Noah's P.O.V
I looked down each side of the sidewalk again for like the hundredth time already today, trying to catch a glimpse of her walking by here but I was disappointed yet again. It was the next day, I was currently standing outside of the cafe to try and meet Ceila again at the same time we had met yesterday but she was still nowhere to be found. I sighed and gave up waiting there, thinking that maybe she had already gone to that house she took piano lessons from. Just as I pushed myself off of the wall to start walking towards the neighborhood someone walked out of the cafe at the same time, the sound of the bell hanging over the door chiming as the person bumped right into me.
"I'm sorry!" We both say at the same time.
The person's notebook and text book both tumbled out of their arms to the ground so I bent down to pick the items up for them. They ended up doing the same thing which made our heads knock into each other. When I finally looked up at the stranger I recognized those beautiful blue eyes behind the clear framed glasses.
"I'm I going to get a concussion every time we run into each other?" Celia asked as she massaged the sore spot on her head.
"I'm so sorry!" I panicked a bit, thinking of how stupid I was as I picked up her things that had fell.
The notebook's cover was decorated with a blue, white, and green pastel marble and the word history written across the top in sharpie. It was paired with the history text book that I also picked up.
"Are you okay?" I ask as I handed her things back to her.
She took back her belongings, our fingers taking a moment to brush over each other which sent my stomach doing flips and left my wolf howling at the small contact. My heart began to beat so fast to the point where I was surprised it didn't explode. Celia blushed lightly, fiddling with the corner of her notebook as her eyes darted in all different directions to avoid my gaze. She looked so cute wearing her big pink knit cardigan over her small frame matched with a white shirt, jeans, and sneakers. I blushed even more then I was currently.
"Hey Squish, did you see the-oh. Who is this?"
The bell above the cafe door rang out again when a girl with short brown hair walked out. She was holding to drinks with her arm and holding her phone with her separate hand. This girl wore an oversized mustard yellow sweater, black skinny jeans, and brown ankle boots. It would be obvious to anyone that she was wearing make-up due to her eyeliner and dark read lipstick applied every boldly to her slender face. To be honest, this girl's look added to her demeanor scared me a little because it felt like at any moment she would sock me in the face if I angered her. The girl paused when she saw me with Celia, giving a confused look to the both of us.
"Oh, Ally. This is...Noah?" Celia looked up at me questioningly, mostly asking me if she had gotten my name right.
I gave her a small nod and stuck my hands into my pockets.
Celia turned back to her friend, now named Ally, "We bumped into each other yesterday."
"Oh, I see." Ally smiled and examined me all over, "So this is the boy you were yapping on about."
"Ally!" Celia shouted and blushed profusely.
Ally giggled and tucked her phone away into her back pocket, holding her hand out to me, "Hi, I'm Ally. Celia's best friend and partner in crime."
I shook her hand, "Noah."
"I guess I'll leave you both too it. Here is your hot chocolate you coffee-hater." Ally handed Ceila one of the cups she was holding.
Celia took it from Alley and pointed her finger at her accusingly, "Excuse me but coffee stains teeth and tastes bitter anyway. And you were supposed to help me study for history, hence why I brought you here."
"You already know that history is not my cup of tea. You got a math equation to solve, you come to me.
I looked in between the two girls and listened to their bickering. From what I had caught onto was that Ceila needed help to study for history and had brought her friend, Ally, to help her be she couldn't. Back when I was in high school I remembered how every class seemed to drag on for hours but when I was in history, the forty-five minutes never seemed to be enough. I loved absorbing the details of the different times and events of the past. Now with Ceila here who needed help with my most beloved subject was like destiny falling into place. This was my chance!
"I can help you with it." I interrupted them both.
Celia looked up at me with wide eyes that were laced with surprise, "You can?"
"Yeah." I shrugged carelessly to hide my growing excitement, "I always had an A in those classes when I went to school."
"I wouldn't want to bother you-" Ceila waves her hands worriedly.
"She'd love too!" Ally suddenly hopped in and spoke for her.
Celia's eyes widened again as she turned to her best friend, "Ally!"
"Go on ahead. Just don't tell Conner, he might get jealous." Ally shook her shoulders teasingly at Celia.
My attention perked up at the name Conner while my wolf growled at the sound of another male name. My thoughts ran into overtime thinking who this guy could be. Was he Ceila's boyfriend? Did she already have a boyfriend?! Okay, calm down. Maybe he is just her brother or something? Oh no...
"This guy better not be her boyfriend. Ceila is off limits." My wolf growled aggressively in my mind.
Celia groaned while throwing her head backwards, "For the last time Ally, Conner and I are just friends."
"Sure sure, now have fun Squish." Ally stuck her tongue out then walked away.
Celia turned to me, "I'm sorry, you really don't have to help me with my assignment."
"No, I'd be happy too."
She still looked slightly shocked but flashed a beautiful smile at me, a light red dusting over her cheeks. We walked up to the door of the cafe when an important question still weighed heavily on my mind.
"Squish?" I asked as I opened the door for Ceila, referring back to the name Ally had called her.
"It's a nickname, shut up." She grumbles and walks into the building.
I chuckled lightly and followed close behind her. The small food place wasn't too busy but there were enough people to hear a buzzed chatter around us. When I looked up at the menu behind the counter I thought it would be a good idea to eat something while we worked.
"Here, have you had something to eat?" I asked, looking down at her.
She held up her drink and lightly swirled it, "I mean, sorta..?"
"I will take that as a no." I pulled my wallet out from my pocket, "What would you like?"
Her eyes widened as she waved her hands, "You don't have to pay for my food."
"But then I wouldn't be a gentleman." I shrugged a single shoulder, "It's no big deal."
"But I would feel bad."
"Don't worry about it. Now what do you want?"
She sighed, knowing I wouldn't be changing my mind, "A scone please. I'll go find a seat for us."
"Okay."
I went up to the counter and ordered a scone for Celia and a cinnamon bun for myself. I also got a coffee and waited by the counter for our food. When I looked around I noticed Celia sitting at a booth by the window. She glanced over at me and quickly averted her gaze in embarrassment which only made me smile in return.
When our food was ready I took the tray and made our way to the table, "Here you go madam, your food."
She giggled at my weird presentation and played along, "Why thank you good sir."
With her spine straight it started to curl as she slouched with an upset look in her eye, "You really didn't have to buy me food."
"I-I can't let such a pretty girl go hungry." I say, blushing and slipping into the booth next to her.
She rolled her eyes playfully then took a deep breath, "So, here is what I have to study. The quiz I took covered these chapters but I failed it so now I have to retake it."
She slid the textbook in between us so that we could both look at it together, flipping it open to the start of the chapter she needed to study from. I scooted a little closer to get a better look at what she needed help with, making our sides lightly press up against each other. Just from the slight physical contact I felt my entire body burning all over.
After a while of helping Celia understand what she was struggling with, whining from her, which made me laugh, and eating she huffed and leaned backwards against the seat. She brought her glasses up on top of her head and rubbed her eyes.
"How are you so good at this?" She asked, looking at me while she crossed her arms.
I shrugged a shoulder, "Hearing stories about the past always fascinated me."
"It's interesting if it's like family history but I'm not going to remember General Toehead leading a group a soldiers into so-and-so battle."
"But that's the best part. You get to read and imagine what the times were like back then, how people lived, what was an everyday life to them."
She looked at me and raised an eyebrow, "You are quite the nerd, aren't you?"
"I kinda am." I twiddled my thumbs a bit before I rested my arm across the top of the booth and turned my body towards her.
She took a drink from her cup as she put her glasses back down on top of her nose.
"So Ally, is she your best friend?" I ask, wanting to know more about her.
"Yeah. I moved into the house I live in now about 13-ish years ago and she was my neighbor until she moved down the street. But when she was my neighbor and I had just moved into my house she waltzed in without knocking and said, 'Hey, we are friends now okay?' and I was like, 'sure whatever'."
I smiled, trying to hold on a laugh, "I don't think that's how making friends work."
"Oh and what is? Stalking outside a cafe and knocking your head into their's?" She said with a joking tone.
Heat creeped up my face as my eyes widened, "I-I wasn't stalking the cafe."
"I noticed you outside the window when I was here with Ally."
I shuffled and squirmed, taking my arm off of the top of the seat. My eyes could only stare down at the table in front of me with our almost empty plates. I pressed my hands tightly into each other, rubbing them firmly as my leg began to shake under the table in the rising panic. Crap, he probably thinks I am insane now. I just ruined my chance with her forever.
"I'm sorry I just..." I looked at her again, "I just really wanted to um...see you again."
Her eyes widened, color coming to her face once again, "Why?"
"Well...because...just because." I replied, shutting my mouth to avoid stumbling over more words and making an even bigger fool of myself.
It was silent for a moment until her childish giggle broke the tension and bringing me such relief. Her laugh sent all sort s of pleasant flutters all over my body. She told me she was kidding then we sat in a short silence until I decided to ask more questions.
"I heard Ally mention someone named Conner...? Who is that?" I ask, getting curious again.
"Oh, him? He's just a friend."
"So why was Ally teasing you about-" She interrupted me before I finished.
"Conner and I used to date so she keeps teasing us that we are still dating and like the cutest couple ever but we are friends." She crossed her arms and grinned slyly at me, "Why? Are you jealous?"
"Pfft, no."
"Yes." My wolf growled.
I squeezed my hands tightly to each other again, keeping control over my wolf so that he didn't surface through me. He clawed at me with the want to mark Ceila right then and there to claim her as ours but if that happened in a public place like this I would surely be chained up. Worse thing would be that I would loose the little trust I have with Celia, she will think I would be out of my mind. Not now, not yet.
"Since you're asking me all of the questions, what was with your friends yesterday?" Ceila asked, turning the tables and being the curious one this time.
"Oh um...t-they uh..." I took a deep breath.
Oh you know, I am only a werewolf and you are my mate so my friends forced me to talk to you so that we could spend the rest of our lives together. Please don't think I am crazy.
Since I couldn't say that I rubbed the back of my neck, thinking of a believable lie to tell instead, "I thought you looked cute but I was too shy to talk to you so my friends forced me to walk with you."
"Forced huh?"
I looked at her and waved my hands, "No! I didn't mean it like that! I wanted to uh..."
She started giggling, the palm of her hand covering her mouth.
I quirked my eyebrow, puzzled by her actions, "What's so funny?"
"You. I was just kidding."
I let out a breath in relief, "Don't do that." I pushed her with my elbow, feeling the sparks again.
"What? Laugh at you? But you're silly." She poked at my cheek.
"Okay okay, let's finish reading through this."
Continuing on for another hour, mind you basically the best hour of my life, I helped Celia remember the things she was having a hard time with while she wrote some notes down in her notebook. Afterwords we sat around the cafe for a little longer just to eat the rest of our food and talk about random things. Then as soon as we were done we cleaned up our stuff from the table and headed for the door. I walked a little ahead of her so I could hold it open and we walked out.
She started making her way towards the hill where I'm guessing she lived and turned around to look at me, "Thank you again for helping me and buying me breakfast. I had a lot of fun."
"Here, I'll walk you home." I walked up next to her.
"No, you really don't have to-"
"I insist."
She sighed, "Okay."
We started walking in the direction of her house, silence between us. It wasn't awkward though, just comfortable. Then with about five minutes of walking into a neighborhood she stopped at a house. It was nice and looked quite normal like the other houses in the area.
"This is my house. Thank you for walking me home...and for helping with my homework, and for buying me breakfast."
"You're welcome. And I'll see you again...?"
"At this point I think we will. Just don't bump your head into mine again."
I grinned, "I'll try not to."
A beautiful smile spread across her face as she waved goodbye. We went out spectate ways but I walked slowly enough away so that I could make sure Celia was safely back inside her home. When I saw that she was I went back towards my own home.
...
Celia's P.O.V
Walking into my house after I said goodbye to Noah I closed the door with my back, leaning against it as it shut behind me. Once again I was greeted to an empty and silent house like always. It was still a mystery to me that I felt a sense of loneliness every time I walked into this place when nothing had changed over the years. With my parents always traveling around for work and business as might as well be living by myself.
When I pushed myself off of my door I went up the steps that lead towards my room, dropping my textbook off onto my small desk which created a loud thud sound. Then I dropped my body into my chair and looked around my bedroom, nibbling on my nail a little bit as I replayed the events that happened to day with Noah. The boy who suddenly showed up in my life and bumped his head against mine. I couldn't help but blush as I thought about the two of us sitting at the cafe just minutes ago.
Before my thoughts could stray too far a knock at the front door got me up. I skipped quickly down the stairs and made my way to the front door to answer it, seeing the cute face of Conner standing there with his old truck hanging out in the driveway. As usual his caramel brown hair curls fell in his eyes and he stood there with a big, cheesy grin on his face.
"Conner!" I jumped up and hugged him.
His arms wrapped around me as he chuckled into my hair, "Hey Squish, how are you?"
"Good. What are you doing here?"
"Oh what, I can't see my best friend whenever I want?" He asked as he slipped by me, walking off inside my house somewhere.
I closed the door and followed him into the kitchen, "I didn't say that!"
"I know, I'm just teasing you." He winked at me.
I scoffed at his lame attempt of a joke, crossing my arms. Staring into the direction of his back I randomly started to remember how we met. It was the first day of my new school about thirteen years ago when I first moved into this house. I was crying because I was in a new place and scared, clinging onto my mom's leg when my parents were still a part of my life before work took them over. I didn't want to go into my new class but eventually she pried me off and left. I sat alone in a corner for a little bit, playing with some plushie I had found on a shelf when a small boy with flopping caramel hair came up to me. He asked why I was alone and offered to be my friend, grabbing onto my hand and pulling me towards the other kids. We became best friends ever since, with a minor bump in the road later in our future but best friend nonetheless.
Not even a minute later of being in my house, when I came back to reality I noticed Conner had started rummaging through my food closet.
"Um, excuse me. I didn't give you permission to go through my food." I say with an accusatory tone but still with some sarcasm.
"Too bad, I'm spending time with you."
"What are we doing?"
He didn't give me an answer and continued looking for something when he pulled away with a bag of popcorn in his hand. After examining it for a minute he set it into the microwave and turned it on to start popping it. Finally as a last thing he walked over to to me and picked me up, very elegantly throwing me over his shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes.
"Conner! Conner put me down!" I shouted at him as hit his back which had no affect on him whatsoever.
He ignored my yells and took me downstairs to the lower level of my house, dropping me off onto the fluffy couch in the living room, "We are watching a movie!"
Then he turned to me, sticking out his lip to complete a puppy dog look on his face and pouted, "Pick a movie for us. Please?"
I giggled, not being able to say no to his adorable pouts, "Okay okay, go make the popcorn."
He beamed at my answer and rushed out of the room to go back into the kitchen. As I picked out a movie I heard him shout out in wonderment of the popping popcorn, making me roll my eyes at his ridiculous attitude. Once I had made a selection I put the dice of the movie into the player and sat back on the couch, skipping through the beginning trailers and waiting at the menu. Looking over the top of the couch I could see Conner standing in front of the microwave in wonderment as he still waited for the popcorn to finish.
Once it was done he dumped the whole bag into a plastic bowl, also minus the fact that he burned himself from the hot bag, finally without any further catastrophe he came back over to me. I sat on the left side of the love seat couch so Conner took the opposite side, sitting next to me and grabbing my legs so that they are up onto his lap. I laughed and just went with it, pressing the play button on the remote to get the movie started. He sat the still warm bowl of popcorn onto my lap so that we could both share it as his hand rubbed my knee. It was a comforting gesture, the warmth of his hand seeping through my jeans and just the contact itself made me feel calm.
"So where are your parents now?" Conner asked me when we got a little bit into the movie.
I shrugged a shoulder, "Who knows at this point."
"Do you want me to stay over?"
"You don't have to, I'll be fine."
"But I don't want to leave my little Squish alone." He pinched my cheek between his thumb and finger, sticking his bottom lip out.
"Of course you don't." I lightly swatted his hand away and readjusted my glasses.
We turned our attention back to the movie although that didn't last long, quickly getting distracted with a dumb detail being played on the screen then trailing off with stories and opinions. Suddenly another knock came from the front door which had me puzzled so I set aside the popcorn before going up to answer it. I opened the door to reveal Ally was the one who had came, standing there on the porch with a huge grin on her face.
"Hey Squish." She greeted.
"Hey, what are you doing here?"
"Oh what, I can't see my best friend whenever I want?" She says, slipping by me to step into my house.
I closed the door behind her, "I swear, you and Conner have the same minds."
"Oh, Conner is here?"
"Hey Ally." Conner lifted his arm over the couch to show his presence.
Her eyes immediately lit up and she cooed sickeningly, "Oh? Am I interrupting your little date?"
"It's not a date." I groan out, going back into the living room and taking my seat again with my legs over Conner's lap.
Ally followed being me and strolled into the living room, pausing for a second to take in the sight of how Conner and I were sitting together. She began to wave her hands dramatically around in the air to gesture to how my legs were up in Conner's lap.
"He's my leg rest." I shrug as if it was big deal.
"Yeah, obviously." Conner rolled his eyes playfully.
"You two are completely oblivious." Ally plopped down on the couch next to ours.
Not even a minute back into the movie Ally suddenly shrieked out loud and out of nowhere, startling both Conner and I at the noise. When I looked over at Ally to see if she saw a spider or something she looked back at me with her hands folded under her chin like she was ready to listen to a story, biting her lip to fail at containing a huge grin, and some sort of glint in her eye that scared me a little bit.
"What?" I question at her sudden change in behavior.
"How was your date with that Noah boy?" She asks as she dragged out some of the words in a teasing way.
I let out an annoyed groan, rolling my head backwards, "Oh my gosh, it was not a date."
"Wait, who is Noah?" Conner piped in with confusion.
Ally sat up straight, "A boy she met. Today they were at the cafe and he helped her with studying for history."
"He's just a guy I bumped into...literally...twice." I explain a little further, looking towards Conner.
Conner was immediately alarmed with this new information, "A boy? Why wasn't I informed about this? What does look like? How does he act? Where does he live-"
I waved my hands to interrupt his rambles, "Stop, stop. Don't pull the overprotective father card out on me."
"But someone has to look out for you."
"I told you he would get jealous." Ally whispered to but but it was still loud enough for Conner to hear.
"I am not jealous!" He shouted back defensively as if trying to cover up an underlying feeling, "I just worry."
I grasped his hand that was still on my knee and squeezed it, "You are too sweet for your own good."
He gave me a caring smile that would melt anyone's heart, "That's what friends are for."
"Dating." Ally coughed out into her fist, looking off to the side.
We both looked at her and yelled at the same time, "We are just friends!"
Over the next few days, even with little hope it would happen again, I ended up running into Noah several more times in front of the cafe or somewhere else around town. I had a quick thought that maybe he was following me but dismissed the crazy idea, trusting that Noah was actually a good person who I somehow kept meeting over and over again. There was just something about him that drew me towards him, this pull of a phantom hand that I actually didn't mind. I felt safe around him, happy whenever I spent time with him, just this feeling I couldn't explain of I was supposed to be around him all the time.
It was a new feeling but I wasn't thrown off by it, there was a connection there between me and him.
⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
Question: What is your favorite thing to drink?
Now there is a lot of things I like to drink like soda, hot chocolate, tea, and smoothies. I love smoothies so much. But I think my favorite drink of all time would be a Shirley Temple which is basically Sprite or 7-up mixed in with a red flavoring called grenadine. It's a always been my favorite drink as a kid and my love for it has never died. I also love the regular Mountain Dew which would come in as a close second favorite.