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While Anne had once been hungry, her rumbling stomach had been quieted by her buzzing brain. She pushed around the food on her plate, trying to think of exactly how she would respond to Quincy’s request. It hadn’t been so much of a request as a demand, but Anne didn’t mind. The forceful tone he had taken with her actually excited her.
In her mind’s eye, the message flashed over and over again.
Ditch class. Hang with me.
Chapter Four
After she had been excused from the table, Anne nearly ran to her room. She tried to play it casually, but she knew that it was going to be hard for her to do. She couldn’t decide what to wear, or how to do her hair or makeup. It seemed as though nothing was right. Either she was bordering on far too flirty, or far too prudish. She didn’t want to seem like either, at least not to an extreme.
Besides, with her parents still loitering about, she would have to make it seem as though she were going to class, rather than going on a date with a boy. Anne furrowed her eyebrows and mentally scolded herself. She really needed to think of it in another way. Asking someone to hang out was not the same thing as asking them on a date.
At the end of her struggle, Anne finally settled for a safe middle ground of a casual winter dress. It had a turtleneck, which in any other situation might have made her seem like a prude, but it was short enough that she figured it balanced itself out. Paired with cute, fleece leggings and lace-up boots, and she was ready to go.
She stayed basic with her hair and makeup, opting for the style that she usually went for. If Quincy saw her in any style aside from the one that he had seen last night, he would think she was a fake. Anne ran her fingers through her hair, and stared into the mirror at her reflection.
“You are not a fake,” she told herself, expelling the bad idea before it even had a chance to take root in her brain. The last thing she needed was a dose of doubt to put a damper on her day. “And Quincy wants to see you, not someone else.”
Anne sighed, and then glanced at her phone again. Quincy had texted, setting up a time and a place for them to meet. An hour from them, outside of the bakery from the night before. Anne smiled, amused that Quincy had chosen somewhere that he already knew. He really was from out of town. It was charming, in a sense.
As she headed out the door, waving one last goodbye to her parents, Anne dared to think about how close-to-scared that she was. Her heart was fluttering nervously in her chest, and she could hardly breathe. Her stomach felt how it did before a job interview, or when she pressed the final button to submit a college application. Filled with butterflies, and threatening to churn up all of the food that she had had within twenty-four hours.
Anne shook off the thought as she walked outside, head held high and shoulders back. A light dusting of snow had coated the ground, but it wasn’t enough to deter her. At first, she circled towards the college, just in case somebody might see her or call her out. She knew it wasn’t going to happen; it wasn’t as though the entire town knew about her schedule. For all they knew, her classes had been cancelled for the day.
With a skip in her step, Anne was at the bakery in no time. She showed up early, given an hour as a deadline, but Quincy was already there. He had a smoldering cigarette between his fingers, a thin trail of smoke rising from the ashy tip. He was leaned against the brick wall, just as the day before, and had the same casual look. His hair wasn’t slicked back, instead falling about his face in wispy strands.
He hadn’t noticed Anne until she was standing just a foot from him, and he turned to face her. He didn’t smile back at Anne, but he did offer a little quirk of his eyebrow.
“I’m surprised you actually met me,” he murmured. “I would have thought that you were too good for that kind of thing,” he said. There was a hint of teasing to his voice, but it was nowhere in his expression. It made Anne furrow her eyebrows, she couldn’t tell if he was actually being serious or not.
“I’m not too good for anything,” Anne replied. “I do try to be humble, you know,” she scoffed. “Besides, how was I supposed to say no? Here you are, doing nothing good with yourself. Maybe I came here to try and convince you to do something productive.”
“There’s nothing productive for me to do,” Quincy said. He tossed his cigarette to the ground, and crushed it underneath his boot. Anne frowned, she didn’t appreciate the littering. “Want to take a walk with me?” he asked. “Since you look like you’re ready for a date and all.”
Anne flushed a bright red from her cheeks to the roots of her hair. “I wasn’t thinking of this as a date!” she snapped. Quincy began to walk, hands shoved into his pockets, and Anne followed after him, despite her sudden indignation. “I like to look nice, what’s so wrong about that?” she asked.
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it,” Quincy replied. He didn’t know where he was walking to. He only knew that he was walking, and it was nice to have someone to walk with him for once. “I just said that you look like you’re ready for a date. Do you have plans after this?”
“No,” Anne said. “I ditched class for you, the least you could do is assume that I only ditched class for you.” She paused for a moment, letting a comfortable silence hang between the two of them. “I didn’t even email my professors before this. I could have at least thought of some sort of excuse to give them before hanging out with the worst boy possible.”
Quincy laughed at that. Not a chuckle, but full-out roaring laughter that left him feeling as though he had just done one thousand sit-ups in under a minute. Anne stared at him at first, but soon joined in on the laughing.
“You sound like such a straight A student,” Quincy teased.
“I am a straight A student,” Anne replied.
Chapter Five
Quincy only stopped walking once the two of them had reached a park on the outskirts of town. They shared light, playful banter, but nothing more than the occasional snide remark or sarcastic roll of the eyes. Anne was a cute girl, but he couldn’t imagine that she would ever want something more out of a guy like him. He sighed at the thought, and pushed his hair out of his face. No one could ever want something more out of him.
As they approached the park, covered in at least an inch of snow, Anne picked out a spot for them. Tucked under a huge oak tree, where the dead, crispy grass had been shielded by the wide leaves and hundreds of branches. She leaned back against the thick trunk, and stared up into the branches.
Quincy took the spot to her side that was downwind, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He could see her scowl, but she didn’t say anything. He beat the pack against his fist one, two, three times until a cigarette popped out, and he took it between his teeth.
As he lit up, Anne finally broke the silence.
“Why do you smoke those things?” she asked.
“I had to go a long time without them,” Quincy replied. “I never quite got over them. Actually, I found other things to use instead of them, but it didn’t make it any easier. Once you get the real thing back, you can’t stop yourself.”
