Melt: A Vanilla One-Shot
For once, it was actually hot in Walden.
And by hot, I mean slightly warmer than usual, with just a hint of sunshine peeping through the ever-present clouds. Still, that smidgen of light was enough to bring out dozens of day-trippers and families on holiday; they crowded the streets in an array of sandals, swimming costumes, and umbrellas that were even brighter than my hair, all migrating towards the one location that this town had to boast about: the beach.
It was certainly nice to see Walden out of its year-long state of hibernation, but as I tried to make my way down the pavement to the ice cream shop, I decided that the tourist scene was much more appealing on a postcard. I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle yet another gaggle of teenage girls in bikinis blocking my path and giggling about snogging sessions with their boyfriends.
I'd been out of the house for ten minutes, and I already had a headache.
By the time I reached the shop, I was a hot and bothered mess: my lavender locks were falling untidily from their ponytail, my forehead was covered in a sheen of sweat, and my t-shirt and shorts felt like they were pasted to my skin. As I pushed open the jingling door to the family business, I found myself anticipating the cool air that usually greeted my entrances—and quickly realised that I was going to be sorely disappointed.
“It's boiling in here!” I cried, fanning myself with both hands as I was met with a stagnant heat that seemed to have blanketed the entire shop. There were fans up all over the small space, but all they did was push the hot air around the room and threaten to bake us all alive. Evidently, the customers had realised this; the queue consisted of a whopping total of one person: a petite blonde girl in a sun dress with shy eyes.
“Well, look at who's finally left her cave,” my brother remarked, smirking at me from his place at the till. He handed the girl her ice cream (a classic vanilla cone) and her change (a few quid), and thanked her as she ducked her head and scurried past me, out of the shop.
“Shut up,” I muttered, rolling my eyes as I strode further into the tiny shop. “What you should be more concerned about is the fact that it's so bloody hot right now. Last time I checked, this was an ice cream parlour, not a sauna.”
Daniel winced, tugging a hand through his damp brown hair. “I know, I know. I should have installed the air conditioner last month when mum suggested it. I didn't think it'd ever get so hot.”
“Well, you'd better get on with fixing that problem,” I snapped. “If you dragged me away from a beach day with Collette to spend the afternoon here, you'd better not let me melt.”
My brother was just opening his mouth (most likely to voice a snide comment about my sense of entitlement), but before he could speak, his girlfriend, Flo, ducked out of the storage area in the back with a gargantuan package of Flakes in her hand. When she caught sight of me, a wide grin spread across her features, and she tossed the box into Daniel's hands, bounding around the counter to envelope me in a crushing hug.
“Erin, I'm so glad you came,” she gushed as she pulled away. “How are you?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I'm hot, sweaty, and so completely fed up with these tourists that I might just stab the next one I see with their own umbrella. Especially if it doesn't cool down soon. I'm built for English weather, not California sunshine.”
Flo laughed brightly, her eyes crinkling at the sides as she nodded. She'd become so much more outgoing since I'd first met her; the Flo who'd come to Walden a year before had barely been able to open her mouth without blushing furiously.
“God, yeah, the weather's insane right now,” she agreed, shaking her head so that her dark curls flew. “It's got to be nearly twenty-eight degrees out there. Forecast says it might be the hottest day of the year.”
I shook my head, shuddering inwardly at the feeling of perspiration crawling down the back of my neck. Since summer started, I'd been praying for one warm day, but this weather was verging on ridiculous. After dealing with insufferable torrential downpour for ninety-nine percent of the year, the sudden heat wave was more than a bit shocking.
Running a hand across my brow, I made my way behind the counter, where my brother was examining the ice cream display with a frown on his lips.
“Flo, come here a minute,” he beckoned to his girlfriend, squinting at the glass. She edged around me to lean down beside him, their matching aprons creating a wall of blue. “Does the ice cream look like it's melting to you?”
Flo tilted her head, looking closely at the countless vats of flavours. “A little bit, actually. It looks...mushy.”
I raised an eyebrow, taking a glance at the ice cream—which, by the way, looked perfectly frozen to me. “Doesn't it have it's own refrigerating system?” I asked. “It's not like the ice cream needs air-conditioning to stay cool.”
“It does, but”—Daniel's brow furrowed—“it's definitely melting.”
“Right.” I rolled my eyes, but neither of them noticed. “Well, it's perfectly fine with me if you want to stand around and watch ice cream melt all day, but I'm a bit confused as to why you've both brought me down here. Unless, of course, you enjoy watching me sweat my skin off my body.”
“About that,” Daniel said, looking up at me. “We actually need you to watch the shop for a few hours. It won't be long, but Flo and I are dying in here.”
I raised an eyebrow, crossing my arms over my chest. “Okay, wait a minute. You and Flo want to go have a nice snogging session, so—”
“It's not to snog, don't be rid—”
“Please,” I drawled. “We all know how it'll end up. But the point is, you're going to go out and leave me here, alone, in what is currently an oversized oven. That's cruel and unusual punishment.”
Flo shook her head quickly, her dark curls flying as a smirk found its way to her lips. “You won't be alone, actually. We've invited someone along to keep you company.”
At that moment, the door to the back room flew open, narrowly missing Flo's head as it slammed into the wall. In its place now stood a beaming boy with stiffly-gelled black spikes, his arms out to either side of his body and his hands waving wildly.
“Ta-da!” Jay exclaimed, spinning around in what I gauged to be a poorly executed pirouette before dumping himself into a comical bow. “Company, at your service.”
Blinking, I stared down at Jay, who was holding his ending pose as if expecting a round of applause. When the only sound to be heard was the quiet hum of the fans, he straightened up awkwardly and brushed down the front of his shirt.
“All right, Erin?” he said, grinning at me.
I shook my head, a smile creeping onto my lips. “What the hell are you doing here, Archer?”
“They called me in, too,” he explained, his eyes on me. “Said you needed my help.”
“The only thing that needs help around here are your dancing abilities. I am actually traumatised.” Turning to Flo and Daniel, I added, “Jay and I broke up ages ago, by the way. What made you think his presence would bring me any kind of joy?”
Jay scoffed, feigning offence. “It has actually only been two weeks, thank you very much. And anyway” – he sidled over, throwing an arm around my shoulder – “we parted as friends.”
I couldn't answer right away, because my face had wound up tucked into his armpit, leaving my nose completely unprotected from any bodily odours. When I managed to twist out from under his half-embrace, I sputtered, “We're only friends when you wear deodorant.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jay take a sniff at his striped t-shirt, and rolled my eyes affectionately. By the till, Daniel coughed, drawing our attention back to the moment.
“So, are you two going to stay?” he asked hopefully. “We just need a lunch break. It's half noon right now, and I swear, we'll be back in an hour.”
“And you're already here,” Flo added.
Jay glanced at me, his expression teasing. “I dunno. I mean, the beach is right there. We could always just cut out of here and take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime weather situation.”
Daniel glared at him, narrowing his hazel eyes, before looking at me. “Erin, please, I'm begging here. Please? You're my favourite sister.”
“I'm your only sister, you arsehole,” I muttered. “But fine, we'll stay. Whatever. Have fun snogging.”
“We're not—”
“Leave.” I pointed at the door. “Before I change my mind.”
“Thank you!” Flo spun me into quick hug whilst simultaneously grabbing her boyfriend's hand and tugging him around the counter. As they passed the last of the ice cream display, though, Daniel suddenly paused and turned to me.
“Do you have any money on you, by the way?”
Frowning, I reached into the pocket of my shorts and emptied the contents into my hand. “I've got a tenner and some coins.” I held them up. “Why?”
Before he even began to answer, my brother was reaching over the counter and plucking the money out of my hand. “There's a chippy just down the way, Erin. Fish and chips are practically obligatory.”
“Hey, don't—”
But they were already gone, dashing out through the jingling door and into the stifling summer heat.
Not that the temperature indoors was any better.
“They'd better hurry,” Jay remarked, joining me at the counter. “It's really quite hot in here.”
I pushed my colourful hair out of my eyes, sighing in agreement. “Actually, I believe the word you're looking for is sweltering. Christ, this is England; it should be tipping it down out there right now.”
Bobbing his head, Jay slowly made his way around the counter to the nearest fan, which was mounted to the wall just above the door. Closing his eyes, he spread his arms out to either side and tilted his head back, so that his spiky hair quivered in the breeze.
I huffed at the ice cream display, taunting me from within the chilled glass case. I found myself wishing that I could crawl in and spend the rest of the day cocooned in a bed of icy sugar and aluminium tins. Flo and Daniel might have thought that it was slowly turning to mush, but I was fairly certain that I was melting far quicker than the frozen treats below me.
When I looked up again, I was startled to find that Jay had moved away from the fan, and was now standing on the other side of the counter, studying me with furrowed brows.
“You don't mind, do you?” he queried, as I shifted under his gaze.
“Mind what?”
“Me.” He pointed at himself. “Being here. With you. Since we're not, you know, together any more?”
I scoffed, reaching across the counter to smack him lightly across the arm. “God, you're an idiot. We were friends long before any of that happened, and we're staying that way. Besides, it was a mutual decision. For practicality's sake, right?”
“Right.” Jay nodded, looking away. “I was just making sure.”
I paused, biting my lip. “You don't mind either, right? Me, being here?”
“No, of course not.” He smiled a bit. “I'm glad you're here, actually. It would be dull, suffering through this alone.”
“No kidding,” I chuckled.
Jay flashed another familiar smile, then wandered along down the short length of the shop. I let my gaze trail after him, taking in all the little details that I knew so well. Even so many days after calling it off, I was still having trouble getting used to being around him in a non-romantic capacity again.
It had been a mutual decision, really. With A-levels out of the way and summer already two weeks from its close, we'd realised that uni was quickly creeping up on us. He was Surrey-bound while I was shipping off to Cardiff, and though the two schools weren't terribly far apart, two-and-a-half hours was still a healthy commute. It was in both of our best interests, we decided, to end our year-long relationship before things got messy. And I didn't regret the decision; I knew that it was the smart thing to do. But sometimes, looking at Jay, I couldn't help but wish that it wasn't currently inappropriate to stride right over and kiss him until we were completely out of air.
“All right, this is ridiculous,” Jay declared suddenly, startling me from my thoughts. He was standing by the door with his hands on his hips and a frown on his lips, watching the busy street and probably noticing how completely empty the shop was by comparison.
“The heat or the lack of customers?” I asked, leaning forward to rest my chin on the counter.
“Both.” He sighed. “Look, there's clearly no one queueing up to get the flavour of the week right now, and we're practically dying of heat stroke, what do you say we take a quick trip back to the freezer for some ice cream of our own?”
I raised my eyebrows, smirking slightly. “I hope that's not how you usually try to entice girls,” I commented. “Inviting someone to the freezer sounds a bit more like 'I want to kill you and preserve your body' than 'I want to snog your face off.'”
Jay wrinkled his nose, stopping just short of sticking out his tongue at me. “You'll be glad to know that I don't intend to kill you or snog your face off,” he said dryly. “But come on. You know as well as I do that your brother keeps all the good flavours in the back, and it's not like he's here to stop us from having just a bite. Besides, the shop is dead right now. No one will miss us.”
Squinting at him, I weighed my options. To claim that the shop needed me would be a flat out lie; as would saying that it was more comfortable out in the main area. Let's be honest: it was about twenty degrees above boiling, and the thought of sitting in a frigid room, if only for a minute, was growing increasingly more appealing.
“Right, then,” I said eventually. “Let's go.”
Grinning, Jay hurried back behind the counter and opened the door for me with a flourish. The room inside was general storage; it was full of toppings and cones and cups and spoons. The freezer lay behind a door on the left wall, and that was where I headed, leaning against the handle and revealing the space within.
Immediately, I was hit with a cold (but not unwelcome) blast of air, making me shiver. Already, I could feel the beads of sweat evaporating off my skin. Jay came in behind me, rubbing his arms.
“Thank God for freezers,” he muttered, nudging the door shut with his foot. “And holy ice cream. So much for plain old vanilla being a way of life.”
We stopped at the same time in the centre of the room, staring in awe at all the metal shelves, stacked with container after container of freshly churned ice cream in too many flavours to count. On a such a hot day, I figured it was as close to heaven as we could get.
“I don't even know where to start,” I admitted, turning in a slow circle and trying to take it all in at once. I knew, of course, that all the ice cream the shop could ever need was kept in the freezer, but I'd rarely ventured back there. Since Dad died, Daniel always handled everything ice cream related.
Jay frowned thoughtfully. “I suggest starting with a scooper and some cones. We may be desperate for heat relief, but even Neanderthals wouldn't have eaten ice cream with their hands. It's practically sinful.”
I rolled my eyes, but couldn't resist a small laugh. “Okay then, I'll go get them,” I said, turning to leave. I sucked in a breath, already anticipating the blast of heat that would assault me the second I was out the door. But as I tugged roughly on the metal handle, I instead found myself emitting a little anxious gasp.
The door wouldn't open.
“Erin?” Jay ventured, and I heard him coming up behind me. Without responding, I continued jiggling the doorknob, hoping that my desperation would be enough to will it open. But it didn't budge; no matter how hard I shook and tugged, the door remained stubbornly shut.
I banged my fist against the metal, quickly growing panicked. “Hello?” I called at the top of my voice. “Anyone?” There was no reply from the other end.
“Here, let me give it a go.” Jay came up beside me, significantly calmer. The sleeve of his t-shirt grazed against my shoulder as I scooted out of the way.
Chewing on my lip, I watched him perform the same frantic tugging ritual, only to be granted with the same results. For whatever reason, the door was completely stuck.
“Brilliant,” I grumbled, as Jay stepped back. I fixed a glare on the handle, as if my anger alone would be enough to loosen it. “We're trapped in here.”
“Do you have your mobile?”
Quickly, I patted down my pockets, only to feel the distinct lack of the rectangular shape against my thigh. “No,” I groaned, “I left it at home.”
“Well, shit.” Jay pressed his lips together, worry forming on his features. “I dropped mine in the toilet last night.”
I glanced at him sharply, thinking it was yet another one of his jokes. But when I saw nothing but solemnity in his expression, I snorted.
“Lord, how did you manage that?”
He puffed out his chest, smirking. “With an incredible amount of finesse and tactical ability.”
“You're quite skilled, aren't you?”
“Oh, you know,” he said breezily, “I'm a man of many talents.”
I shook my head. “If you're so talented, I suppose you'd be able to tell me what exactly we're meant to do now?”
Jay shrugged, his shoulders bouncing calmly. “Dunno. Guess we wait it out till Flo and Daniel get back. You've got to admit, of all the places to be stuck on a hot day, this isn't the worst one.”
“Suppose not.”
“And anyway,” he continued, “we came in here to eat ice cream. Now we don't really have a choice.”
I watched him silently as he scouted about the room, his trainers thumping against the tile floor. He scanned the shelves carefully before finally leaning over and extracting something from behind a carton of plain vanilla.
“Bingo,” he said, holding up a package of disposable spoons.
I grinned, holding out my hand for a spoon. Instead, Jay emptied about half the package onto my palm—it's a miracle that none hit the ground.
“Be careful!” I cried, dumping them onto the nearest shelf. “You could have dropped some.”
Now it was Jay's turn to roll his eyes as he said, “Oh, shut up and go eat some ice cream already.”
I still had no idea where to start, but Jay seemed to have no qualms about cracking open the first container he laid eyes upon. Its label read “Triple Chocolate Brownie Mocha Fudge,” and inside was an incredibly chocolatey mix that undoubtedly lived up to its name.
“It's amazing,” Jay exclaimed, having already downed a spoonful. “This one's a winner.”
“With your stomach, I have a feeling you're going to say that about every flavour you try,” I noted, but reached over to scoop out my own sample all the same. My taste-buds were instantly swept with such an intense flavour of chocolate that I could feel my eyes water and my mouth begin to dry out from too much sugar.
“It's good,” I managed eventually, blinking rapidly.
“And that's the understatement of the century,” Jay scoffed, his eyebrows lifting nearly to the tips of his spiky hair. “Come on, Erin. Step it up.”
I snorted. “Is that a challenge? Because you know what, I will find you a real winner. Way better than any kind of Chocolate Fudge Triplet nonsense.”
Turning on my heel, I reached out a hand to the nearest shelf and ran it over all the cartons until I came to one that seemed satisfactory. Pulling it off the shelf, I held out the container of “Strawberry Meltdown” and let Jay take it from my grip. He swiftly removed the top, and we took turns dragging up hearty scoops.
“You reckon it's good, then?” he asked, studying his spoon with that look of concentration I knew so well. He stood so much farther from me than normal, and I had to fight the urge to close the distance.
I glanced away, focusing instead on my own sample. Despite being in the freezer, the pinkish scoop was already melting at the edges. “Oh, definitely,” I said confidently. “Let's confirm on the count of three, all right? One. Two. Three.”
In unison, we shoved our spoons into our mouths—and nearly choked. The ice cream might have looked like strawberry, but the taste that lingered in my mouth seemed more likely to have come from a good dose of rubbish, straight out of the bin.
Next to me, Jay was having a similar reaction, his hand on his throat as he made a face of disgust. Seeing him like that, with one eye squinted and his tongue lolling, was enough to pull an embarrassingly loud laugh from my lips. The second the sound hit the quiet air (well, quiet apart from from Jay's exaggerated gagging), I slapped a hand over my mouth.
He'd heard, of course, and a triumphant grin found its way onto his features. “I knew I could get a laugh out of you,” he boasted. “But I think I'll hold the celebration until after I swallow my weight in soap. That was worse than Marmite.”
“I actually like Marmite,” I grumbled, frowning.
“Well, you're alone on that,” he informed me. “But now I need something to get that hideous taste out of my mouth.” Without looking, he reached behind him and pulled down a carton labelled “Candy Floss.”
“Interesting.”
He grinned at me. “How much you want to bet this will taste ten times better than whatever the hell you just tried to poison me with?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Shut up. I guarantee that this one will taste even more atrocious.”
Jay raised the lid slightly, peaking at the contents of the carton. “Well, it looks a bit like your hair, really.”
Frowning, I moved beside him to take a look for myself, and quickly found that he was right. Since I'd added streaks of blue to my purple dye, the violet-azure swirls of the ice cream were an almost exact match.
“Candy floss, my arse,” I muttered. “This flavour should be named after me.”
“We'll see what you say after we try it, won't we?”
“Um, weren't you the one who just claimed that this would be amazing?”
“Yeah, but that was before I looked at it,” Jay teased. “Bit dodgy, seeing how much it matches your hair. I'm just hoping it doesn't taste like it, too.”
Fixing him with a glare, I snatched the carton out of his hands and dug my own spoon in, then passed the container back. As the cold, creamy dessert melted over my tongue, I felt my eyes widen in some kind of sugar-induced wonder. The flavour was, without a doubt, the most delicious thing I had ever eaten in my life. My hands acted of their own accord, reaching out to take the ice cream back from Jay just as he was about to taste it.
“You okay there, Erin?” he questioned, his features radiating amusement.
“I'm trapped in a freezer,” I mumbled, my mouth full, “and this ice cream is the best thing I've ever had. I'm taking advantage of it.”
I'm not sure how much time passed, but several cartons later, I was slumped against one of the shelves, my hands pressed against my aching stomach. Jay was lying face-down on the floor amidst a scattering of discarded spoons, groaning woefully.
“My God, you looked pissed out of your mind,” I chuckled, glancing at his prone form.
He lifted his head just slightly to look at me. “And I feel like it, too. Who knew ice cream could be so intoxicating?”
Shaking my head, I cast a glance at the cartons we'd taken out, a few of which had toppled over and many of which had a sizeable dent taken out of them.
“I know. Safe to say I'll be staying away from the shop for a while.”
“Yeah,” Jay agreed, then slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. “That is, assuming we ever leave. Where the hell are Flo and Daniel?”
“No idea.” I sighed. “And I don't know about you, but eating all that ice cream has made me kind of cold. I would actually welcome the heat out there, at this point.”
Jay tilted his head, a look of mischief forming in his eyes. “Well, you know what they say about huddling up for warmth—”
I hurled my empty spoon at his face.
“Don't you start,” I warned, trying to ignore the fact that my heart was suddenly beating just a little bit faster. “Let's just try to get out of here.”
Before he could respond, I struggled to my feet and made my way to the door, feeling about ten pounds heavier that I had that morning. I jiggled the handle with both hands, trying to ignore how icy the metal was beneath my fingertips. But of course, though I'd harboured a sliver of hope that it might open, the door remained firmly and unalterably shut.
“We could climb out the air vent,” Jay suggested, pointing to the wall as I turned back around.
I opened my mouth immediately, about to scold him for the idea, but paused when my eyes followed his finger to the rectangular grid on the wall. It was small, but big enough to crawl through, and the worn metal looked fairly easy to pry away.
“I've only ever seen it done in films,” I began, “but it's worth a try, I guess. Help me onto the shelf there.”
It took several moments for Jay to stand up, but when he did, he stepped over to the shelf and squatted down, cupping his hands out in front of him. “Go on,” he urged. “I won't drop you.”
Taking a deep breath, I braced one hand on Jay's shoulder and used the other to tug on one of the shelves and make sure it was, in fact, bolted into the wall. If I pulled down the entire display, I couldn't help but think that Daniel would be just a little bit angry.
When I was certain that my footing would be solid, I stepped carefully onto Jay's outstretched hands. With all ten fingers splayed across the highest shelf, I proceeded to place my other foot next to a carton of Cookies n' Cream. Soon, both of my feet were on the rack, and I was clinging to it for dear life.
“Please be careful,” Jay called, hovering behind me.
“Yeah, I'll try my best,” I replied dryly.
The vent was now in reach; all I had to do was release one hand and reach up to it. Easy, I thought, as I peeled away my fingers one by one. But the second my hand was in the open air, I felt my balance begin to slip off its centre. A shriek escaped my lips as, without warning, I was suddenly tumbling backwards, off the shelf and on a fast track towards the ground.
“Erin!” Jay cried, and suddenly he was behind me, catching me in his arms before I could hit the tile. The force of my awkward landing made him stumble backwards, and I slipped back onto my feet as we both crashed into the wall.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, my heart racing. I reached up to put my hand against the wall, only to find that Jay's shoulder was in the way. Quite suddenly, I realised that our proximity was nearer than it had been in quite a while.
“What did I tell you about being careful?” he said softly, a small smile beginning to form on his extremely close face.
“Sorry,” I mumbled blearily, distracted by our proximity. He was staring down at me, robbing any words from my tongue. “I guess I just—”
I never finished my sentence, because suddenly Jay's lips were crashing against mine. Though I knew that we had broken up, and this shouldn't have been happening, my immediate reaction (after the initial shock) was to kiss him back. And even though a part of my mind was screaming at me to push him away, it was quickly taken over by the overwhelming conviction that this was right. My fingers reached up to tangle in his hair, and he pressed closer, so that everything in that moment paled in comparison to that single kiss.
Oxygen seemed to to become irrelevant, and even when my lungs began aching for air, I found myself strangely unable to break away. Vaguely, I thought I heard something crash, and then the sound of my name being called, but it was entirely too easy to pretend that was all in my head. Everything had happened so quickly, but in those few seconds, I suddenly understood that Jay meant more to me than any distance, whether it be two hours or ten. We had too much history to give up, and clearly, too many feelings to ignore. And although it'd taken getting locked in a freezer to realise that, I knew I wasn't ever going to forget it.
“Hey,” I murmured breathlessly, when we finally came up for air, “remember that idea I had? The one where I said we should break up before we go to uni?”
My heart was beating a mile a minute, and my lips were suddenly feeling extremely bare, but I waited until Jay had said, “Ah, vaguely.”
I stood on my toes, pressing my nose against his. “That was the stupidest idea I've ever had. I take it back.”
Jay grinned widely, and was just leaning down for a second round when a sudden, resounding bang echoed through the room. We leapt apart, our hurried separation making us seem more than a little bit guilty. I felt a blush rise to my cheeks as I turned to see who'd burst in.
In the doorway to the freezer stood Daniel, his eyebrows high, clutching the broken off handle of the freezer door. Flo was tucked under his arm, frozen in place with fish and chips in hand and a wooden fork poised halfway to her mouth.
“Are we interrupting something?” my brother asked carefully.
Jay, of course, recovered first, running a hand through his unruly hair and letting out an uneven laugh. “Wow, you guys fixed the door! We were, uh, trying to sort that out.”
“With your lips?” Flo snorted. “Honestly, this isn't the best location to snog. It's a bit cold.”
I felt a blush creep onto my cheeks as Flo winked at me, her eyes darting between me and Jay. “We didn't mean—we weren't trying—it wasn't like—” I paused, biting my lip. “We were just here for the ice cream,” I managed eventually, crossing my arms.
“Yeah,” Jay seconded quickly. “Just tasting a few of the secret flavours. By the way, 'Strawberry Meltdown' is a big no. 'Candy Floss', on the other hand, is quite good.”
“So, let me get this straight.” My brother looked at the handle in his palm, amusement lighting on his features. “This whole time, you were stuck in here, eating ice cream?”
Jay nodded. “Yeah. We came in to keep cool and the door...broke. We had to find some way to keep from starving. Quite an ordeal, really.”
“Seems you found a way to keep yourselves occupied,” Flo remarked. There was a smirk on her lips and obvious smugness in her eyes.
“Wipe that grin off your face, Florence Kennedy,” I snapped, making a face.
She giggled innocently, sticking her fork into a piece of fish. “I just can't believe you ate so much ice cream.”
“Speaking of ice cream,” Jay piped, “I refuse to have another bite. Erin and I are officially retiring from the taste testing business.”
“I'm afraid you were never hired to begin with,” Daniel stated, at the same time that I queried, “We are?”
Ignoring my brother's comment, Jay said, “We are. In fact, we're actually going to leave right this minute.”
A bemused look fell upon the faces of the couple in front of us as Jay took my hand. “And where are you going?” Daniel asked.
“That's a good question,” I said, glancing at Jay with eyebrows raised. “Where are we off to?”
He shrugged. “Not sure yet. Guess we'll find out.”
“Probably off to find a private place to snog,” Flo muttered. “I sure hope they're better at that then watching the shop.”
“Could be.” Jay grinned. “And don't worry, we are.” He pulled me with him across the small freezer, and I felt a smile began to slip its way onto my lips. As we passed Flo on our way out the door, he calmly plucked the plate right out of her hands, wooden fork and all.
“Hey, you little—”
“Jolly good day to you both,” he interrupted, tipping an imaginary hat. I reached over his shoulder and nabbed a chip as we scurried out of the still-empty shop, glad to have a savoury taste in my mouth. Because although I had no idea where Jay was taking me, and no idea where our lives would go from here, I was about one-hundred percent certain that I'd had enough ice cream to last me a lifetime.
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A/N: Well, I hope this was passably British, because I included wooden forks and "jolly good" and trainers and arseholes and all that good stuff
And...idk what to even say here except that it took ages to write this but Jerin is my fave and I hope this somewhat lives up to everyone's exceedingly high expectations lol
p.s. the blonde girl at the beginning was Freya xoxo