Coding is Easy, Loving is Hard

CHAPTER TWO

AUTHOR'S NOTE: IT'S FOUR IN THE MORNING, I JUST SPENT ALL NIGHT WRITING THIS... WILL EDIT WHEN I WAKE UP IN A FEW HOURS... TILL THEN, PLEASE, NO JUDGEMENT IN CASE OF ERROR, LOL xD.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our seating arrangements had not been sorted without a small fuss. Seeing as there were eight of us and three cars, it was unexpectedly hard to decide who would be riding with whom. I, of course, had Ethan's passenger's seat eternally called for since I was his best friend – no one dares to argue with that. Monica and Erick had been dating for a while now so it was intelligible that their car was unspoken for, since nobody wants to get in between their personal space and get left out like a third wheel. Michael's car, on the other hand, held the big dilemma.

Michael was desperately trying to convince Andrew and Noah to ride with Ethan and I in the hopes of getting Holly to ride with him so that he could have some alone time with her. Much to his annoyance, however, the boys were both oblivious of his intentions and wouldn't give in. They insisted and argued until I couldn't take it anymore and decided to intervene.

I pushed on Michael's and Andrew's chests, putting my small figure between them to call their attention. "That's enough, guys! Holly will be riding with me and that's the end of this discussion!" I said with so much authority that all three boys were taken aback. Once they came to it, Andrew and Noah fist-punched while Michael let his head fall forwards in defeat. I swear I heard him whimper.

"Alright, guys, now that that's settled, the real question is: where the hell are we going?" Erick asked from behind Monica. He was leaning against the passenger's door of his car holding Monica against his chest – apparently they were both just observing while the argument went on, not wanting to get involved.

"I vote for bowling," Ethan called from the far corner, raising his hand.

The rest of us shared glances among ourselves, then simultaneously shook our heads side to side while grunting, "nah", "no way", "nope", "not gonna happen", "uh-uh".

Ethan shrugged. "What will it be, then?"

I suddenly had an idea. I pulled Holly closer to whisper it in her ear. She smiled ear-to-ear and nodded her head eagerly; her eyes were now sparkling with enthusiasm.

I smiled mischievously in return and we both screamed, "KARAOKE!"

"Oooooh, I love karaoke," Noah chipped in.

"Karaoke it is then," Erick announced as he pushed himself from the car and opened the door for Monica.

"Thanks for the save," Holly whispered to me as we made our way to Ethan's car.

"Don't mention it," I blinked an eye at her in response.

We pulled up to the best karaoke pub I knew in town. It was called Garage and, ironically enough, it was rock-themed and set up in a garage.

As we got closer to the entrance, we could hear from far out people singing off-key on the stage on the far end of the room:

"...Bring it back, bring it back
Don't take it away from me
Because you don't know
What it means to me..."

When the pub is open the front gates of the Garage stay fully opened. The first thing you see when you first walk in are tables with four chairs each for people to drink and socialize. As you walk in further into the room, there is a counter to the right where the bar is.

On the bar behind the counter, there was a beautiful woman. She had curly dark-brown hair. Her dark features stood out vividly – black eyes and thick eyebrows – with the help of her smokey make up. She captured my attention as soon as I saw her and when she looked up from the computer screen that sat beside her on the counter, her thick lips fully filled in with red lipstick smiled warmly and her eyes glistered in the pub's lighting.