I hate when plans change.
My Saturdays are usually planned a little more productively. I try and get most of my work done on Friday nights and on Saturday mornings, so I can use the rest of it to chill and and relax.
However, it's really my Sunday's that are meant for lazing around.
It's the universal day to just be lazy, or for some, last minute homework.
Despite all of that, instead of laying on my coach like a potato, I am on my way to Liam's house.
My wonderful mother decided that Sunday was the perfect day to test out her baking skills. She knows she can cook, why she needs to test it? I have no clue.
She made little, carrot cake, muffin things and now I have to go over to Liam's house, to drop them off at their house.
This wasn't exactly a new occurrence for me. I often when to drop things off for my Mum, since Emma and were really fond of experimenting in the kitchen and trying out new things.
What kind of mother willing sends her young daughter over to a teenage boys' house? A crazy one, like mine.
I guess it made a little more sense now, since Liam and I were back to being friends again and our parents had quickly caught onto this too. They seemed thrilled about, but I'm not sure why they were so invested.
Carrying the basket, I walked up to their front door and rang the bell.
The door opened quite quickly and Emma stood there with the widest grin on her face.
"Rena!" Emma hugged me instantly.
She acts like she hasn't seen me in ages, when it was in fact yesterday I had seen her. But it was quite sweet the way she'd fawn all over me.
"Peter, look. It's Rena." Emma practically yelled to Peter, Liam's Dad.
He was currently on the sofa, in front of the tv, watching his football as usual.
"Hi, Mr Hunter," I smiled at him when he turned his head.
"Rena, my dear. How are you, love? And more importantly, what's in the basket?" He asked me.
I laughed at his question.
The best thing about Mr Hunter was that he would always start out as if he were interested in you or about you, but what he really cared about was food. However, but you wouldn't be able to tell, he still kept in shape.
"These are some carrot cake muffins my Mum made for you guys," I told him.
Whilst Mr Hunter's eyes gleamed at the sight of the muffins, Emma hugged me from the side.
"Oh, that's so sweet. I swear your Mum is on a mission to make me fatter," Emma said, taking the basket from me.
"I'll still love you the same, sweetheart," Mr Hunter said, giving her a sly wink.
"That's so sweet and complete bullshit," Emma then said, completely shutting Mr Hunter's affections down.
I stifled my laugh.
Mr Hunter didn't bother trying to stop his laughter, he just chuckled loudly. They were quite a sweet couple, with a lot of back and forth between them.
Before could say anything about heading to enjoy the rest of my Sunday, Emma yelled out loud.
"Liam! Get your butt down! Rena's here!" She shouted.
Very quickly, I heard a door open and the sound of abrupt footsteps, before Liam's face came into the peripheral vision.
"Hey, Rena," he greeted me and I turned towards him.
"Hey," I smiled.
I hadn't actually seen him since his date. After he left my house that day, I got caught up in somethings and spent majority of the time on a call with Sara.
"It's great that you're here. I was actually going to come over to yours in a bit," he told me.
That surprised me a little. "Oh? Is everything okay?"
"I actually had something for you," Liam then said.
Okay, that was more surprising. I won't lie, receiving gifts out of the blue always weirded me out. If there wasn't an occasion, I always got suspicious.
"What is it?" I asked him, curious to know what he had for me.
"It's my room. Come on," he said and waved his hand, gesturing for me to follow him upstairs.
Before I could step forward, Liam paused on the stairs and turned back, walking down again.
I thought he was walking towards me but instead, he stopped in front where I stood and reached out, to grab at the muffins.
I smacked his hand and glared at him.
"No muffins for you," I told him.
"Why not?" He pouted, rubbing the back of his hand.
I smiled sweetly. "My Mum sent them for Emma," I said and then heard someone clear the throat. "And Mr Hunter," I corrected myself, knowing it was him clearing his throat.
Liam narrowed his eyes at me.
Before I knew what he was doing, he quickly reached and grabbed two muffins with big, stupid hands, and ran upstairs.
I stood there gobsmacked for a second.
When I looked at Emma, she gave me one of those all-knowing Mum smiles.
Annoyed, I ran after Liam.
It made me laugh a little. This reminded me of when we were kids. We always did stuff like this and ran about the house. At one point Liam even ran into the wall when we were playing knights and dragons. He made an awful knight.
When I got to Liam's room, I didn't even knock, I just entered.
Momentarily, I had forgotten things had changed between us. I don't even know we had that friendship between us where I could do this.
As soon as I entered, another thing I realised was that I haven't been in here in ages. It's changed so much.
However, one thing that had remained a constant, was the pile of dirty clothes that sat on the corner of the floor, in his room. Weirdly, I kind of like that it hadn't changed.
In my room, it's the chair I throw things on.
I couldn't help but laugh at the football jerseys, framed and hung up, above the bed. There were three of them, from when he was younger to now. He always loved his jerseys, as a kid, he'd wear it so much, it was becoming tattered.
They all actually have a little doodle I had made on the hem of it. When I did it on the first one, I thought he'd hate me, but he actually made me do it on the second. He'd won the game after doodle and said it was some kind of weird sports superstition thing.
As I looked around his room, Liam was ruffling through some things at his desk, which was currently all messy with papers, stationary and folders, all across it.
I honestly have no clue how he gets work done in that mess. I always kept mine immaculate.
After some more searching, Liam then picked up something from his chair, which was under a hoodie. Yes, because that's a great place to put things.
Liam then approached me with the box in hand. "Here, this is for you," he said with a smile.
"What is it?" I asked, eyeing the box a little suspiciously.
"Would you just open it?" He told me.
I took it from his hands but still didn't open it.
"You're so annoying," he chuckled, clearly finding it funny that I wouldn't open the box.
"Just tell me what's it for," I told him.
He then sighed. "I went back to the arcade and got something for you."
I couldn't even help the confused expression that came over my face, because I really didn't understand what he mean.
"What'd you mean you went back? You were at the arcade for your date," I said, knowing that's were he already was for the date.
Liam nodded. "Yeah, I was."
"You gave your tickets to Julie to get the bear, how did you get this?" I asked him.
He clearly didn't expect me to know this.
"How did you know?" Liam questioned me.
"Julie told me. She called me after and told me everything. Even sent me a picture of the bear. It's cute," I told him.
Of course it wasn't exactly the highlight of my evening getting that call from Julie and to have her tell me all about the date, but she sounded so happy, it was quite sweet. She was gushing about the bear, the games and how sweet it all was. Again, not my highlight of the evening, but it was nice to hear how happy she was.
"After I dropped Julie, I went back to the arcade. I saw something that I thought you'd like and well, you've been really sweet to me and you accepted my apology. I feel like we're back to normal and I couldn't help myself. So, I went back and won you something, Rena," he said.
For the second time today, I stood there gobsmacked.
Instead of replying to him, I opened up the box and to my surprise, I found the cutest thing inside.
It was a small, elephant stuffed toy, one that had a little yellow, polka dot, bow tie.
He was so cute.
"You love elephants, so I made me think of you," Liam said.
"I do love elephants," I grinned. They my favourite animal. They're so cute and friendly and so smart.
"Are you going to name it?" Liam then asked me, a knowing smile on his face.
I raised a brow at him.
"Come on, Rena. I know you always give all of your stuffed toys a name. So, what's this little guy's name?" Liam said.
Well, he wasn't wrong. It was an odd habit of mine but I couldn't leave a teddy nameless. I was more surprised that he remembered that.
I looked at the little elephant and then smiled.
"Peanut," I said.
"Peanut?" Liam questioned me.
I nodded and hugged the stuffed toy to my chest. I know I'm probably too old to have teddies, but this little guy was special.
When I looked back at Liam, I saw that he was already smiling at me.
A part of me wanted to ask, but then the other part didn't. But then it wouldn't make a difference because I knew about it already. Maybe I could be sly about it and work it into the conversation?
"So, how was your date?" I blurted out the question
Idiot.
I just had to ask. I mean he just gave me a bear, plus it kind of feels like the elephant in the room...pun intended.
"It was great" He grinned. "Julie loved the arcade, we played nearly every game there. Her Grandpa used to take her to one, so she was so happy. It was unusual to see her like that, out of her shy and quiet shell, but I realised there is so much to her that I didn't know," he said.
Well, that was to be expected. It was a little stinging to hear, but then what was he going to say, it was awful with a smile on his face?
It's odd, but hearing it from Julie didn't sting as much.
"You look happy," I commented.
Liam nodded at my words. "I really am," he said and let out an amused breath, as if shocked by it himself.
"I could really fall for her," he then said, with a dazed smile.
It's funny how six random words, when strung together, could actually invoke a lot more emotion than they would individually.
It's also funny how he doesn't know that I already fell for him.
I guess the key thing is to fall, but just make sure to get up again.