The Valentine Date: Long Distance, Billionaires and Former Bad Boy's Collection

Copyright © 2016 by BLVNP Incorporated

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The Valentine Date

Long Distance, Billionaires and Former Bad Boys Collection

By: BLVNP

ISBN
:
978-1-68030-697-2

©
BLVNP 2016

Skype Date

A Faking Delinquency Short Story

By: Ashley Winters

©Ashley Winters
2016

“It’s Valentine’s Day, and I don’t have a date,” Arabelle grumbled, planting her elbows on the island and sending me a pout.  “This is so depressing.”

“Hey, it’s not that bad,” I said from my spot in front of the stove, where I was stirring a pot of mac and cheese noodles.  “You get to pig out on chocolate and binge-watch Netflix with no shame, which I think is pretty spectacular.”

“Says the girl who’s getting ready for her date.”

I pressed my lips together, trying to come up with a retort, but unable to find one.  She had me there.  I mean, I was getting ready for a date.  Will and I obviously couldn’t go out to a restaurant, seeing how he was all the way in Washington, but we could make the same meal and watch a movie at the same time, which worked almost as well.  Mac and cheese with hot dogs probably wasn’t the most romantic of meals, but it was the only thing we could both cook.  And by “both” I meant me.  Will could cook a large variety of things.  I, on the other hand, could not.  It was a life skill I had yet to truly acquire.

I guess I would just have to add cooking to the list of things Will had to teach me before we died.  He could teach me how to make cute friendship bracelets and other foods besides pasta before then, right?  Maybe.  Hopefully.

Okay, probably not.  I was basically a lost cause in those departments.

“What movie are you guys watching, anyway?” Arabelle asked, traveling over to the cabinet and retrieving the jar of peanut butter.  As she grabbed a spoon, she sent me a brief look, waiting for my reply.

“We haven’t really decided yet,” I said with a shrug.

“Are you going to make him watch a movie he hates but you love?”

I pondered this for a moment before shrugging again.  “We pretty much have the same taste in movies, so that might be a bit difficult,” I replied.  And I kind of wanted to watch a movie we both liked.  While watching him cringe and make irritate comments about movies (The Lion King, in particular) was amusing, tonight I didn’t want him to be miserable.  Maybe another time.

As though Will knew we were talking about him, my phone vibrated in my butt pocket, signaling a call.  With a small grin on my lips, I tugged the phone out, pressed Accept, and brought the phone to my ear.  “You tickled my butt,” I said.

Arabelle snickered.

“What?”

“You tickled my butt,” I repeated, unable to help but laugh now.  “Were you aware you could tickle someone’s butt from such a great distance?”

Will paused like he didn’t quite know how to respond.  “My girlfriend is weird,” he eventually settled on.

“Is she?  I thought she was pretty amazing, but, hey, that’s just my completely unbiased opinion.”

“Unbiased, huh?”

“Completely.”

Will chuckled.  “Well, I just called to see if you’re almost done making the mac and cheese because I’m starving and about to start eating without you.”

I gasped.  “Okay, first you don’t agree that your girlfriend is amazing, and then you go and threaten to eat without me.  Dammit, Dyer!”

While Will laughed at me again, I switched off the stove, moved the pot over to the sink, and dumped the pasta into the strainer.  Arabelle sauntered over to the fridge and pulled out a stick of butter.  She cut the stick in half before throwing it into a plastic bowl and into the microwave. 

I smiled.  “Thank you!”

“No problem.”  Arabelle grinned and backed toward the hallway, peanut butter in hand.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with Mortal Kombat.”

“Please try not to throw the remote,” I called after her.

“No promises!”

I grinned and returned my attention to the task at hand.  I rinsed out the pasta and then dumped it back in the pot before ambling over to the microwave, where the butter was now melted and ready to go.  “If you can wait, like, one more minute, my food will be done,” I said.

Will sighed.  “Fine.”

“Well, I’m sorry for not being a professional cook, Mr. I-Can-Cook-Everything.”

“You come up with the worst last names,” Will informed me.

“Excuse you, my fictional last names are as amazing as I am.”

“Yeah-huh.”

I pretended to be offended for a second before laughing it off and finishing my mac and cheese.  And then, once that was done, I hurried to cook the single hot dog I planned on eating.  “What are we watching, anyway?” I asked as I shut the microwave and plugged in the time the hot dog needed to cook. 

“I thought you were choosing the movie.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what we should watch.  So any suggestions would be great.”

“What did we watch last year?” Will asked.

I paused to think his question over.  This was our third year doing this, and the final one before we went to college and could actually spend Valentine’s Day together instead of behind computer screens.  We watched a lot of movies together, so trying to figure out which ones we saved for Valentine’s Day, was, well, a little difficult.  “Um…I think we watched Warm Bodies?”

“That sounds right.”

The microwave beeped and I tugged out the plate and set it on the counter.  “I’m not in the mood for a romance movie, to be honest,” I said while I grabbed a knife and cut the hot dog into smaller pieces.  “Are you?”

“Not particularly, no.  I was going to suffer in silence, but this works just as well.”

I smiled.  “Aw, that’s sweet.”

“Anything for you, sweetheart.”

His tone had a teasing edge, but I knew he meant what he said.  He really would have suffered through a two-hour romance movie just for me, if he thought that’s what I wanted.  “Ugh, I love you, you know that?”

“I love you, too.”

My smile grew.  “Oh, hey, guess what!” I said, dishing mac and cheese into a small bowl.

“What?”

“I am officially done making my food.”

Will let out a sigh.  “Finally.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that you decided to make yours freakishly early!” I defended myself whilst grabbing my food and edging toward the stairs.  It was actually a difficult task, seeing how I had a plate, a bowl, and a phone to hold.

“Falice, it’s almost six o’clock.”

“Which means I am having dinner at nine PM for you.  You’re welcome.”

Will snorted but didn’t reply, which I took to mean as me having won this little banter.  Which I definitely did.  Of course, this was actually my second dinner, but Will didn’t need to know that.  Because then I probably would lose the banter, and I already lost so many.

I made it to my room without dropping my food or my phone and set the plate and bowl on my bed.  I’d just plopped onto my bed when I realized that I forgot an important part.  “Will,” I whined.

“What?”

“I forgot a fork and spoon.  And ketchup for my hot dog.”

“I am not surprised,” Will mused, apparently not understanding how much I was dreading my trek back downstairs to retrieve what I’d forgotten.  Ugh.  I was too lazy to make mistakes like this.

“Can you go get them for me?” I asked, glancing toward my door.

“Sure.  Let me just grab the money for a plane ticket, get on the plane, and walk all the way to your house so you won’t have to go downstairs to grab a fork and a spoon.”

“And ketchup,” I reminded him.

“And ketchup.”

“Awesome, so what time should you be here?” I asked, already forcing myself to stand back up and amble over to my door.

“Seven hours, give or take?”  He paused.  “No, just give.  It definitely wouldn’t take less time than that.”

“Okay, see you then.  You’re fine waiting to eat until then, right?”

“Oh my god, Falice.  Please no.”

I grinned.  “I love you,” I sang.

“Yeah-huh.  Sure you do.”

My grin only grew.

☼

We eventually settled on a horror film that neither of us had seen before, and, seeing how neither of us owned the movie, we had to turn to the internet.  I actually found it on Netflix, but Will didn’t have that, so he had to find some other website that wouldn’t buffer every ten seconds.

“Remember that I’m not actually in the room with you, so you’ll have no one to hug when you get scared,” Will said, now on Skype, when I jumped at a part in the movie.

I scrunched my nose at him.  “Hardy har.  As long as there aren’t any snakes, I think I’ll be okay.”

Will smirked.  “Are you sure you don’t want to watch Snakes on a Plane?”

I gave him a flat look.  “No.”

“Are you sure?”

I took a bite out of my mac and cheese and shook my head.  “No way.  That is one movie you will never get me to watch.”

Will took a bite out of his own mac and cheese, his gaze thoughtful and distant, like he was imagining a scenario in which he would actually get me to watch Snakes on a Plane.  There wasn’t one.  “What if I held your peanut butter hostage?” he asked.

“I’d steal your wallet and go buy myself another jar,” I retorted.  “And then I wouldn’t talk to you for a year because that is so uncalled for.”

Will chuckled.  “Damn, I thought that would have worked.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.  “Yeah, well, you were wrong.”

We were silent for a few minutes while we ate our dinners and watched the movie.  We actually succeeded in getting the movie perfectly in sync, which I thought was pretty freaking amazing.  Are you aware how hard it is to press play at the exact same time?  So difficult we almost never succeeded.

“Hmm, you know what I could really go for right now?” I asked while a particularly stupid character went outside in the dark all alone without a weapon to protect herself from a supernatural evil that was obviously lurking in the shadows. 

“What?”

“Chocolate.”  I sighed.  “It’s Valentine’s Day, and I haven’t had any chocolate.  How wrong is that?”

“Hold on,” Will murmured, shifting to grab something from his nightstand.  I watched as he did so, gaze latching on the three framed photographs sitting on top of it.  There was one when he a kid and playing catch with his dad, one with me while we were at my house during his first full summer there, and one with our group of friends during the last Fourth of July.  I smiled faintly and then glanced down at my wrist, which was still decorated with the friendship bracelet Will made me.  It was significantly dirtier and more worn down than when I first received it, but, regardless, I still wore it every day.  Will did the same, from what he told me.

“Here we go.”

I pressed my lips into a straight line when Will collapsed onto his bed again, a bag of Hersey kisses in hand.  “You’re gonna give me some of that, right?” I asked.

Will popped one into his mouth.  “Nope.”

I gave him an unimpressed look while he closed his eyes and ate his Hersey kiss in the most dramatic way possible.  I tell him I was craving chocolate and then he goes and does this.  That was a low blow, even for him.  “Dyer, may I remind you that there’s no sex in the cell?” I said, an amused smile at my lips.

Will’s eyes opened, and the dramatics immediately fell away.  “No,” he said.

“No, what?  That I can’t remind you?”

Will rolled his eyes at me and ate another Hersey kiss, this time without acting like it was the love of his life.  “Will that term ever go away?” he muttered, more to himself than to me.

“No,” I informed him.  “We’re going to be eighty years old, and I’ll still look over at you and say, ‘Dammit, Dyer, how many times do I have to tell you that there’s no sex in the cell?’”

Will looked like he was about to answer, but then one of the characters let out a horrendous scream, and, for a moment, our conversation was forgotten.  “Wait, who the hell just died?” he asked.

“I don’t know.  I was too busy watching you inappropriately eat your chocolate.”

Will snorted.  “Well, whose fault is that?”

“Um, yours.”

“It was probably that annoying brunette,” Will said, tossing his Hersey kisses aside and eating some more of his mac and cheese.  His hot dog, like mine, was already gone.  “What’s her name again?”

“Sharon, I think?  I don’t know.  I’ve been calling her Annoying Chick the whole time.”

Our questions were answered when one of the other characters started crying about Sharon being dead, about pretty much everyone being dead.  This supernatural creature, whatever the hell it was, was piling on bodies like I did peanut butter. 

“Finally,” I grumbled.  “Why wasn’t she the first one to go?”

Will shrugged.  “Because they like to keep the annoying ones and kill the good ones.  That’s how the fictional world works.  I thought you would know this by now, with all the books you’ve read.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.  “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

The rest of the movie went pretty much like that, with us occasionally paying attention, but for the most part just enjoying each other’s company.  By the end of it, I couldn’t say for sure what the whole point of the movie was or what exactly the supernatural entity was—though I’m pretty sure they said it at least once—but I was happy nonetheless.