Safe With You

20. I'll Make a List.

*a few days later*

"I don't want him to see us." She whispers, gripping my hand a little harder as we walking into the local Starbucks.

"He won't, and if he does you don't have to be afriad."

"But what if he's in here?" She whispers again, a little more nervous than before.

"I doubt that he's come out of the house since you left." He was so helpless, he was probably just waiting for her to come back because he was such a lazy jerk.

"But what if-"

"Aly." I say flatly looking down at her and raise both my eyebrows. A smile spreads aross her face and she giggles at me. "What?" I ask innocently.

"You're a dork." She answers and we walk up to the cash regester to order our drinks. The girl hands Aly hers, then when she gives me mine theres a napkin attached with a name and phone number. I look at it and smile, because it usually didn't happen that often. Out of the corner of my eye I see Aly tense up and when I look at her she forces a smile. I take her and and walk over to the trash can, make sure no one behind the counter is looking, and throw it away. A smile spreads across her face and her tenseness disappears just as quickly as it came. I know it scares her that stuff like that happens when she isn't around or when I'm on tour, so I want to show her thats how unimportant that was to me. Even when we were best friends she didn't like it when girl gave me their numbers like that. She said 'If they really thought you were available they would've talked to you'. Okay, honestly if she wasn't there I would've kept it to show the guys but thats all I would've done.

We sit down at a table across from each other and sip our coffee in silence for a moment. "So," Aly says. As I quickly draw my attention back to her, she looks down and her hands that were sitting in front of her. "I have a question."

"Fire away." I say and take a drink.

"Why do you love me?" I almost spew the liquid in my mouth everywhere.

"What?" I ask laughing.

"You could have any girl in the world! I mean with just one simple eye contact you could melt someone, so why me?" Her face turns into a deep red as she picks at her fingers. "Sorry its a stupid question."

"No," I say grabbing her hand. "Its not a stupid question." She looks up at me with hopeful eyes, waiting for me to answer. "Why you? Why you," I say looking around pretending to search my thoughts. "Well, I can't really answer that right now." A smirk spreads across my face.

"Huh?"

"I need to make a list, so I don't accidentally repeat myself and I make sure to cover all the bases." I say, trying not to laugh, taking another drink.

"So, when will this list be ready?" She asks as her cheeks turn a light shade of pink and she leans closer to me over the table.

"Hmm, I don't know, but I know I need to start soon if I finish it before we die."

"Wow." She said opening her eyes wide. "Thats a long list!" Seeing her joke around again brings me so much life.

"Well theres a lot of things I love about you." My smile gets even bigger, she looks down and starts blushing again. "And thats one of them." I say pointing at her cheeks for a second.

"Quit it! You're making me blush more!" She says nudging my hand.

We talk a little bit more, but the main reason I'm taking her out is because I have news, but I don't know how to tell her. "So uh, ya know how Storm Warning and everything has been playing around here?" I ask as she takes a drink and nods her head. "Well, in a month I have to uh, go on tour."

Her eyes go wide for a second. "Hunter that's amazing!" She says getting excited.

"And I asked if i could take you, but-"

"It's fine." she says putting her hand on mine and taking another drink with me. She already knows what I'm going to say.

"I just don't want you to be alone."

"Hunter, I'm going to have to deal with this as you grow as an artist and a person. You're going to have to leave for a while and there will be times that I won't be able to go, and we're going to have to learn to live with it. I mean I lived alone before, I can do that again. Plus I can house sit your apartment."

I look down and smile. "How do you take everything so well?"

She plays with her cup and laughs. "I don't." I look her with a confused look. "I'm emotionally unstable, I'm good at hiding my emotions even though I'm an emotional wreck." She says giggling. "It's going to be tough and we're going to have to fight for it, but I know we can do it."

"I want to know how you're really feeling, if you're not happy-"

"Are you kidding?! I'm extremely happy for you! This is like your first little tour, it's so cute!" She giggles again and takes another sip.

"Hey! Little tour? It's the biggest one I've ever done!" Quickly I realize she was just messing with me to get me to react. I can tell because shes smiling with her nose scrunched and trying not to laugh. "Oh my gosh." I say rolling my eyes.

"You know you love me." She says making her eyebrows go up and down before laughing and biting the straw of her drink.

"Yes, yes I do."