully some soda, and I just decided on some regular lemonade. After taking our drink order the waitress just smiled and left.
"So how's classes been?" Johnny asked as he leaned over to me, his arms crossed over the now closed leather menu.
I looked up from his crossed arms to his face, the intense eye contact startling me for a second, "Oh, it's going pretty g-good, Professor Knight isn't as bad as people say," I said internally punching myself for being so awkward. Did I just stutter?
Johnny just chuckled at me, "Yeah old Professor Knight is all bark no bite, but, he does tend to give a harder time to students he thinks don't work hard enough."
I tilted my head at that, "Then I suppose it's a good thing we get along so well."
We kept on talking, everyone was having such a great time getting to know each other. Soon enough the waitress came over to take our food orders which everyone was happy to oblige to.
I turned to Johnny to resume out conversation after the waitress took out menus away, "So Johnny, you seem to already have some knowledge about me, but I don't know anything about you, don't think that's really fair," I chuckled as I leaned my chin on my hand, resting my elbow on the table as I leaned closer to him.
"Oh, um, I'm not sure what to say," Johnny rambled as he scratched the back of his head, "well, to start, my father is also a famous scarer like yours, we're pretty well off clearly since he payed to have the ROR house built just for me."
"Oh, only for you? No siblings?" I asked curiously.
"Nope, just me. Sometimes it got a little lonely, you know? My parents were always off around the world, while I got stuck with nannies... but that's life," Johnny said casually, as if trying to brush it off.
He fidgeted with his hands in front of him, seeming somewhat nervous. I placed my hand on top of his, taking his attention off of his hands and back on me, "Yeah honestly, I get it. I was also an only child. My parents cared for me but... sometimes I got a bit lonely too, you're not alone you know?" I reassured him.
Johnny blushed after I said that, my attempts to make him feel better made him feel a bit flustered. I noticed that we had literally been intensely staring into each other's faces for a while now and I was about to say something until I was interrupted-
"-Chicken parm?" Asked the waitress as she stood right behind us, holding a platter of food.
Johnny just sighed as he sat up straight, leaning away from me, making me realize how we subconsciously started leaning into each other. Did anyone else see that?
Johnny answered the waitress, "Yeah that's mine actually," and he held his hands out, taking a hold of the plate so he could help the waitress.
I looked around and saw that everyone else was absorbed in their own conversations, only pausing to get their plates from the waitress. I kept looking around until I came into eye contact with Javier. I was a bit startled by the unexpected eye contact but my attention was teared away from him as the waitress brought over my food. I thanked her for it and took the plate from her hands, setting it in front of me. After I took the first bite of my food I looked back up at Javier just for him to quickly look down at his plate. Odd.
We were all peacefully eating now. Johnny and me kept making conversation about random things, and future plans like for the scare games.
"So, you've heard of the scare games, right?" Johnny asked after taking a drink from his refresher.
"Yeah I have, my dad told me all about when he was in then, plus two members of the Greek council had actually explained some of the basics to me on registration day," I explained through a mouthful of food, my hand covering my mouth as I chewed out of habit.
"Great, I like making sure everyone know what the scare games are about and how they work, can't have someone leaving the team behind," Johnny said after swallowing a bite of food, "I'll have to talk to Sully later, don't really feel like yelling across the table right now."
"Also, Sully was asking me earlier today, so I'm kinda curious. How long did you wait to let them move in?" I asked, nodding towards everyone else.
Johnny thought about it for a second, "It kinda depended, but about a week, most I've ever waited is two, but you guys shouldn't worry about that."
"Ok that makes sense. I wasn't really worried, Sully's just a little restless I suppose," I said and then took the last bite of my food.
I looked around and it seemed like everyone else was pretty much done. "Dessert anyone?" Johnny asked.
Everyone looked up from their conversations and just said no or shook their heads, "I'm stuffed honestly," Sully said as he rubbed his stomach.
"Alright aright," Johnny chuckled.
He then raised his hand towards the waitress on the other side of the restaurant. She came over with a bright smile on her face, "Are we ready for the check?"
"Yes please," Johnny nodded.
"Alright I'll be right back," and she left to go print out or check.
"You don't have to pay you know, I can cover it," I offered, I knew the check was probably going to end up being a couple hundred dollars.
"Nonsense, you think I can't pay it or what?" Johnny smirked at me.
I knew from out conversations earlier that he definitely could but I still felt bad.
I rolled my eyes, "I know you can, I'm just saying you don't have to."
The waitress came over with the check and Johnny held out his hand so she would hand it to him.
"How bout this Koda, next time, you take me out to dinner," He smirked as pulled out his credit card slid it into the small leather book, handing it back to the waitress.
I blushed a bit, thinking about what he said, "like just the two of us?"
"Sure, we've got to get away from these knuckle heads once in a while you know," Johnny chuckled as he made a joke.
I just smiled along and the waitress returned with a check that Johnny had to sign. He did whatever he needed to and then stood up to address everyone, "Welp, hope you guys had a good night, but it's time to head back, I know tomorrow's a Saturday but we can't be tiring out our new recruits so soon," he said patting my back.
We all stood, grabbing our belongings and headed out of the restaurant. Johnny held the door for everyone as they exited, like the gentleman he is. I just waited a couple steps away for him to finish. Johnny, Sully, and I walked over to his car, hopping in once again as he unlocked it.
"Thanks for paying for dinner, you didn't have to," Sully said from his spot in the back seats.
"Oh nonsense, I said I would so I stuck to my word," Johnny said before turning on the ignition and pulling out of the parking spot.
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