Together through it all

14.Chapter Thirteen: Better Than Any Gift

Chapter Thirteen: Better Than Any Gift

"Lucaaas?" Ria shouted from her room. He was standing in the middle of the living room at her home. He was playing with her cat Diana. She's a British Shorthair. "Yes?"  came from below.

"Could you please come in here?" In less than a minute he was running up the stairs to her room. He knocked on the door. "You may come in!"  He went inside.  He looked around but couldn't see her anywhere.  "Where are you?" "In the wardrobe... I slammed in here."

"What do you mean?"

"So that I can't open the damn door. Because the handle is left in my hand."

"Okay, so I guess I'll try to knock them out."

"I don't think that will be a good idea."  But Lucas didn't listen to her.  Ria backed away as far as she could just to be safe.  It wasn't long before the door opened.  That is, they rather fell to the ground and broke the floor with the doorknob.  "I told you it wasn't a good idea."

She shook her head.  "And I should have listened to you, obviously."

"Well, because this definitely doesn't look like a cat's job anymore..."

"Meowwww..." came from below.

"We for the wolf, the wolf for us... One woman to work part-time only for cat food and toilet..." Lucas laughed.

“I'll leave the door as it is for now and cover the floor with a rug before anyone notices.  But now I'm going to feed this little four-legged beast, who, despite all the bullshit, I care about what she does."
It took them a solid half hour, but they finally made it out of her house to go shopping for Christmas presents.  They decided to go by bus.  They walked three hundred meters and reached the stop. There was a suspicious silence like never before.  There wasn't a soul there.  Just the two of them.  They stood next to each other and talked.  Rihanna is out of nowhere she looked ahead.  She realized it had started to snow almost as hard as the day Lucas had told her he liked her.  She smiled and ran into the empty road with no cars.  She started spinning around like a little girl who wanted to become a ballerina.  Lucas watched her with a smile on his face.  Something in his look indicated that she was the only girl who had won his heart one hundred percent.  He started to laugh, but then joined her.  They ended up dancing together in the snow in the middle of the road.  They looked at each other with a smile.  This was the first time in their lives that they both forgot everything.  The existence of time, people, but above all the hatred that reigned between them for a while.  Neither of them would say that they would ever end up together and even be grateful for it.  This whole wonderful moment was interrupted by the honking of car horns behind them.  "I guess we got a little carried away," Rihanna laughed.  No one has ever seen her so happy before, so she will have to hide the fact that she is dating in front of her friends.  And if it would if they found out that someone was Lucas, they would probably tear her up with joy...
Until now, they were both in their own world.
The outline of a bus was visible in the distance.  It didn't last
for a long time and already stopped in front of them.  Door has been opened.
A large number of people got out.  When they entered almost no one was there.  Except for a few people from school.
"So what?  After all, it's a holiday and a weekend at the same time,"
Ria said to herself in her mind.  He and Lucas sat next to each other.  She sat by the window and he next to her.  They both looked out the window.  Rihanna
deep down she felt a pair of eyes staring at her. She didn't look back because she thought it was just
Lucas.  But it wasn't like that.  They boarded the bus Amelia, El and Benji.  Lucas knew that Ria was not ready for them to know about it.  Quickly he put the hood of her sweatshirt on her head, which her luckily it was incredibly big, so she covered her face.  "Your friends are here," he whispered to her
into the ear.  She turned towards the window to her you couldn't even see the face.  Lucas took it also a hood on the head.  They passed quite a bit quickly.  Benji was the only one to notice that it was Lucas. He quickly wanted to start calling Rihanna, but then the bus moved and he almost fell.  He sat down quickly in some random seat.  Rihanna kept her eyes on the road she was watching through the window.  She knew that her friends must not know about this whole thing.  At least not until the end of this year.  She told herself that she would let them do it on New Year's.  Suddenly the bus stopped.  Coincidentally, where she and Lucas perform.  They got out as fast as they could.  They remained standing at the stop.  Lucas looked up because he had a very bad feeling.  Of course it is.  Rihanna's friends stepped out where the two of them.  "We have a problem here," he whispered in her ear. The height difference alone tells her friends that it could be her. Who else is 155 centimeters tall even with shoes. And compared to 185 centimeters Lucas. VERY INconspicuous  ... "Well, maybe that can't even be true!"  shouted El.  Ria and Lucas were startled.  Especially Ria, to be more precise.  She thought El recognized her even though her back was turned to her.  "They don't have that perfume in discount!  THEY DON'T HAVE IT ON DISCOUNT!" El was hysterical. She almost fell to the ground from such a tragedy. "So I thought," Benji began, "I was going to call Rihanna on the bus to see if she happened to know which restaurant we ate at last."  He took out his mobile phone from his pocket.  Lucas grabbed Rio's hand saying, "We need to get as far away as possible before they turn into teenagers at a Justin Bieber concert." He was right. Rihanna's phone started ringing in her jacket pocket. Luckily she never has the ringer on full volume.  . They walked into the mall. They headed to the first least busy store. Second Hand. She took her cell phone out of her pocket and quickly called back. "Hello Benji? What did you want?"

"I just wonder if you know where we ate last time, in which restaurant?"

"I have a feeling it was a pizzeria on the top floor."

"Okay.  Thank you." He hung up. Rihanna was incredibly relieved that they hadn't noticed... "Let's go to a store before we run into them again," Lucas suggested.

"Good idea.  How about the clothing store at the end of this floor?"

"Sure." They walked forward. They held hands. They pretended as if nothing and no one else existed. Just the two of them across the world and across time. They laughed together like comedians and talked like old best friends. He looked at her like a critic on  the most beautiful picture he'd ever seen. She looked at him like no one else existed. They walked through the mall like they owned the whole world. People were staring at them. Why wouldn't they? After all, they're enjoying life on their own and with each other. After ten minutes they got where they wanted. They split up for a while but still found their way back to each other every time. They made fun of some hideous fashion trends. They talked about what they could imagine each other in. They designed weird outfits and in the end  they also went to try on the outfits. Ria came out in a short emerald green cocktail dress Lucas came out in the suit she had chosen for him.  "WOW," his sled fell well but not to the ground, "I'm sorry, but you didn't see Ria Hemandez, because this is definitely not my girlfriend..." He could keep his eyes on her.  "Do you really like them that much?"

"Not that dress, but you in that dress..." something cut him off. Rihanna's friends. They went to the exam booths. Lucas didn't hesitate for a second and grabbed Rihanna's hand and they quickly hid in her booth. "Hey El, you're the main one  don't try everything for too long," Amelia warned her. "We're going to poke around a bit for now," Benji explained.

"Three hundred selfies and three centuries later," joked Lucas.  Rihanna's friends had finally left and she and Lucas didn't have to be crammed together like sardines in one picturesque cabin.  She tried on outfit number two.  Lucas helped her choose it.  They were baggy jeans and a t-shirt of her favorite metal band.  SLIPKNOT.  She couldn't put her pants on, so she only tried on a T-shirt.  She came out of the booth, "Lucaaa?" Only she could call him that. He let her because only she reminded him of his late grandmother.  Her smile, eye color and laugh.  Everything fit.  He really cared about his grandmother.  He was her favorite grandchild.  Actually, the only one she liked.  Maybe that's why Rihanna won his heart.  Because despite her cold face, deep down she cares for all people more than she should...

"Yes Ri-ri?" he answered like this on purpose. He wanted to know if it still irritated her. He came out of the booth. He was wearing an outfit in a style that Ria likes. They agreed to choose each other's outfits in their favorite style.  Rihanna likes the grunge style. She likes to wear dark baggy clothes, so she forced Lucas to wear a baggy AC/DC t-shirt and baggy black jeans. She looked at him as if he had been replaced. He looked really different. Until now, his dressing style was like a business man or a typical fashion guy,  but this was a marked change. "I'm going to guess... You're at a loss for words because you look at me like young girls look at Korean pop singers."

"R-right..."
"Fine, I guess I'm done trying on outfits for today. I can see how you're looking at me because of that..." he started laughing.  He tapped her nose with his finger to get her out of the world... God knows where that girl was again... Her thoughts jump faster than a kangaroo.  They both changed back.  They returned the clothes they didn't want and went to pay.  "Dear Lucas, let me pay for you," Ria said after a moment of silence. She looked at him with puppy dog eyes. "You don't have to pay for me."

“But you bought me five bouquets of flowers, a stuffed reindeer in the last two weeks, and you paid at the bar that day too… I don't want to owe you so many favors.

"You don't owe me anything, because just being able to be with you is a gift to me."

Ria didn't know what she was doing for a moment, but she did at the same time.  She hugged him without any hesitation.  She probably likes him more and more every day.  It's interesting how people can change from enemies to acquaintances and finally to a couple...