I’m on the couch watching TV and eating breakfast when Michelle leaves her bedroom and comes sauntering into the living room.
Michelle: Good morning!
Alida: Un uh! Don’t come walking by like you slept here all night! *amused* I heard what time you got in this morning. Where were you?
Michelle goes to the refrigerator and pours herself a glass of orange juice before walking over.
Michelle: I was with Roman…
Alida: Doing what?
Michelle: Stop acting like you don’t know what we were doing! *grins* We definitely weren’t rehearsing lines…
I turn off the tv because I need to hear this…
Alida: Girl…I need details!
Michelle sits down and tells me all about how her evening with Roman started innocently enough at the 8 Bells Bar. Then she tells me how they started dancing and things escalated and they ended up checking in for the night at the inn upstairs.
Michelle: I mean, I didn’t plan on it, but…*deep inhale and exhale* I don’t know, sometimes there’s no fighting true love.
Alida: Wow! So maybe it wasn’t just the love tea.
Michelle: Are you and Q moving in that direction at all?
Alida: What? Woohoo?
Michelle: yeah
Alida: *shakes head* We’ve never even kissed. And…I have to be honest. You know what my mom did for a living, right?
Michelle: Of course.
Alida: I never told you that one day, I got home from school early…and I accidentally walked in on her and one of her ‘clients’. I was about 5 at the time…it was terrifying and I think it scarred me. I never thought I’d ever want to do that with anyone. I never even wanted a boy to touch me. But I don’t feel that way about Q. I just don’t know if he likes me in that way. How would I know?
Michelle: You could ask him.
Alida: *chuckles* Ask him? Do I just come out and be like…’so, are we doing this or what?’
Michelle: I mean…I wouldn’t put it like that, but basically…
Alida: Did you ask Roman how he felt about you?
Michelle: No, but I could see it in his eyes.
Alida: Oh… *takes a bite of food*
I guess I could find the answer by looking into Q’s eyes, but I don’t really know what I’d be looking for.
I take my plate to the sink and try to come up with a way to bring the subject up to Q the next time I see him. I decide to go for a jog to clear my head a bit and think about it. Michelle heads to her bedroom…
Michelle: I’m going to go call Roman…
Alida: I’ll see you in a few. *heads out the door*
I’m relieved to find that it’s not too hot as I set out jogging down the streets of Strangerville. On the wrong day…I’d run the risk of overheating and passing out.
On the way back, I run into that b*tch that got me banned from the information center at city hall. It takes everything in me not to knock her ass out. She looks nervous as I jog past her. She’d better be nervous.
My jog is interrupted by a text from Q, asking me to meet him at the Skate Factory in Oasis Springs for lunch. I just ate, so I’m not hungry, but I agree to meet him there just to hang out.
After a shower, Q picks me up and we head out to the Skate Factory.
Quincy: What should we do first?
I’d like to avoid skating, so I offer up a safer suggestion.
Alida: Foosball?
Quincy: Yeah, okay. Let’s do it!
While we play, Q tells me a bit more about his family. He reveals that he has a younger sister that he’s not very close to and that he attended a private school in Oasis Springs. He asks me more about myself, but I keep it vague…telling him that I lived in Del Sol Valley all my life and that Michelle is a childhood friend, but we grew up like sisters.
He gets distracted after he beats me in a couple of foosball games. I guess that more than makes up for me beating him at darts the other day.
We kill a bit more time playing arcade games. I’m not much of a gamer, but Q seems to know his way around a joystick. I chuckle to myself at the thought wondering why everything that involves him comes out feeling like woohoo innuendo in my head.
We manage to get pretty far in our mission before we get a game over. We seem to make a good team.
Quincy: Are you ready to grab something to eat?
Alida: I’m not really hungry, but don’t let that stop you.
Quincy: I’m good, so um…
Q drops into an awkward silence for a few moments. There’s a question in the air, but I’m too afraid to ask it and I wonder how willing he’d be to answer. Instead, he asks one of his own…
Quincy: Do you skate?
That’s one that I’d like to avoid, but I agree…considering the fact that we are at a skating rink and that’s usually what you do when you visit one.
(Generation 1a Chapter Summaries)
