Surprisingly enough, spending time with Levi wasn't as unpleasant as I would have made it out to be, two weeks ago.
"Is that all you're going to eat?" He asked, looking at my empty plate, where a waffle used to lie.
"Pretty much" I said putting my knife and fork onto the table, before taking a sip of my drink. "How do you even eat that much?" I laughed, raising an eyebrow at the boy.
In front of him was an empty plate, where a huge stack of pancakes used to lie. He chuckled "I'm a growing boy" he said defensively, "are you sure you don't want anything else? You barely even ate anything"
I smiled at his concern. "One thing you will know about me is that I barely eat anything. You're lucky I finished this" I answered teasingly.
He raised an eyebrow "Is that a new type of diet?"
"Don't assume all girls are on a diet!" I scolded, rolling my eyes in the process. "I just don't have a huge appetite" I shrugged "Also, can we take a rain check on studying next week?"
He looked up at me "how comes?"
"My cousin is getting married in just over a month" I basically groaned "and next weekend is the wedding rehearsal"
He chuckled "You don't seem that excited"
I shook my head "I'm really not"
"Why not? Weddings sound fun" He said "I have a pretty huge family, but I'm the oldest of all of my cousins and all that, apart from my older sister. But either way a wedding isn't something that would happen soon"
"Believe me, they're not all that fun" I sighed
"Why don't you seem excited?"
I shrugged "Well" I began "The wedding is in California, so a five hour flight. And then we have to stay in the hotel because everyone else is staying in the bride's house, and then I have to attend the wedding of someone who basically hates me"
"Hate you?" He started sarcastically "I don't see how someone can do that!"
I slapped his arm "ha ha"
"It might be because you're a huge know it all" he began listing as I rolled my eyes
"A huge know it all who is helping you study!" I interrupted
"Speaks to much" He continued as I laughed
"I do not!" I said defensively
"Always has her nose in a book" He listed
I stayed silent for that one. Levi turned and raised an eyebrow at me, a smile still spread across his face, looking at me expectantly. "What?" I asked "I'm not gonna deny it"
He laughed for a bit before sobering up. "No but seriously, who could hate you?"
"A lot of people apparently" I muttered "but yeah, she hates Eliza too. She thinks we're not good enough for her and her kind"
"She has a kind?" He asked
I nodded "the rich kind. She's basically the Darcy of our family"
He chuckled. "I still don't see how someone can hate you...or Eliza for that matter"
"I mean, she basically thinks we're not up to her standard. She's met Jordan though, she loves Jordan" I rolled my eyes whilst speaking
Levi sent me a questioning look.
"She thinks he's hot" I explained
"Okay, that makes sense" He laughed "anyway, we should be going now"
We both got up at the same time, knowing that we were both finished eating, and headed back to Levi's car. On my way out, I smiled at the cashier, who slightly waved to us, before catching up with Levi once again.
I let myself into his car, as he did the same. Buckling myself in, I decided to tease Levi. "I knew you weren't a gentleman" I began "You didn't even hold open the door for me" adding a dramatic sigh at the end
He began his car, muttering to himself. "I don't understand girls. One minute she wants to open the door, the next minute she wants me to do it"
I laughed at him
"You're hilarious" He deadpanned once he realised that I was teasing him.
"So I've been told" I grinned "Where are we off to now?"
"I'm 100% sure you have amnesia" He said, sending me a grin. "I've said this twice. Barnes and Noble" he said slowly.
I huffed childishly "No need to patronise me." Looking around, I realised we were heading the opposite direction to where we were supposed to be going "Do you even know where Barnes and Noble is?"
The car had stopped at a red light once I had said it, which meant it was the perfect time for Levi to turn to me and send a guilty smile.
"Yeah, I thought so. Barnes and Noble is the other way dumbass" I teased
"Okay. Wow. Rude." He muttered, sounding offended, but the obvious glint in his eyes told me otherwise. "How about you instruct me, book girl?"
"Well first, you need to find a place to make a U turn" I instructed.
The rest of the car ride to Barnes and Noble was a disaster, Levi clearly had a thing for instructions, because every time I would say something like "take the second right turn" he would turn at the first right, which meant he had to make another three rights to get back onto the main road.
A journey which was supposed to take a maximum of ten minutes, took half an hour.
We finally pulled up in front of Barnes and Noble, bickering the entire time.
"You are terrible with instructions!" I accused
"You're terrible at giving instructions! Who even says things like 'take the second right'?" He asked
"Every sat-nav ever invented!" I exclaimed
"You're not a sat-nav!" He replied
"I instructed like a sat nav so you could understand!"
"There is a reason I don't have a sat nav in the car!"
"If you had a sat nav in the car, you wouldn't have taken the wrong turn in the first place!"
"Are you going to buy me a sat nav?"
"So now I can pay for stuff?"
"You're impossible!" He groaned
"So I've been told!" I huffed.
And although Levi and I were arguing throughout the entire time, I could quite clearly see the corner of his lips twitch upwards at my last statement.
"You're really hard to argue with, you know that right?" He asked me
"I got that from my mom" I replied, smiling at the memory of her. She pretty much used to argue with my dad all the time, he always used to give in, exclaiming now he could never win with her.
"You should think about being a lawyer" He answered
"I have" I replied
"You have?"
"Yeah, when I was younger. I think I gave up on it because it meant interacting with people, but then I began considering it once again" I shrugged
I saw him laugh. "You don't seem like the antisocial type"
"Believe me, I'm not"
I could tell that Levi was confused at my statement, but he didn't seem to question it, which I was grateful for.
"Well" he began "We're here, so go ahead, pick a book" he said, gesturing towards the bookshop which we were arguing in front of. I tuned to my favourite place in the whole entire world and grinned
"Well come on!" I exclaimed excitedly.
I had basically skipped inside of the shop, making Levi follow behind me. I was so excited. I didn't usually get to visit actual book shops, mostly because the only person who had a car in the family was aunt Jen, who usually took it to work. Most of the times I had just ordered my books, but there was something different about walking into bookstores and being able to select your own book. It felt more magical.
I had dragged Levi up all the way to the top floor, which was where the young adult novels were. I think. I spent half an hour in there looking through every single shelf, trying to find the perfect book. I had a feeling that I was annoying Levi with how much time I had been spending searching for a book, but I knew that I wouldn't be coming up here any time soon, so I decided to revel in the moment. Although, surprisingly he didn't say anything. After a long while, I finally found the book that I wanted to buy. It was the first book in a three part trilogy called The Infernal Devices the first book being called Clockwork Angel. I had heard so many things about this book, and I had wanted to read the entire Mortal Instruments Series, so I was looking forward to reading it. I was told to read The Infernal Devices before The Mortal Instruments considering it was the prequel.
I looked up to see where Clockwork Angel was, but I frowned when I realised that it was on the top shelf and I was too small to grab it. I turned around to see Levi laughing at me.
"You're so mean to me!" I pouted childishly
He continued laughing, except he walked towards the shelf and grabbed the book I wanted. "Where would you be without me?" He asked, handing me the book.
"At home" I answered "Oh the peace!"
"Oh the bookless peace" he corrected
I rolled my eyes, despite finding myself to be smiling. "Thank you"
"No problem. Let's go pay" He suggested, walking downstairs, all the way to the counters.
I followed closely behind him and handed the book to him. At the counter was an old lady, she had grey hair and looked to be about fifty years old. She smiled at the two of us before grabbing the book off of Levi and putting it into a bag. "What a lovely couple! Linda come see the cute couple."
Before either of us could deny it, another lady came out of the back room, she looked as if she were in her mid to late twenties, she smiled at both of us adoringly. "You two are absolutely adorable" she cooed
"Oh no we're not a couple" I denied quickly
Levi smiled sweetly "We're friends"
"Oh, I'm so sorry." Linda apologised. "You two just look so cute together"
I inwardly cringed at the awkward atmosphere "Thank you" I replied, anyway.
"That's $7.98" The old woman said to Levi, who handed her $10 bill, as she passed the bag to me.
We both headed out towards the car, and once we got there I realised Levi was smirking.
"Do you ever stop smirking?" I questioned
"Not really" he shrugged "That makes a total of three people today who assumed we were a couple"
"Five if you count Eliza and my aunt" I muttered
"What?"
"Nothing!" I denied quickly
"All I'm saying is, if you confessed your undying love for me, I might consider going out with you and making these people happy" He teased me.
I snorted "Only in your dreams"
He looked at me dead in the eye "Every night"
I rolled my eyes in amusement before heading into the car.
Once we had gotten back to my place, it was pretty dark, considering it was almost winter and it got dark pretty quickly. Levi had insisted to walk me to the door despite me claiming that I would be absolutely content with my life if I walked to the door alone.
"Thank you for today" I said once I had got to my doorstep.
"It was no problem. And thank you for helping me study for English" He replied, looking into my eyes.
I felt my palms begin to sweat at the proximity we were standing at. "It was nothing, I enjoyed it" I answered, despite myself.
"I'll see you in school on Monday" Levi replied. I nodded, not moving my eyes from his. And before I knew it he was leaning in. His lips softly touched my cheek and I found myself smiling, despite my heartbeat accelerating.
"Bye" I replied, finding myself to still be smiling even once he had gotten into the car.
Written: 21/08/15
Published: 23/11/15