The Night We Met

Chapter 10

James's POV:

I sat in the rehearsal room on the stall of my drums, on video call to Riley who was in the dorm room of her university, supposedly studying. It had gone one o'clock now and both of us were on break except she took the time to practice a topic, leaning towards a medical career, whereas I was sat there, talking to her freely.

"So, you said you had an exam today," I say. "How was it?"

"It was good. I think I did well."

"Really? What was it based on?"

"Paediatrician. I think it's quite possibly the only thing I'm actually interested in, considering it's to do with children."

"So you like children then?" I ask her. Her eyes light up as she looks at me with a cute smile formed on her lips.

"Yeah, I love them. I think they're adorable." I laugh to a particular extent, thinking she just gets cuter within every minute that passes. Just like how that smile of hers grows broader each time we talk. It's like she's getting used to me, the same way I am with her and it just feels good to have someone, other than my family, to talk to.

But suddenly I hear the sound of a door opening before a girl with blonde curly hair enters the view of the camera.

"Ri?" she says. "Who are you talking to?" But then she pauses and gasps, her eyes widening as she lowers her voice and whispers just loud enough for the microphone of Riley's laptop to detect, "Are you talking to that boyfriend of yours?"

I smirk and watch as Riley pulls her eyes away from the screen, her pupils widening.

"What? No. He's not my boyfriend. We're not together like that yet."

"Yeah, yet . . ." her friend says slyly. I see Riley rolls her eyes.

"Sorry, James," she sighs. "I better go now, but I'll text you later?"

"Yeah sure thing, babe," I say on purpose, just to tease her. The blonde smirks, crossing her arms and wriggling her eyebrows, looking at Riley with a sheer grin as if to say 'I told you so'.

"Okay, bye . . ." Riley says slowly, like she was unsure of why I had just called her that again. So once she declines, I click onto her contact and message her.

J: We're dating, remember? I get to call you that if I want to.

She starts typing, the three dots loading on my screen before my phone pings half a dozen seconds later.

R: We'll talk about this later "babe".

I chuckle at her text and then message her back.

J: You love it, Riley. Just admit it. But sure. We'll talk later ;)

R: Whatever🙄

~

Later that evening, I get a repetend series of knocks on the door of my one-bedroom flat as their fist raps on it tirelessly. I roll my eyes but form a grin on my face, having an idea of who it could be as I stride towards the front before unlocking the chain-lock door. My suspicions are depicted correct when I see Riley stood there, looking rather agitated.

"Hey-" I begin to say but she rolls her eyes before I could finish, pushing me aside to enter herself since I don't move out of the way.

"Hi. And don't even think about calling me what I know you were just about to," she scolds, pointing her finger in my direction. I close the door once she walks over to my kitchen island where she takes a seat and I lock the chain before making my way towards her.

"You're hot when you're mad," I say, sitting down opposite her. She scowls, shooting a harsh glare towards me. I know I've passed a line then and notice how seriously exasperated she seemed, so I stretch my hand out, placing my palm over the top of her forearm. "Are you okay? Did something happen?" I ask, more carefully than I had spoken to her before. She looks up at me and sighs.

"Aiden spoke to me today." My face stiffens at the mention of his name but I don't move my hand. She looks like she needs comfort. "He wanted to congratulate me on the exam even though he was literally flirting with girls the entire way through it. I don't even know why he was talking to me," she scoffs.

"Is that all he said?"

"He looked like he wanted to say more but my friend, Thalia, and I pushed him away. He was probably just going to . . ." She looks at me and then shakes her head. "I'm not even going to finish that sentence."

"Why not?" I ask. "What has he done, Ri? You can tell me. It's not like I'll do anything."

"Thank you," she says. "And I do trust you, James, but this is something I'm not ready to share with anyone yet. My parents don't even know about it-"

"If it's something bad, I think you need to talk about it," I tell her.

"No, it's fine. I can't. I can deal with it," she says. "But about earlier," she says as she holds my hand, "I think . . . since we're already fake-dating around your parents, we should do the same around my friends." I raise an eyebrow. "I mean, we're kind of dating right now, aren't we?"

"I think so," I say. She smiles lightly.

"Then let's continue. That way, if Aiden thinks I have a boyfriend, he'll leave me alone-"

"So this will only be to get Aiden to stay away from you?" I ponder feeling slightly misplaced and hurt. Despite it only being a couple of days, I really like Riley so far and I want us to take things further.

"No . . ." she says slowly. She cups my cheek with her palm, her soft skin pressing against my own with the steel of the silver ring on her finger cold on my face. "I want us to at least try this dating thing, James," she tells me. "If you want to, too."

"I do," I tell her. She smiles.

"Then let's do it. We'll date," she says. "And then we'll see how it goes."

"Okay."

. . .

a/n: sorry, it's short but I wanted to get a chapter in