Chance Encounters

nine

Chapter 9

As planned, Austin and I were going to go through the three music stores in town according to the one closest to where we were at the moment. After dropping Alyssa and Warren off, I surveyed the neighborhood, trying to conjure an image of the town map in my head.

I wasn't sure if it was accurate, but if I remember correctly, the closest one from where we were was that music store roughly around ten minutes away. The shop's name was Astral, and I remember going there one time with Tori when she bought a CD for her cousin's birthday.

The can of Pringles stood in the console between us. I didn't want to admit it to him, but they were slightly better than dried fruit.

"Why do you think they went to a music store?" he asked me.

I shrugged. "It was probably Idiot Two's idea."

He raised an eyebrow at the way I referred to Lewis. "Why do you think so?"

"Tori has an iPhone. Everything she wants to listen to, she can get on iTunes," I said simply. "Your cousin, however, owns Georgina, who thrives on these CDs."

"Well, what if Idiot One actually wanted a CD?"

I doubted it, so I simply shrugged. "I really don't know what's going on in that head of hers."

"You seem pretty close though."

Thinking back to that picture in the glove compartment, I replied with, "You and Lewis too."

He rolled his eyes, but there was a smile on his face. "You can kind of say that. Our..." He trailed off and I looked over at him. He cleared his throat. "Our families are really close."

That little pause was short, almost imperceptible, but it felt like something so big. I wondered what was really up with him. I wondered if it had anything to do with his family and all this little mysteries I'd seen so far.

"Lewis and I are practically brothers. We grew up together," he continued when I didn't say anything, reverting back to his normal tone. "I'm like his slightly younger but better looking brother."

If he was deliberately covering up his little slip with this cocky attitude of his, he wasn't fooling me. I could tell that he was only trying to get past the subject.

Under normal circumstances, I would have called him on it, but there was something in the way his eyes looked—guarded, wary—that made it nearly impossible for me to even question him further about it, so instead, I said, "To be honest, Lewis looks better. Way better."

"Uh, no."

"Uh, yes." I squinted in the darkness, recognizing our surroundings. "Turn left here."

I was slightly surprised when I realized we'd been talking for a while now. As opposed to how we'd been ignoring each other when the night had just started, our conversations seemed slightly less snarky now. We even had a semi-normal conversation that didn't make me want to cut off his balls.

In fact, I might have grown to hate him less, but I didn't want to acknowledge that possibility.

"You and Tori," he suddenly said, steering the topic away from him. "You seem like an unlikely pair."

"Trust me." I shook my head. "We're like the complete opposites of each other."

"So she isn't as snarky as you are?"

"I am not always snar—"

"We've been through this," he said with an exaggerated sigh, especially meant to mock me.  "And yes, you are snarky. You're snarking at me right now. See? That expression on your face can be summed up in one word. Snarky."