***Navaeh’s P.O.V.***
My head was swimming with things that I should’ve said to Niall before I left; things that would’ve made him see how wrong he was about all of this. He was-in fact-wrong about this. Why’d he have to be such a downer about it too? I mean, gosh, I don’t hear those words from anyone, and was it wrong to want to believe that Cody actually meant them. He seemed like a nice guy, and it wasn’t as if he was trying to jump my bones. But of course Niall just had to assume that Cody was like ‘every other boy’.
I let my shoes scrape across the side walk while I made my way down to the park. I wasn’t going to go home yet; I hated that place with a passion even if my step father wasn’t there to torment me. For tonight, I would just sit at the park until it was time to go back. Maybe I would sit on the swings for a little while…
After finding a bench and plopping down on it, I rubbed at my temples while letting out a long groan. Niall was so frustrating some times. He acted like he wanted me to make friends, but now that I have met someone who could be a potential friend he acts like it could be a bad thing. Couldn’t he just be happy about it? Whatever, I was dwelling on it too much and it was only making my head hurt.
“Navaeh?” a voice called from a little ways down the sidewalk to my right. For a second, my mind couldn’t register who it was, and I had a sinking in my feeling in my stomach when I thought that it might be Niall. I really didn’t want to talk to him in that moment. I rose my head to see who it was, and was greeted by a pair of green eyes that practically radiated a welcoming feeling.
“Cody? What are you doing here?” I wondered as I stood from the bench rather awkwardly.
“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” he chuckled with a shake of his head. He motioned towards the bench in a way to ask if he could take a seat, and I nodded while sitting down as well. “I just got off of work; I have to walk by here to get back to my house,” he told me as he pointed to a name tag on his uniform that said that he worked at the local grocers market.
“I was coming back from a friend’s flat,” I supplied.
Cody nodded and ran his hand through his hair before regarding me with an observant look. His eyes glanced over my face before he asked, “you okay? You look a little frustrated.”
I couldn’t help but to scoff a little while shaking my head, “yeah, you could say that. I didn’t leave his flat on good terms.”
“A fight?” he questioned to which I nodded, “those are never fun.”
“Not at all,” I agreed. I was glad that he didn’t ask what the fight was about. That would lead to a more than awkward conversation.
“So, Navaeh, would you mind if I walked you home?” Cody proposed with a wide and friendly smile that seemed to light up the area around us. The sky was starting to get that dark red tint to it, and soon there would be no natural light left beside the moon and stars. I still had an hour or two before I would have to go home so that I could go to bed. I had no desire to go home before then, though.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather not go home,” I declined as politely as humanly possible. He raised an eyebrow in question before he seemed to remember something.
“Oh, right, family problems,” he recalled from earlier in the day when we had talked. “Is there anywhere else that you’d like to go?” he wondered. I thought it was sweet that he wanted to walk with me somewhere, and I tried to figure out a place where I could go. Definitely not Niall’s. As if I needed help deciding, my stomach growled and I slapped my hands over it with a blush.
He chuckled before simply saying, “Cute.” The one word only made me blush even more. “I’m guessing that you haven’t had anything to eat yet.”
“Well, I was eating with my friend, but I left before I could finish,” I shrugged, “have you eaten yet?”
He shook his head in response while patting his stomach lightly, “haven’t had anything since lunch because the store was busy today. Would you maybe want to grab something down at the diner?” His smile had turned nervous with the words, and he wasn’t trying to cover it up at all. It was sort of cute to see a boy get a little flustered while talking to me. It hadn’t really happened to me before, and it was a little refreshing.
“Yeah,” I nodded, “I’d love to.”
“Great!” he exclaimed happily while he hopped off of the bench and held out his hand to help my up as well. I took it with a smile, and held on as he pulled me up. “I’ll pay,” he stated and it didn’t sound like it was a moot point, but I argued anyways.
“You don’t have to do that; I have some money,” I protested.
“No, no,” he shook his head while we made our way down the sidewalk and towards the quaint diner, “I insist.” With a smile making its way onto my lips again, I decided to leave it at that and not argue anymore. If he wanted to pay for it then I wouldn’t stop him from doing so. “So, what’s your favorite color?” he asked out of the blue.
“My favorite color? Really?” I laughed, “That’s how we’re going to start?”
“Hey,” he laughed as well while he said the word defensively, “I have to get to know you somehow, and why not start with the basics?”
“I guess,” I nodded along just as the diner came into view. “It’s blue, by the way,” I told him which brought back his wide smile. When we reached the doors of the diner, he held the door open for me and then followed a waiter and me to a booth near the back of the comfortable little place. Cody slid into the seat across from me and we both picked up our menus when the waiter placed them in front of us. I felt a pair of eyes on me as I skimmed through the different items, and I tried to ignore them until I couldn’t any longer. Lowering my menu just enough so that I could peek over it, I watched him raise his so that he was no longer looking at me, and I couldn’t help but to giggle when he lowered it again as if we were playing a game of peek-a-boo. “What?” I giggled.
“Nothing,” he shrugged before another smile over powered his casual look and he couldn’t help but to give a real answer, “it’s just like I said at lunch; you’re beautiful. It’s hard to not look at beautiful people.” This boy seemed to enjoy making me blush, because when I heard his words I could feel my cheeks heating up and it only made his smile widen. As if he was embarrassed by his own words, he ducked his head behind the menu again. I looked down at my own menu with a goofy smile that just wouldn’t go away.
When the waiter came by to collect our menus and ask for our orders, Cody was a total gentleman and insisted that I order first. Once the waiter walked away, we were left to look at each other without the menus to hide behind. “Well, I know that your favorite color is blue, but I have no idea what your favorite book is,” he prompted.
“Whoa,” I halted even though I was trying hard to fight back my laughter, “let’s not rush things. I don’t even know what your favorite color is. Plus, I don’t relinquish what my favorite book is until at least the second date.”
“Mm,” he hummed out with an ever widening smile, “so this is a date? I didn’t realize that I was so lucky.”
My cheeks were heating up yet again, and I tried to drape my hair over them so that he couldn’t see, “no, this is more like a hang-out I would say. I hardly know you well enough to say that we’re on a date.”
He shot me a playful pout before speaking, “that’s a pity; I was rather liking the sound of being on a date with a girl such as yourself.” There he went again, making me blush.
“If you keep going on like this then I’ll be a tomato before the food even gets to the table,” I mumbled even thought there was an obvious amount of amusement laced into my words.
“Well, you’d be a cute tomato never the less,” he shrugged. I looked up at him with a fake glare before we both laughed at our own conversation. It was silly, but it was just the kind of light hearted banter that was needed right then. My mind had totally forgotten the argument with Niall, and I was hanging onto the current moment so that I could be happy and maybe end the day on a happy note. It would be fantastic to have a day actually end well.
“So, am I going to get an answer?” I wondered after we had both calmed down from laughing.
He nodded his head, but he wasn’t able to tell me right away because the waiter came by to drop off our drinks and we were too busy thanking him. “Brown,” he answered once he had taken a sip from his Coca-Cola, and then he added in, “like your eyes.” I choked on my drink slightly, but I soon got over it and shook my head at him with a small smile.
“You’re quite smooth,” I pointed out.
“Why thank you,” he grinned, “but I’m just being honest. You really are beautiful, Navaeh, and I suspect that you have an even better personality.”
“We’ll see about that,” I replied with a sort of challenging tone in my voice. I hoped that he liked the person that I was; I already liked the person that he seemed to be. Hopefully, I wouldn’t scare him off in any way, but I didn’t think I would only because he genuinely seemed like he understood. Let’s hope that I was right and Niall was wrong.