Copyright.

Chapter 21

I sat back in the wooden seat, occasionally sipping my tea as I patiently scanned the opposite sidewalks pedestrians wandering down the street. My seat was partially shaded from the midday summer sun, enjoying warm the breeze in the air as I checked my watch.

12: 16pm 

I smiled; she was due to arrive about this time I guess. Maybe in a few more minutes…

Marissa is always late.  If you add fifteen or twenty minutes onto whatever time you say you’re meeting her and that’s when she’s likely to arrive. Usually a little breathless from power walking in designer high heels from wherever she parked her car, her long wavy brown hair flying behind her and a cheeky, yet apologetic smile on her face.

I smiled at the waitress as she walked past and she smiled back in recognition.

Both Marissa and I had been coming to the small ‘Blueberry’ café since we were in our early teens, spending hours chatting as we sipped our drinks. Walking past one day we had both fallen in love with the sweet lavender painted café with high glass windows, light blue vinyl booths and rustic looking wooden outside tables. We were pretty well known by the owner Zoe and some of her waitresses, so they knew I was waiting for Marissa to arrive.

I sipped my tea again, letting my mind wander to this morning.

When I woke up I was under the covers, sleeping next to Ari, who must have changed to go to bed; his bare tanned chest uncovered. He had looked so sweet laying there asleep, the late morning light casting a golden light over his features made my heart tug at how lucky I was to have him in my life.

I glanced at my alarm, which read 10: 53 am.

Not wanting to wake him, I quietly slid out of bed and silently picked out my clothes for the day from my chest of draws, before I went into the bathroom where I could get ready without disturbing him. When I came out dressed in black jean shorts, converse and white t-shirt with ‘Trust’ written across the front in black letters, I collected my phone, wallet and car keys from my dresser, glancing back at Ari to check I hadn’t woken him. 

I watched Ari for a second; taking in his messy hair, the indented line of muscles on his chest, the slight fluttering of his eyelids, the subtly muscular line of his arm splayed across the bed.

He was beautiful and in my bed.

Fighting the urge to wake him up, to see his smile before I kiss his lips, I walked over to my bedside table, grabbing a pen and paper to write him a note;

Morning sleepy head,

I’ve gone to meet Marissa, my mobiles on if you want to meet up with us.

Have fun in your interview.

I’ll see you later

Ella xx

Then I walked downstairs, the quietness of the house told me my parents were out as I made my self some toast, ate it sitting at the island, washing up after myself before I made my way into the garage to my car and drove off towards the blueberry Café.

Now I was running out of tea in my cup I nodded to the waitress and she came over smiling, her black hair in a high ponytail. She was a regular waitress so I knew her name was Vanessa without reading the nametag on her black uniform top.

“Hi Vanessa ” I said when she approached.

“Hey Isabel, what can I get you? Your regular?” she asked.

My regular was Tea and two chocolate chip muffins, as well as Marissa’s regular latte so it would be sitting there for her when she arrived.

“ Yes please, but to shake up my obvious predictability can you make one muffin blueberry?” I asked smiling.

Vanessa grinned “ Sure.” Before she walked off.

As she turned away I could see Marissa power walking up the sidewalk towards me in blue skinny jeans, a dark purple silky top, a big brown leather tote bag and black high heels which I knew would most definitely have the tell tale Louboutin red soles on them.

Marissa’s parents are old money from down south, a fact that she likes to down play as much as possible. The only real splurge her parents allow her is on shoes; of which she has a whole closet full. All designer.

Luckily were both a size 6 so, when she doesn’t like a pair anymore she usually uses me as a form of recycling. Not that I’m complaining. As a result, over the last year alone , Marissas ‘recycling’ had led to the addition of seven new louboutins in my closet – all of which I loved but hardly ever wore.

She hadn’t seen me yet as she marched down the street, whipping out her blackberry.

Brrrrriiinnnggg. Brinnnnnnng. My phone vibrated and let out a buzzing sound.

I fished my phone out of my back pocket as Vanessa placed my order on my table “Here you go” before she turned to another customer.

“Thanks” I said as I fished my phone out of my back pocket, reading the screen.

Ha!! Your late!!! Looks like I got here before you.

Told you I’m not always late.

Mxx

I glanced up to find Marissa walking down the street grinning at her phone. She obviously hadn’t seen me.

I typed into my phone, replying;

Better luck next time. Look to your left.

And you are ALWAYS late, M

Ellaxx

I chuckled as I watched her read her phone, frown and then her face broke into a huge smile as she saw me. She seemed to semi jog over to me, her light brown hair bouncing. I stood up as she reached my table with her arms open, pulling me into a huge hug.

“ Ella!!! I’m finally back. The party can begin my amiga!!”

“Yeah! I missed you too M,  so tell me- how was Michigan?”

We drew out of the hug and sat down on our seats.

Marissa leant back in her chair, slurping the froth off her latte before she began

“ Ohh Michigan is Michigan. It wouldn’t have been so good if my grandma didn’t have cable and a serious chocolate addiction that means her pantry is very well stocked” she announced, waving her hand dismissively.

I smiled “ Gee does your grandma know you only use her for her cable and food?” I teased.

“ Ha ha. Very funny E. You laugh but the nearest form of entertainment was a skate park with these weedy thirteen year olds trying to pull tricks.” She mimed throwing up “And No hot guys, like seriously. None. Though I know my mom was happy to see Grandma to make sure she was adjusting well after her hip surgery.”

I sipped my tea “ Your Gran ok?”

“ Yeah. Same old same old. Kept trying to convince me to give her some whisky shots before her pain medication said she could, when my parents backs were turned of course.” She took a sip of her latte “That, and she insisted on watching Golden Girls reruns back to back so I think I have seen every episode ever made at least once. Which is never a bad thing”

I nodded in agreement “ Betty White is a legend” I agreed.

“ Damn straight. She’s won six Emmys and has had twenty nominations” Marissa flipped her hair back and knocked her hand on the table to make her point.

“How the hell do you remember all these random facts?” I asked wonderingly in amazement. Marissa is like a walking encyclopaedia for random facts. How she remembers it all and where she even finds out these things is beyond me.

Marissa shrugged and put on a French accent “ What can I say? I am addicted to la gossip of la stars and the world mi cher.”

I laughed, “ Your accent is terrible. There was a hint of borat at the end there!”

“ There was not! If anything there was a German influence at the end” Marissa protested, widening her light brown eyes in fake hurt. “ Anyway, talking about Germany, that was where Mr hot airplane guy I told you about had just come back from.”

“ Oh yeah? I wondered when I was going to hear about him.” I said, smiling as I took another sip of tea.

“You would have loved him! All dark hair, broad shoulders, smouldering eyes of a bad boy. He was right up your street. Or he would be if your street didn’t have Aaron Fox written across it.”

I blushed and protested, “ My Street does not have Aaron”- but I was cut off as she continued, completely ignoring me.

“Yeah, sure. But any way, this guy was soooo hot. His name is Will, something. He told me he was coming back from travelling around Europe on a gap year and he had just been to Germany. He was coming home again to hang out for the summer in LA, flying in go to a family members party – his sisters birthday or something, before he goes off to Columbia to finish off his second year. I can’t remember exactly what he said he was doing - ”

“ You were too busy drooling” I interjected, smirking. I broke off a piece of my muffin and started munching. Yum. I should order chocolate chip more often…

“ Yeah, totally…. Anyway you applied to Columbia right?” she asked.

I nodded; not wanting to talk about it because it made me so nervous, butterflies erupted in my stomach at even the thought.

It was unlikely I’d get in and I had only told Marissa that I applied because my parents both want me to go to UCLA. I hadn’t even told Ari , cause I know how bad he is at keeping secrets, he’d probably accidentally let it slip over dinner that I’d applied.

“ Well, he said it was great and he said you’d love it”

“ So, did you get his number or something?” I asked. Marissa was really straightforward with guys; this combined with her good looks meant she nearly always walked away with a guy’s number when she met him.

She frowned “ No. You know, I think he might have been gay or something.

I asked him out and the hottie politely gave me the brush off claiming to have just gotten out of a relation ship. Bull if you ask me. So I was thinking about asking him to join the mile high club with me but then”-

I gasped, “ Tell me you didn’t!”

Marissa rolled her eyes and took a bite of her muffin “ Nah cher. Do you take moi for a slut?” then she put on a deep southern accent; imitating her dad’s,  “Or a ‘hoochy mama’ as my daddy would say”

I raised an eyebrow and responded in a similar twang “ Do you really want me to answer that darlin?”

We both smirked at each other before we burst into giggles. 

We spent another hour or so laughing and catching up at the café. She told me all about her Grandma and mother’s heated arguments about how best to cook food (and who cooked best), her fathers attempts to sneak off to the nearest bar to play pool and how she spent the tow weeks stressing out about whether she was going to get into her dream college NYU.

 Until Marissa demanded we get the bill so we could leave and she stretch her legs on ‘ the grey sparkly sidewalks of LA’ as we window-shopped.

Then we spent the next half an hour wandering in and out of designer shops ‘ahhing’ and ‘ooohhing’ at the clothes that we either couldn’t afford or that were to extravagant to be worn by anyone but a princess.

Then as we were walking down the street I was immediately stopped in my tracks by the image of Ari. His face was huge, smiling back at me with his dimple and the look he gets in his eye when he thinks something is really funny.

Then the image changed to a tv studio , zooming in on two people sitting on a couch and I suddenly realised I was looking at a live feed on a 55’ inch flat screen Tv. The six smaller surrounding tv’s in the shop window, then flickered into life with the same image. The camera zoomed in further and I could see Ari was sitting opposite the TV host smiling at her in a black suit as she- not -so – subtly- checked him out before turning to the camera.

Urggghhh, That is part of the reason why I don’t watch his interviews. The women always look at him like he’s a piece of meat.

“ Hey! That’s Aaron! He looks likes a penguin in that suit”

I bit my tongue as I watched the Tv screens. He did not look like a penguin. He looked really handsome.

“I thought you said he was staying at yours” Marissa continued, she was standing rifling through her bag as if she was looking for something.

“Yeah, but he said he was doing an interview today. I didn’t realise he was doing a national day time TV show” I said, watching Ari smile at the presenter and wave at the audience, before the camera cut to the rows of screaming girls and women cheering.

“ Gee, don’t those girls looks crazy, I can’t believe they made those ‘I love you signs’” I murmured.

Marissa linked her arm in mine “Yeah, can you imagine how much they spent on glitter pens? Were talking thirty bucks of the crap” She murmured, also looking at the camera as it zoomed across the audience, mostly female and screaming.

Some fo the girls in the front row were stunning. I mean literally model material.

I felt my chest tighten as I realised that if I was ever to go out with Ari than I would always have to compete with girls like that. Girls that made me look like I should have a god damn bag over my head.

Marissa nudged me and I snapped out of my reverie to look at her “ What’s up E? , you’ve got that I’m thinking so hard I look constipated look on your face”

I shoved her “ I don’t look constipated”

“ Yeah you do. Now what’s up?”

I sighed “ I was just thinking how pretty those girls are” I said honestly, leaving out how that I was worried that Ari would take one look at one of them and realise that he’d been wasting his time even thinking about me in more than a friend way.

Urghhh.. I really need to get a grip! I never felt like this before, then again, I rarely watched Ari’s interviews for over a minute if ever.

 “ You know half of their beauty is brought off a cosmetics counter and the other half is made of the trampy low cut tops their all wearing. You don’t have anything to worry about, I see the way Ari looks at you.”

I turned to her, feeling a blush on my face. I hadn’t even mentioned the new romance between Ari and I. “ I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that they look good; I’m not worried about anything, besides Ari and I are just”- I never got to say ‘friends’ because Marissa interrupted me.

“ best friends forever, who feel a thinly veiled undercurrent of deep lustful attraction for one another that has been fuelled by years of hidden love for each other?” she added sweetly, one eyebrow raised.

I gasped, feeling myself blush at the truth in her words. I looked back at the screen watching Ari talk to the interviewer, muted by the glass window. “ You know your going to make a crap Psychologist” I said

“ No. The fact that your blushing and trying to deflect me means that I’m going to be great and I know my best friend like that back of my hand” she replied sticking out her tongue.

“ Actually it means that you’re a fantasising crazy luna”- I started but was cut off by Marissa dragging me into the shop by my arm.

“Yeah, yeah, tell me something I don’t know. Let’s watch his interview, I know you don’t like watching him for this weird reason but I would like to make fun of him and laugh at the weirdo’s with the signs” she rambled as she pulled me into the electronics shop, where a wall of tv’s were set up with the tv show playing. A few customers turned to watch us as she dragged me in and manually turned up the volume the TV in front of us so we could hear the conversation.

I could hear the clapping of the audience and then the camera focused on the interviewee as she asked a question “ So, Aaron, you’re a good-looking guy, you must have your pick of girls. In fact you have half the hearts of my audience” a couple of screams from the audience rang out in the background and I saw Ari smile a little uncomfortably to himself.

Aww I actually felt kind of sorry for him.

“ So I guess I have to ask you what kind of girl’s you like so our viewers can be her”

I winced at the cheesiness of her line.

Ari smiled and ran his hands through his hair like he does when he’d nervous or thinking. “ Well, I like all girls of course, I mean you have some really beautiful girls in the audience today” I watched the screen, feeling my stomach dip with disappointment that he’d noticed the girls in the audience. I knew he was being vague on purpose.

“But what’s your type? Is she funny?” the host prompted.

Ari chuckled “ Yeah, I guess a sense of humour is crucial, she has to be able to laugh at herself and at me. I think the sexiest thing about a girl is usually the things she doesn’t even think about”

The TV host frowned “ like what? Her hair?”

Ari shook his head and looked off into the distance “ No, I mean it’s not really that stuff cause she’s beautiful when she’s dressed up in her favourite purple dress or just hanging out in her old sweats without any makeup on and her hair all crazy because she forgot to brush it.” He sighed, running his hands though his hair before he continued, looking as if he was looking behind the camera

 “It’s more like the way she giggles, how quick she blushes, it’s the way she tells me exactly what’s on her mind, puts more salt than sweet in the popcorn because I like it even though she doesn’t, it’s the way you know that if she really wanted to insult you it would hurt like hell because she knows you so well but you know she never would. I mean she’s the girl in the room who doesn’t realise how stunning she is even though she could stop traffic” He stopped abruptly, and blinked like he was snapping out of something before his trademark smile washed over his face and hid the previous signs of shock and vulnerability. The audience was silent and the camera cut for a second to girls and women looking dreamily towards the front.

I stood there with my mouth wide open, watching the screen…. Who was this girl?

Was he talking about one of his previous girlfriends? I knew he’d dated some of his co-stars in the past… or could he… could he…. I felt my stomach dip even thinking about it. 

could he be talking about me?

Or was this part of a PR plan? I mean, he got the whole audience hooked…even me.

The Tv host had a glint in her eye, like a cat that got the cream “ Well that’s a real specific kind of girl wouldn’t you say?”

Ari shrugged, keeping his easy smile “ I guess”

She leaned forward in “You seem to know what you want. Is that because you’ve already met this girl?”

Ari kept on his easy smile, not giving an inch “ Maybe.”

“ Is the girl your talking about the girl in this picture, which was taken in Australia by any chance?” The TV host leant backwards and the image I’d seen before of two dark grainy silhouettes flashed onto the screen behind her.

What? That could be anyone… this is just another case of the paparazzi