Sugar

17

chapter seventeen
florence thompson
song: up all night – rachel crow

The rest of our night was filled with jokes and laughter, along with a few more serious moments. By the end of our date I was more comfortable than when I'd walked in, not feeling as timid as a mouse anymore.

As our date came to a close, I found myself dreading having to say goodbye to this remarkable man but I reminded myself that it should be easy to leave. If this is just financial I should be able to go without a care in the world.

And so I did.

As I gathered my things and got ready to leave, Vincent piped up, offering to walk me down to my car. Since it was late at night and Captain Too Much Courage accidentally forgot her pepper spray at home, I took him up on his offer.

In silence we walked the whole way down. From the festering elevator all the way outside into the drizzling rain and night air, we were enveloped in a comfortable silence. It was an inexplicable thing that I've never experienced with someone I just met but as I recalled our last dinner, I knew it'd somehow been like this since the beginning.

As we approached my beat up little silver Nissan, I could feel Vincent tense up beside me and suddenly the comfortable silence wasn't so comfortable anymore. I peeked up at him to find his jaw set and eyes locked on the shit mobile as Rico so lovingly calls it.

"You can't possibly feel safe driving this around, Florence," Vincent finally broke the silence, his tone a bit tense as we both stood to the side of my car.

Truth is, this was a hand-me-down car from my mom when I was in high school and as a kid with nothing but time, this thing was the love of my life. I would take trips to the local beach during the summer and eventually this was how I made it to and from Glenn's diner.

Do I feel safe driving this? Well, weirdly enough, I never really think about anything going wrong with this car. It's held up for so long that it's odd for me to think about it giving out on me now.

"I don't know," I mumbled, unsure as I glanced to the silver car to my right.

"Let me buy you a new car," he quickly offered, causing my eyes to shoot open wide. My breath caught in my throat and suddenly I began coughing uncontrollably.

After a few more moments I finally recovered, meeting his intense, unimpressed gaze.

"You're a funny guy, has anyone ever told you that?" I joked, bringing my key to the driver side door and beginning to manually unlock it.

He rolled his eyes.

"I can't say they have, Miss Thompson. But I'm not joking. I want to buy you a new car or I'll always be worried that you're going to show up dead on the news one morning because your car decided to spontaneously combust," he spoke with a pointed tone, crossing his large arms over his chest.

I spaced out for a moment, my gaze locked on the exposed skin between his watch and the cuff of his jacket as I thought of how ridiculous his proposition really was.

"Earth to Florence?"

"Sorry, sorry." I shook my head, trying my best to clear my thoughts and bring myself back to the present where a very handsome and wealthy man was trying to convince me to let him buy me a new car. "About the car thing, it's a no. I appreciate everything you're doing for me, but a car is way too much on top of it. Besides! With all this extra money I'll be saving, I'm sure I'll be able to afford a new car in no time."

He gave an unimpressed look but didn't push the matter much further.

"If you don't have a new car in three months, Florence, I won't hesitate to buy you the safest car I can find," he retorted as I placed my bag into my car and shook my head at him.