Singing Sight

AN: Hey, sorry it took so long, here\'s chap 7 in two parts cause it was too long to be on itw own. Hope you guys enjoy it- please review!


Chapter Seven: Smooth


The very first thing I thought was: ugh, my head! Then I recalled the events of last night; Drew, Jess, Jake, Rachel, the show, the nalgene, Caine.... Caine- tucking me in? Thirdly, I became aware of the reason for my arisal: a ringtone.

\"Crap!\" I exclaimed, dashing for my cell phone that lay in my purse on the floor. I picked it up just as its ringing ceased. One missed call, Caine.

I called him back the second I saw that reading. My head was pounding but I wanted to talk to him- he\'d called me!

\"Hello?\" The deep voice on the other end sounded.

\"Uh, hey, Caine?\" I said, my voice a little hoarse the way it always was when I woke up.

\"Hey, Aria, did I wake you before?\"

\"Uh, yeah, but I needed to get up.\"

\"I thought at one thirty you\'d be up. But you needed your rest, it\'s been a long week.\"

\"Yeah,\" I agreed. He had such a nice phone voice. Oh god, what was he thinking of me? What if he thought I\'d acted stupid, or awful and was calling to tell me to stop hanging around him and his friends?

\"So, I was just wondering if you\'d like to accompany me to get some food and run errands. I know it\'s a bitch, but I could use the company, and Jake\'s still passed out from last night.\"

\"I\'d love to!\" I exclaimed. An entire afternoon with Caine? Why on earth would I pass that up? He didn\'t hate me after all.

\"Awesome. So, I guess you need some time to get yourself together. I\'ll pick you up in half an hour?\" I glanced at the dial on my clock.

\"Sounds great.\"

\"Great.\"

\"I\'ll hurry and take the fastest shower in the history of the world, and get dressed, and then meet you at my place?\"

\"Sounds great. I\'ll get the coffee. Latte?\"

\"Excellent.\"

\"Ok, blue 42, red 6-1, hike! Break.\"

\"Geek.\"

\"Can it, Galen. That attitude will get you nowhere in life.\"

\"Will you let me go get in the shower?\"

\"Sure. See you soon.\"

\"Yeah, see ya.\"

I hung up and wished for a shower with Caine.


~*~


I tried to focus on driving to the closest Starbucks, then on getting the coffee, then on taking it to my car without spilling, then on driving to her house without thinking too much about what she was doing at her house. Just thinking for a second about her in the shower was making me a little antsy. I did my best to collect myself at her door before ringing the bell. I heard a muffled shout of \"I got it!\" in her pretty voice and the thuds of running footsteps down a flight of stairs. It made me smile. A second later, the door was yanked open to her standing there, in all her tiny glory with her long hair wet and her small blue tank top clinging tightly to her frame down to meet where her jeans hung baggy on her legs. She was barefoot, a simple silver toe ring on her center left foot. No makeup, a little breathless, but looking fresh and clean and smelling delicious. Simply adorable.

\"Hey!\" She greeted with a smile. I held out her latte, which made her smile and she recieved willingly. \"Thank you, sir.\"

\"Anything for m\'lady,\" I grinned, which widened at her own smile and a slight blush. She was just flushed from running down the stairs. Of course.

\"Well, Sir Lancelot, if you will escort me to your chariot-\"

\"Honda,\" I interjected with a smile.

\"Whatever. Let\'s blow this joint.\"

\"Weed is bad for you, Ar-bar.\"

\"Says you,\" She laughed before raising her voice and calling out, \"Mama, I\'m going now! I\'ll be home later!\"

\"Bye sweetie, have fun!\"

We left the house arm in arm, for the sake of the joke, and the light pressure and warmth from her skin on mine was inconsequential to everyone else and paramount for me. I walked her to the door of the car and opened it up for her, watching her settle herself in the passenger seat before slamming the door. I got in on my side, and started the car as she put on her seatbelt.

\"I\'ve learned that I need this when you\'re behind the wheel,\" She joked. When I\'m driving alone, my music\'s volume doubles to make up for the silent gaps normally filled by frivolous conversation. So we were blasted with loud loud ACDC.

\"Sorry about my knightly music,\" I smiled as I turned down the volume. I\'m like a happy idiot when I\'m near her, its sick.

\"It\'s okay, I love these guys. They\'re so much fun to sing along to.\" She smiled as we pulled out of the drive.

\"I think if I sang along to ACDC in my bedroom I\'d get shot with a crossbow by my little sister right before getting lectured about how terrible smoking is for your lungs.\"

\"Probably, Rachel loves her some crossbows.\" I looked over at her, so pretty and content, how perfect she looked sitting in as miserable a setting as my beat up used car. I looked at her hand, the soft, small hand resting lazily on her thigh, and I fought back an impulse to hold it. So why was I holding the top of the steering wheel with my one left hand and my right sat restless on my knee? I felt her watch me and I did my best to just watch the road as I pulled onto the main road roughly and accelerated.

\"So where are we headed to first?\" Aria asked me. Where was I headed.

\"There\'s a bright orange post it in the mirror thing above me, we need to hit all that.\"

Her soft, delicious smell wafted over me while she reached up above me and pulled the list out.

\"Okay, looks like we need to go to the grocery store, drug store, and hardware store. Oh, and it looks like you\'re running low on gas.\"

\"Great. Fuck you, oil prices, I won\'t be eating for a week.\" She was right, I was near out.

\"Well, we can get groceries you like and you can bring your lunch.\"

\"I\'ve never brought my lunch to high school, and I\'m sure as hell not brown bagging it now.\"

\"Well it\'s either that or your parents dropping you off at school, I\'m sure Jake and Trey would have lots to say about that.\"

\"Smartass.\"

\"You love it.\" I did.


~*~


Four hours and an empty wallet later, Aria had insisted upon treating me to a smoothie, seeing as I was broke thanks to Exxon. We sat in a park, on top of a picnic table, she drinking Raspberry and I drinking Peach.

\"You know,\" She began, sifting her straw through her thick smoothie, \"I\'m still really pissed off at that Smoothie Love.\"

\"Why\'s that? Does your smoothie suck?\" I asked her.

\"No, that\'s not why. It\'s that smoothie places always seem to have strawberry banana smoothies and never have just plain strawberry smoothies. They have just plain banana smoothies, but when I\'m in the mood for a strawberry smoothie, and I ask for just that, and I get told that there\'s banana in it, I get pissed off. I mean, seriously, the banana doesn\'t make it better. It\'s way better just as it is. Strawberry, in the purest sense of the fruit smoothie. So then I get stuck with
raspberry, which is good, but only mediocre in comparison to strawberry.\" God she was cute.

\"We should write a letter of complaint.\"

\"Or start a petition.\"

\"We could picket Smoothie Love.\"

\"Let\'s do it.\" She smiled.

\"Can I have a sip of that raspberry?\" I asked her.

\"Sure,\" She replied, handing me the cup. My fingers gingerly brushed hers. I took a sip and furrowed my brow.

\"Superb. But no strawberry.\"

\"Exactly. Gimme some of that peach.\"

\"Demanding, that\'s real cute.\" I said as she sipped my mango smoothie. I loved how her lips looked, wrapped around the bright red straw coming out of the cheap styrofoam cup.

\"Mm. I should get that next time I run into my little strawberry banana pet peeve.\"

\"Maybe I\'ll do that for a senior project. Evaluate all the smoothie shops in the area, see how many carry strawberry as opposed to strawberry banana, and then find out why. Maybe even start a riot.\"

\"I think you\'d be remembered as a smoothie hero, Caine.\" She said with a laugh.

\"It\'d look good on a college application.\"

\"Where are you thinking of going, anyway?\"

Oh god, the college shit. I let out a nervous laugh.

\"Not sure. Applying to a lot of different places, probably won\'t get in to any. Just trying to keep it cool.\"

\"That\'s good.\" She replied softly. I looked at her, how shiny her hair looked in the sunlight and at the cute black sunglasses over her eyes.

\"There\'s no way in hell you\'re the same age as my sister,\" I commented. She laughed and looked at me.

\"Is that so?\"

\"You\'re way too cool to be friends with my bratty little sister, fun as she can be sometimes.\"

\"I don\'t know whether to take that as a compliment to me or a blow to Rachel,\" she smiled with a sip of her smoothie.

\"Little of both,\" I smiled at her, which made her lips curl up into that fantastic smile. \"No, it was more of the first part.\" I admitted.

\"Thanks, I think,\" she smiled, a hint of rose in her cheeks. Man, she blushed a lot. It was adorable.

\"You\'re welcome, I think.\" I responded in kind and she looked at me playfully and stuck her tongue out at me. That cute, pink little tongue in between those perfect lips and perfect white teeth, topped off with the sweetest little grin just made me go wild inside. But instead, I grinned back and only said, \"Oh, you think you\'re so cute, don\'t you?\" She was cute. And she knew it. She grinned and blushed, only to do it again, as I expected. I quickly reached over and grabbed her tongue between my thumb and forefinger as she let out a little yelp.

\"Cnne! Luggo!\" She mumbled as I yanked her slippery tongue hard and let it go. Her face had been close to mine, her eyes widened in shock and I couldn\'t help but laugh as she retracted the body part and glared sweetly at me. How someone can do that, I have no idea.

\"I hate you,\" She sneered.

\"Well I got your tongue, so there!\"

\"I\'d stick out my tongue again but I know what\'s gonna happen.\" She smiled at me wryly and took a final slurp on the smoothie before plunking the empty styrofoam cup down beside her.

\"You learn your lessons well, young protege.\" I winked, eliciting another blush.

\"Well you don\'t teach very nicely.\" She pouted.

\"Now don\'t you do that, or I\'ll grab that bottom lip of yours next.\" She dramatically gasped.

\"You wouldn\'t dare!\"

\"Or would I?\"

\"Cue suspenseful music!\"

\"Stop being such a theater kid,\" I joked and gave her thigh a little push with my hand. She gave me another one of those smiles and pushed my knee back.

\"Meanie.\" She smirked.

\"Can\'t argue with the truth.\"

She looked sidelong at me, from behind those cute sunglasses with this glint in her eye. I couldn\'t quite place what that look was, but I knew, for a moment, that that mischievous grin spreading across her face held something I couldn\'t stay away from. She all of a sudden reached out and shoved me with the smoothie free hand and my own went flying into the air. I reached out as quick as I could and recovered it quickly, the look of surprise on my face developing into what Trey calls my \"jackass grin\".

I turned to my companion, smoothie in hand and quirked an eyebrow, the smug half-smile still on my face. She raised her own back and smiled, trying to suppress giggles. \"Smooth, Cohen. Very smooth.\"

Elvis time. \"Thank you very much, little lady,\"


continue to part two!