PINKY PROMISE ; CLEARWATER

V.

"I DON'T GET why you're hiding now," Cecelia told her best friend as she watched her hide deeper in her oversized hoodie. "You made a move yesterday, and dare I say, it was pretty smooth. What's the problem?"

"The problem is," Nicole spoke as she played with the sleeves of her hoodie. "I have no idea what he thinks of me now. I mean, what I said wasn't even that bad, but I don't know how to act now."

Cecelia laughed at her friend's dilemma, "You're just overthinking again. I mean yesterday you said the same thing and you two talked the whole way to your class. Just don't think too much about it."

"How should I stop thinking about it? It's like now that I know him, I see him everywhere," Nicole said, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation.

"It's okay, I'm sure he'll come and talk to you later." Cecelia reassured her.

He actually didn't come to talk to Nicole for the whole day, up until it was time for lunch. Then he did show up, out of nowhere and scared the living shit out of Nicole, who was walking on her own. "Hi Nicole, how are you?"

Turning over to him, her heart still beating like crazy, Nicole responded as nonchalantly as she could. "I'm fine. What about you?"

"I just had a test in Science and I totally flunked it," Seth told her, reaching back to open the ponytail he had put his long hair in.

"It can't be that bad, I'm sure," Nicole tried cheering him up. She had become pretty good at cheering people up when they got a bad grade, seeing as one of her younger sisters wasn't that good in school and preferred to be outside and build stuff with their father instead of studying. "And even if, you can totally catch up with the next test."

Seth just shrugged as he looked over the students that were heading to the cafeteria, "You're probably right, the school year only started this month."

"Exactly," Nicole agreed.

They then continued making light conversation as they got in the cafeteria and went to get their food, not once did the silence that stretched over them become awkward and they always had something to laugh about.

"Well, I'll go over to David and the others, see you", Seth spoke and went off, letting Nicole stand there for a second, thanking all of her ancestors for having made this conversation flow so easily.

"I saw you two talking," Cecelia spoke as Nicole sat down at their usual table. "Was it as bad as you thought it would be?"

Nicole blushed, a bit as she thought back to her own overthinking, "No it wasn't. We actually talked the whole time and he didn't even mention anything about going fishing. Though, now that I think about it, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing."

"Let's just think about it," Cecelia told her friend, trying to be a voice of reason in her wandering thoughts. "You two haven't known each other for that long and you really don't know much about him. Maybe he's trying to get to know you better before doing anything. For all he knows you could try to drown him when you're going fishing."

Nicole laughed at that, it did make sense and she also felt like it was better to not hurry things too much, they should first get to know one another better. "Since when do you give such good advice?"

"I always have, you're the one who never listened to me," Cecelia retorted, while throwing her long black hair over her shoulder.

"What shampoo do you use, Seth?" Nicole asked as they were once again walking to lunch together, it seemed as if all of Seth's classes were pretty close to her own so whenever the two of them had no one to walk with, they waited for the other. This has been going on for a few weeks now and they started to get to know each other better and better.

"What kind of question is that?" the boy asked, raising his eyebrow at her.

Nicole shook her head and laughed, pointing at his hair. "Your hair always looks so good and isn't the slightest bit frizzy, even when it rains almost every day now. How do you manage to do that?"

The younger boy just shrugged his shoulders and threw his hair over his shoulder, "I don't know, I just use my sister's shampoo and conditioner, it pisses her off. Which is kind of funny."

"Oh gosh, so you're one of those younger siblings," Nicole criticizes, "As an older sister I should beat you up for that. But I need to know what shampoo and conditioner it is so I think I'll let you go under the condition that you'll send me a photo of her shampoo and conditioner."

"Sure, I can do that, but you'll have to give me your number first," Seth responded, as he got out his phone and handed it to her. His stomach was doing flips, he finally got her number, even if it was for a stupid thing like his hair products. "And you have to promise me not to tell Leah about this, she hasn't noticed up until now that I take her shampoo. If she finds out, she'll really kill me."

Walking off, Nicole just shrugged, "I'll think about it."

"Who's been texting you so much lately?" Evelyn asked her daughter as they were on their way to go shopping and Nicole was unusually much on her phone.

Quickly putting her phone away, Nicole smiled innocently at her mother, "No one."

However, one look for her mother was enough and she began rambling on about how she met a cute guy and that they had been talking so much and getting to know each other over the past few weeks. "I really like him but I don't know if I should tell him, isn't it too soon to have feelings for him? And I mean he's a year younger than me, won't others think that's weird?"

Evelyn was silent for a minute and just as Nicole was about to speak up again, did she respond to her daughter, "Finally, you like a guy. Your dad owes me money now, I love you, Nikki. Now don't give me that look, you never talked about any guys, like ever."

Shrugging, her mother pulled into the parking lot of the supermarket. "I don't think you can move too fast if you really like him, you should tell him that. Your father asked me out on a date when he first met me in a restaurant. And with the thing about your age, that also doesn't really matter, remember you great grandma? She was 5 years older than her first husband. Age won't matter in a few years."

Nicole nodded at all of that. "You're right but, I don't know, what if I ruin everything by making a bigger move on him? He could start hating me."

"You're exaggerating, by what you told me, I can tell that he also must like you in some way, he's probably too shy to say anything because he's worried about the same things as you are," Evelyn told her daughter, got the shopping bags and got out of the car. "Let's go, I'll get you chocolate, that'll help you think."

Nicole quickly got out of the car and ran after her mother, her cowboy boots thumping on the floor. "You know that I love you, right?"