The 16 Candles Vampire Hunters

Chapter 19 Coffee

November 1, 2005 2:34 PM

EJ's POV

"Hey, you okay?" Someone nudged my shoulder lightly and my head snapped up quickly. I pushed up my glasses with my fists as I rubbed my eyes. "What'dImiss." I slurred in a haze of exhaustion and low level hangover. "Not much honestly." I squinted my eyes shut for a second, sighed whilst shaking the sleep out of my head, and followed the slightly gravelly female voice.

She smiled widely as she extended an open palm toward me. "You seem a little out of it, friend." She called me friend, yet she didn't even know me. I shook her hand firmly and met her intent gaze. Her eyes were stunning. They seemed to be producing their own light, the shade of blue was so deep and airy at the same time. There was one little brown fleck in her left eye. "Woah." I breathed. Snap out of it I mentally scolded myself.

"I'm Charlie." She moved her sandy blonde hair behind her ear, unphased by my staring and odd comment.. I adjusted my glasses and a smile found its way onto my face. "I'm EJ." Charlie took a pen and began writing furiously in a notebook. She was right-handedand, but held her pen at what seemed to me an awkward angle, with the pen resting on a slender ring finger and being held by the other three.

"Thank you so much for waking me up." The girl smirked and blew a little air out of her nose in what I assumed was a laugh. "No problem. I've seen you around, just never had the courage to talk to you. Gave me a reason." She ripped out the paper and handed it to me with a flourish. Our hands brushed, she didn't pull away, and my pulse quickened.

"Would you like to go get coffee?" I offered extemporaneously. Holy crap, I just asked that. Charlie's eyes crinkled when she smiled. "That sounds great. Class is almost over." I stole a glance over at her one more time and our eyes met momentarily. She was looking too I mentally squealed. I averted my gaze, stomach in a jumble, and refocused on the lesson.

Coffee with Charlie. Charlie and coffee. It sounded nice; what normal people did. I scribbled down notes furiously trying to catch up on what I had missed. At least I set up a recorder in my pocket which'll save my butt later.

I hummed some song that popped into my head. I hadn't done that in awhile. I was always singing or humming something, but recently there had never been any songs stuck in my head. Somehow, despite all of the crap going on in the universe of EJ, maybe things were going to get better.

"Remember class, 30 page essay, due next week. Times New Roman, 12 point font, and double spaced. Dismissed." I had the rough draft written, and most of the works cited. I would get it done in time even with my chronic procrastination.

I organized all of my papers and put it into a folder. I stacked it on top of my journal, other books, and scattered pencils, pens, sharpies, and highlighters and put them into my grey bag. The piece of paper that Charlie wrote on and gave to me fell onto the floor. I grabbed for it and dropped all of the dead trees out of my bag.

"Gosh darnit!" I shouted angrily. I slipped off of my bag and got on the floor to start picking up the scattered mess. "Gosh darnit? You better watch your language." Charlie helped picking up papers as well. She handed me back a neat stack which I infused with mine. I shoved them angrily into my bag, and took a few deep breaths in order to calm down. That's a great first impression.

"What does EJ stand for?" She asked bluntly, offering a hand to pull me up. Not wanting to seem ruse, I obliged, her strong grip easily lifting me up. She had a few good inches on me. Almost everyone did, but with her I didn't mind as much. "Oh, uh." I thought of how to answer the question. The truth was when I moved to Chicago to live with my god father Tommy, I stopped going by Emilee because I needed a fresh start. My mom would always call me "Em", or "Emmy" and I couldn't risk the chance of someone else using that nickname.