Chapter 18: 17- I'll Take Up On That Offer

17

At exactly a quarter after eight, Blake and Allie arrived at my house, the doorbell echoed throughout the entire house. I was in the kitchen with Marcus, telling him instructions on what to do with Bruce and Skittles.

I’m going to gone just for a night but leaving them alone for that long is just cruel. Who would feed them? Or rub them? This was why I had to call Marcus last night at one in the morning- thankfully he was out partying (I think that was what he was doing) with Dorothy, and had to ask him to babysit my dogs.

He happily complied, but I do believe he has an ulterior motive in babysitting them.

“Liam could you get that? That’s Blake and Allie.” I told Liam who favorably jumped off the bar stool with the juice carton in his hands, and ran towards the living room.

“You and lover boy going to the beach huh?” Marcus wagged his brows at me.

“It’s just the beach Marcus.” I rolled my eyes at him.

He shrugged. “Maybe the next time you step back in this house, you’ll already be deflowered. Say goodbye to your precious virginity Beth. You’re losing it tonight.”

My eyes popped out of their sockets. How can he say these words so easily when Blake was less than twenty feet away, let alone Allie and Liam!

“Shut up Marcus. Minors are listening.”

“Minors, eh? See, you’re already ready to give it up to him.” He nudged my side sharply causing me to double over in pain. I let out a short whimper and as I grasped for my side.

“That hurts.” I managed to let out.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry Beth.”

“Stop swearing.” I breathed out and slowly stood up, the pain slowly disappearing. “There are kids around. I don’t want to hear them swearing.”

“Wait for a second.” He pulled out his wallet from his pocket and started looking for something. And when he did, he pulled it out and handed it to me.

Curious, I took it and when I realized what it was, I hurled it back to him like it burned my skin.

“The heck Marcucs?!” I exclaimed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What?” he looked at me innocently. “I want you guys to be safe, but then again both of you are already working so if you want to get pregnant, you can do so.”

“Liam and Allie are going with us.” I rolled my eyes again.

Marcus sighed at me and shook his head. “Have you not ever heard of a quickie Beth?”

“What’s a quickie Aunt Beth?”

I sighed and cursed mentally. Glaring at Marcus who gave me a sheepish smile, I turned to Liam who was looking at me with Allie beside her and Blake who looked really funny because he had a hand over his mouth and the other clutching over his stomach as if he was trying to stop himself from laughing.

I blushed in embarrassment. Reese is so going to kill me when she finds out that her son just learned a new creative word from his aunt.

“It’s uh, nothing.” I gave a supposed to be playful but hard slap on Marcus’ shoulder which caught him off and made him choke on air. Serves him right. “Marcus is just making up stupid words.”

“Yeah…stupid words.” Marcus scoffed beside me, laughing.

Shooting him a glare, I grabbed his shirt and dragged him to the living room. H was chuckling behind me, and I could hear Blake laughing.

“I would appreciate it if I don’t die when Reese arrives so please, shut the innuendos up. She is going to have my head on a platter for her birthday.”

Marcus gave me a mock salute, his face trying to suppress the undeniable urge to continue laughing.

After bidding him farewell (with a threat to make sure that everything will be the same), and giving a goodbye kiss to Bruce and Skittles, we head off to Blake’s car with bags in my hand. I had refused to let him carry it out. I have arms to do that so why should I let him?

I was about to get in the driver’s seat when Blake beat me to it.

“You’re riding shotgun.” He told me and slid in the car.

I frowned. “You said I’m driving!”

“Yeah, later.” Blake buckled himself on his seat. “Well? Get in already.”

“What do you mean by later?”

“We’re making a quick stop later so after you can get to drive. Now get in.”

Trudging towards the other side, I crossed my arms as I went in, clearly unhappy that I didn’t get to drive. Liam and Allie were already buckled up at the back seat and were busy jumping in excitement.

I’m betting $20 that after an hour both will be dead asleep.

“Come on Bethany.” Blake shifted in his seat  and switched the ignition. “Don’t be a brat.”

“Can we at least just pass by at Dunkin Donuts?” I ignored his statement.

What if I was being a brat? I wanted to drive the entire journey, not halfway. He knew that.

Blake pulled out of my driveway and we headed off. As he was staring at the road, he told me to check the back seat.

“Go look at the back Bethany.”

And I did. Just beside Allie was a Dunkin Donuts bag.

“I passed Dunkin before we arrived at your place and just got you some doughnuts and coffee to save time. I hope you don’t mind.”

Grabbing the paper bag, I didn’t utter a single word. Inside was a cup of warm coffee and Boston Kreme doughnuts.

Holy guacamole. My favorite.

I switched my attention from the doughnuts in my hand to Blake who was busy driving. I could see a smile slowly starting to form on his face.

“I hope you don’t mind the flavor of choice.” He smiled, his eyes still on the road. “It’s my favorite flavor so just in case you won’t like it, I can have it to myself.”

I giggled. I freaking giggled.

“Well it’s also my favorite so you won’t get any.” I told him with a smile on my face. The problem of me not driving evaporated. “But you can have some of my coffee to keep you up.”

“I’ll take up on that offer.”

Happily munching on my doughnut and sipping my coffee, I took this opportunity to closely study Blake. His dark brown hair was cut to perfectly match with his jaw dropping bone structure.  His nose looked a little crooked, just a teeny bit, like it had been broken before. His lips were a pinkish pale in color.

My eyes trailed down from his face. He was wearing a blue and white striped shirt paired with shorts. As we took a right turn, I could see the light flex of his arm and I blush.

At the corner of my eye I could see the sides of his lips tug up to a smirk.

“Are you liking what you see Bethany?”

My face which was tinted pink from earlier, became even redder if possible. I tore my gaze from him right away and stared at my now empty Dunkin Donuts paper bag.

He just caught me staring at him. Oh my god. This is so embarrassing.

“W-Whatever.” I was able to let the word out despite being caught red handed at checking him out.

He laughed and continued driving.

I played with my fingers, wrapping and unwrapping them with my shirt over and over again.

An hour in the journey, the excited noise at the back seat was gone. Liam and Allie had fallen asleep. Guess who told you so? Me!

My eyelids were getting heavier and heavier as every second passed and I found it difficult to keep them open for any longer so I just fell asleep.

Now we know coffee doesn’t affect as much as I thought like before.

I think my body had already become immune to the caffeine. For two months straight a month ago I had a lot of rush orders and I had to work overtime for almost every single day. There was even a time I didn’t bother going home and just slept in my office. I was so tired to drive and had already drank more than three cups of coffee that night alone- I finished around almost five in the morning and had a delivery to make at seven and still had to clean up.

Just thinking about makes me wonder how many cups of coffee I had drank and how many hours of actual sleep I actually got- this does not include hallucinating that I actually slept. It was like my college thesis all over again, only this time much, much worse.

As I was happily dozing off to La La Land, a soft voice woke me up.

“Bethany wake up.”

And a not so soft voice:  “Aunt Beth wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

“What?” I groaned and slapped the hand that was on my arm. “What do you want? Go away.”

“Wake up Aunt Beth!”

“Come on Bethany.” I could feel Blake’s hand back on my arm and gave me a gentle shake. “And you wanted to be the one to drive us.”

I opened my eyes halfway and narrowed them at Blake. He looked at me innocently and continued to shake my arm. I looked around at where we currently are. This doesn’t look like a beach.

“This is not the beach.” I stated as a matter of fact.

“Allie got hungry so I stopped. We can just also eat lunch here that way when we get there we just leave our stuff and go swimming right away. No need to wait for the one hour after eating to swim rule.”

I was about to argue with him but decided to shut my mouth when I realized he was right. I blinked a couple of times to rid of my sleepy eyes and went out of the car. The first thing I did was stretch. Yes, I stretched in right in front of people, in public, but who cares? I sat down for more than two hours straight and my body is getting kind of stiff, and my butt hurts.

“You drool when you sleep.” Were the first words I heard as we stepped in the diner that wasn’t too far from where we parked. “And snore, but not that loud.”

My face flushed and I started touching my face, patting my cheeks to check if there were traces of drool or at least dried up ones. I frowned when I found nothing.

“I did not drool.”

He laughed. “Yeah but you’re just so cute when you blush.”

Blake motioned for me to follow and I did. We entered the diner and smell of grease, and bacon greeted my nose. I could feel my mouth water instantly at the savory smell. He guided us to a booth and we all slide in.

A few moments later, a blonde girl at around the age of sixteen or seventeen arrived with the menu and a pad of paper and a pen in her hands.

“Hello, good morning!” she greeted us cheerfully. “Our special for today is the grilled chicken sandwich with complementary drinks.”

“I’d have that.” Blake said as he helped Allie choose.

My eyes scanned the menu which contained numerous varieties of foods. There were so many to choose from and honestly I wanted every single one.

“Beth.” Liam tugged the sleeve of my shirt. “Aunt Beth I want pasketti with meatballs.”

“Alright.” I told him and lowered down my menu, one order caught ,my eye. “One order of spaghetti-”

“With meatballs!” Liam cheered, cutting me off.

“With meatballs.” I repeated, the urge of rolling my eyes was tempting but I didn’t. “And one order of cheesesteak please.”

The girl nodded and only it was this time I saw the nametag on her shirt. It read Christy.

“So that’s one order of a grilled chicken sandwich, chicken nuggets, spaghetti with meatballs, and a cheesesteak?”

Both Blake and I nodded simultaneously.

The sound of metal hitting the wooden table caught my attention. I looked down at the table and found a set of car keys in front of me. I picked it up with my fingers, wondering if the customers before us left these but then I apprehended that the keys belonged to Blake.

“You’re driving the rest of the way, about another thirty minutes or so.” He told me as he fixed his daughter’s messy hair.

“You’re actually letting me drive?” I asked in excitement.

He shrugged and tied Allie’s hair in a ponytail. “Since you’ve already slept and have fed the beast within you by then-”

“Hey!” I exclaimed and interrupted him.

“I’m pretty confident you won’t doze off or anything. And it’s my turn to sleep.” He ignored me and finished his sentence.

A wide grin made its way to my face as I played with the keys on the table. As I toyed with the metal object with one hand, I could feel someone else’s on my other. Slowly, in the most discreet way I could possibly do, I peeked up.

Blake had his hand over mine, grasping me gently, his fingers rubbing small circles on my skin as he played with Allie who ignored him and played with someone her own age, Liam, instead.

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I feel like all chapters I'm writing are just filler chapters. But to hell with that, I need to build their love story so please bear with these kinds of chapters

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