Chapter 11: Runnin' On Sunshine
Hey guys! Thank you for being patient with me, I really appreciate it. Like I said the other day, I'm still getting used to my counselor job. I'm finding sadly though that at the end of the day, I'm almost too tired to move let alone write. But thankfully I somehow got this out. Its some cutesy fluffy stuff compared to the smutty stuff from last chapter. Alright if you want to catch up on Bad Reputation you can go right HERE otherwise enjoy chapter 11!
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“No.”
“Aaron we have to.”
“No we don’t. Since when are we traditional? Who said my parents need to come to our wedding?”
“Me. Considering they practically raised the both of us.”
Aaron thrashes out against the bed to show his displeasure. A few days after he proposed I suggested we took a trip up to Middletown to visit his parents. I thought it’d be a good way to reconcile. I mean who doesn’t love a wedding? Knowing Michelle she’d be crushed if she found out we got married and she wasn’t there. So far it’s done more harm than good. Aaron and I kept bickering about it with no compromise in sight.
“Besides are you -the epitome of mama’s boy- telling me you don’t want to dance with your mom on our wedding day?” I say poking him in the ribs. He childishly jerks away, rolling over so his back is to me.
“Maybe.” Aaron mutters with his arms crossed. I roll my eyes at his behavior. Whenever we decide to have children I’m going to have my hands full. Aaron’s going to be as much trouble as the kids would be! Especially if he keeps acting like this.
~
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t.”
“I’m pretty sure I do.”
“Whatever. You big baby.”
“I’m not a baby.”
“Aaron I had to trick you into getting in the car. I told you we were going to get ice cream with all our crap in the car.”
“....Yeah I dunno why I didn’t pick up on that beforehand.”
We had decided that because we were getting married that I would just move back in with Aaron. So I'd even gradually packing and shipping things back to his place. With a majority of it already in New York, I figured the trip to Middletown would serve as the official moving back trip as well. Just the drive from Boston to New York was close to five hours and from there to Middletown was another two hours not including traffic. I liked to drive, but that was way too much time spent trapped in the car. I wasn't going to make myself suffer anymore than I had to.
"Can we at least get ice cream at some point?" Aaron asks puffing out his bottom lip in a beg.
"Puh-puh-puh pleeeeeeaase!" He whimpers. I hit the steering wheel in mock frustration. The temptation of ice cream plus Aaron's begging was too hard to resist.
"Alright fine! I know a really good place in Westford..it's a bit out of our way though."
"Who cares it's ice cream! FEED ME SEYMOUR!" Aaron rubs his belly in an attempt to recreate Little Shop of Horrors.
I cackle at his actions. This man never ceases to make me laugh with his childish ways.
"Wait so tell me about this supposed really good place of which you speak. I need to do some research and decide what I think of it."
"Kimball’s Farm. And that's all I'm saying. Whatever you don't dig up on the internet, I want to be a surprise."
Aaron pulls out his iPhone from his pocket and begins his quest of finding out what exactly this place is.
"THEY HAVE BUMPER BOATS?!? AND MINI GOLF?! AND BATTING CAGES?!" Aaron yells bouncing around in his seat enthusiastically.
"Yep!"
"HOW SOON CAN WE GET THERE?!?!"
I check the GPS, we'd been driving for about for about a half an hour so we were over halfway there.
"Patience grasshopper. About 20 minutes." I say putting my hand on his knee in attempt to calm him. It was no use because he was still practically shaking with excitement. I needed to distract him so he wouldn't be asking if we were there yet every two seconds. I pull out my CD case and toss it on his lap.
"Flip through and find something good to listen to." I say, maybe a sing along will get rid of some of his pent up energy.
"Oh my god. Who still has CDs. Are we in the 90s or something?" Aaron smirks looking through my collection.
"Shut up. I'll have you know that I like listening to CDs. Not everybody needs the newest thing you know." I say defending my choice.
"Get over yourself. You're just saying that because you can't figure out how to put music on your phone and don't want my help to do it."
I purse my lips at the statement. It's true. I was a bit technologically challenged despite working with computers almost everyday at the hospital. So what? I wanted to figure it out myself but have yet to do so. I wanted to hold onto my pride, even if that meant going old school and rocking out to CDs.
"Just pick something already will ya?" I say smacking his arm.
"Alright alright. Leave me alone. I got just the thing.." Aaron says putting the CD in the player. The familiar sounds of the Newsies musical play through the car. A smile emerges across my lips. Newsies had to be one of my favorite musicals of all time. Well except the ones Aaron starred in of course. I remember watching the movie with Christian Bale when I was younger and I fell in love with the music. And I mean Christian Bale as Jack Kelly wasn't too hard on the eyes either.
"Sing with me?" Aaron asks as the beginning of I Never Planned On Someone Like You/Don't Come A Knocking starts to play. Instead of answering, I fall into Katherine's dialogue.
"Please go away. I'm working."
A giant grin spreads across Aaron's face before he steps into his Jack Kelly persona. I would love to see Aaron as Jack. I think he embodies all the charisma that Jack is. Aaron has the ability to portray that young naive ness that he needs all in addition to being able to convince an army of boys to stand and fight beside him. Watching him create this role would be magical.
"A smart girl huh? Beautiful. Smart. Independent. I've got no use for moonlight or sappy poetry. Love at first sights for suckers! At least it used to be.." Aaron sings to me. He grabs my hand, holding it to his chest. I can feel his heart beating beneath my palm.
I steal a glance in his direction. Aaron's eyes are closed with all of his focus on the music and transforming this crappy car into a scene. In eyes we're no longer driving on the highway, we're on a balcony overlooking a show. But we're too busy staring at each other to be watching the show. We're too engrossed in professing our newfound adoration to each other that the show is just white noise in our ears.
Our love song ends but our sing along doesn't. We sing along to more of my favorites as I speed towards our destination. I was right in thinking that singing would distract us because we arrive at Kimball’s Farm what seems like only a few minutes after popping the CD in the player.
Aaron looked at the vast menu with awe. His eyes scanned over the lists of flavors and toppings. I can practically see his brain going crazy at the endless combinations he could create. When it was our turn to order, I went first because I was pretty sure Aaron was still in shock.
"I'll have the double day with chocolate ice cream, hot fudge, marshmallow sauce and brownie bits." I say turning to Aaron.
"I'll have the same." He says pulling out his wallet. While he pays for the ice cream, I head over to the fried food stand and get an order of fries. Aaron eyes them when I sit down across from him.
"We have mountains of ice cream and you get fries?" He questions.
"You physically cannot eat all that sugar without eating something salty. I saw it on Man vs Food.. When we're done you'll be thanking me." I say tossing a fry in my mouth. We begin digging into our gigantic ice creams with eagerness but begin to falter all too quickly.
"There's just so much of it!" Aaron whines. "I don't think I can finish it!"
"Come on. We can do this, muscle through." I say shoveling another bite into my mouth.
We throw our spoons down in defeat several minutes later. Aaron was right. There was just too much of it. Standing up with a groan, my stomach feels like it's going to burst.
"Let's go, we gotta get back in the road." I say looking at my watch. It was around 11 am and if we wanted to get to New York at a decent time we had to get going soon.
"But bumper boats! Mini golf!"
"Okay fine. ONE. You can choose ONE of the three fun things to do and then we have to go." I say scolding him.
Aaron starts to do a victory dance consisting of a slew of retro dance moves. The cabbage patch, running man, fist pump you name it. He was even adding weird sound effects that sounded like club music to celebrate my extreme push over status.
"BUMPER BOATS!" He yells running off in the direction they're in. After waiting in line for close to twenty minutes, it's finally our turn for the bumper boats. Aaron has a devilish gleam in his eye as we get into separate boats. We only had five minutes for the ride but Aaron made sure he made every second count. We spent the entire time giggling like children and crashing into each other.
"Oh my god bump into someone else!" I squealed after he bumped into my for the tenth consecutive time.
Sadly our fun was over far too soon and we walked back to the car hand in hand. Aaron's Yankees baseball hat pulled low over his eyes. So far nobody had recognized him and I was extremely grateful. With his change of character he had started getting positive press again but we had yet to come forward with our relationship. Obviously we'd told his agent Elin, who had stuck by Aaron's side through thick and thin, but besides our friends not many people knew about our engagement. We were also talking to my parents on our trip back in Middletown.
A majority of our car ride was spent singing along to our favorite CDs. A lot of show tunes were played but that's no surprise. We also played other car games to help keep things interesting. The license plate game, where we tried to find a license plate from all fifty states before we got to New York. Punch buggy. We both were scoring in the teens with that one but suffering from some seriously sore forearms. Finally we got to Aaron and I’s apartment around 6 pm that night.
"How can I be so tired? We literally just sat in the car all day!" I say flopping down on our bed.
"I dunno but let's never drive that much again." Aaron's voice is muffled by the pillow his face was currently pressed down in.
"You didn't even drive." I growl, starting at the ceiling. Aaron starts lightly snoring and I feel my own eyelids drooping.
"No. We need to call our parents. We need to set something up to talk to them." I say sitting up and rubbing my eyes. I shake Aaron a bit and he jolts awake.
"Huh what? I'm awake."
"Yeah okay. Parents. Call." I say grabbing his phone from the nightstand and thrusting it in his hand.
Aaron sits up, taking the phone from my hands. He dials his parents number and waits with bated breath. Aaron's face has gone white as a sheet and I can only assume that someone picked up the phone.
"Aaron Kyle Tveit. What on Earth do you want?" His mother scolds. ________________________________________________
Thoughts?
