“What do you think of this one?”

Brenna looked at the couch Justin was pointing at and she nodded. “It’s nice. Where would you put it though?”

“The den upstairs?”

“Then it’s not going to match everything else in the room.”

He frowned. “Oh. Right.”

She followed him as he weaved through the store. They had been back from Shelby Forest for a week and it was the first day since then that Justin didn’t have somewhere to be. He had decided he wanted to go shopping and had somehow roped her into coming along.

“Okay. This one?”

She focused on the black leather couch he was sitting on. “In the den?”

“Yeah.”

“It could work. You’d have to get a matching armchair though.”

A thoughtful look came over his face and he stood up and went over to a leather recliner. “Hmm. Yeah.”

“So what’s wrong with the couch you have in there now?”

He sat down and put up the leg rest. “Nothing. These are nice though. This one’s awesome. Come here.”

He surprised her by grabbing her wrist and giving it a yank. She lost her balance and fell down on top of him on the chair. He shifted to the side until she was wedged between him and the side of the recliner.

“See?” he grinned.

She shifted her butt a bit to get more comfortable and leaned her head against the back of the chair. “Yeah, this is really nice.”

“See if I got this for the den, we could watch movies in this chair.”

She smiled. “It’s a bit of a tight fit. Your bony hip is jabbing into me.”

He bumped his shoulder with hers. “Well your butt’s taking up all the room. There’s no where else for my bony hip to go.”

She giggled and stretched her legs out by his. “Even though you really don’t need more furniture, you should get this. It’s so comfy.”

“What color?”

“Black’s a good color.”

“Shade.”

“What?”

“Black’s a shade, not a color.”

“You’re really annoying sometimes.”

“I know. Keeps everyone entertained.”

“Get black.” She looked across the store and realized people were watching them. “People are staring.”

“People are always staring.”

“Are you getting this one?”

“Yep.”

She started to lift herself up but Justin did at the same time. They got stuck and both dropped back into the recliner. She laughed.

“Okay,” he smiled. “You get up first…”

Still laughing, she pulled herself from the recliner and then gripped Justin’s hands and pulled him up as well.

“What a team,” he said, straightening his clothes.

She smiled and followed him to a salesperson so he could buy the recliner and couch. Once he had set up a time for the furniture to be delivered, they left the store and got back into Justin’s car.

“So where are we going now?”

“I wanted to go look at some cars.”

“You are NOT getting another car. You just got one like a month ago.”

“I just wanna look. I won’t buy a new one. I swear.”

“You better not. You have more cars than you could possibly ever need.”

“I know. I like collecting cars though.”

“You know, most people have a more scaled down collection. Not ones that cost thousands and thousands of dollars.”

“Well I’m not most people.”

“No, you’re definitely not,” she agreed. “And here I though my beanie baby collection I used to have was extravagant.” She glanced over at him to find him smiling over at her. “What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing.” He looked back at the road.

“When was Matt meeting up with us?’

“He’s gonna call when he’s done school.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, there’s Toys R Us,” Justin said, pointing to the store they were nearing. “Wanna stop in there so you can pick up some beanie babies?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t still collect them.”

“Whatever. I saw that penguin one you have in your room.”

“That was from my grandma when I graduated,” she said, defending herself. “It has sentimental value.”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re so annoying.”

He threw her a grin. “Not annoying. Entertaining, remember?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, really entertaining.”

Brenna was more excited than Justin would have though to look at the cars in the showroom. He was half listening to the sales person and focusing the rest of his attention on watching Brenna as she examined the various cars. Once he had gotten rid of the salesperson, he joined her by a Porsche.

“What’s your favorite one?”

“This one’s so nice,” she said. “Could you imagine it in like a silver?”

“It’s a nice car,” he agreed, running his hand over the hood. He glanced up from the car and looked towards the door of the showroom as Matt came in. He waved him over.

“Hey, man.”

“Hey,” Matt returned. “Man, traffic was a bitch. Took me forever to get from the university to here. Hey, Brenna.”

She smiled. “Hi.”

“You buying another car, J?”

“Nope. Just looking. Are you ready to go, Bren?”

She took one last look at the car. “Yeah.”

He led them out of the building and they all went to a nearby music store. Matt had wanted to look at a new issue of guitars and Justin, never passing up on an opportunity to look at instruments, was interested in seeing them.

“So Brenna’s not dating that dancer guy anymore, huh?” Matt asked as he and Justin examined a guitar.

“Yeah, they broke up like a month ago.”

“She’s single?”

Justin glanced over at Brenna, who was looking at a grand piano on the other side of the store. “Yeah. Are you interested?”

Matt shrugged. “Maybe. She’s nice, she’s friendly. She’s cute.”

“Yeah, she is,” he agreed. “Are you gonna ask her out?”

“Maybe. Why did she and that guy break up anyways?”

Justin shrugged. “All I ever heard is that it wasn’t working out. They’re still friends.”

“They are? That’s weird.”

He laughed. “I know. I’ve said that to her and she still doesn’t get why it’s weird.”

Matt nodded and picked up a guitar. “This is nice, huh?”

“Yeah. Really nice. Are you gonna get it?”

“Not right now. Good to see what it’s like though.”

“Did you guys find what you’re looking for?” Brenna asked as she joined them.

“Yeah,” Justin replied. “What do you think of it?” he asked, gesturing to the guitar Matt was holding.

“Um, nice.”

He laughed. “You don’t care, do you?”

She shrugged. “It kind of looks like all the others.”

“Damn, Bren, you have so much to learn.”’

She smiled. “Sounds like a pretty boring lesson.”

He gave her a light push. “You just can’t appreciate good music instrumentation craftsmanship.”

“Music instrumentation craftsmanship isn’t even a thing.”

“You know what I mean.”

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “I’ll leave you to your music instrumentation craftsmanship or whatever you wanna call it. I want to look at those music books.”

He smiled as he watched her walk away and shook his head.

“Hey, J, you never told me you had a thing for her. I’ll lay off.”

Justin looked over at his friend. “What? I don’t have a thing for her.”

“Oh, you don’t? Sorry, I just assumed.”

“Why’d you assume?”

“You two just…I dunno, act like…I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

Justin scratched his head. “Okay…”

“You guys just seem like you’re flirting.”

“Nah. Just joking around. We’re best friends.”

“Yeah. So did you wanna go?”

Justin nodded. “Yeah. Let’s grab Brenna and we can go.”

Justin had been outside by the pool for most of the afternoon before going inside close to five o’clock. He wandered through the main floor of the house and then went upstairs after a minute. The light in the bathroom was on and he went over to the partially open door. He smiled when he saw Brenna. She was sitting on the counter, cross legged and facing the mirror. She had a curling iron in her hair and was staring at her reflection as she curled her hair.

He watched her for a minute silently. Something was changing. It had been for a while too. After being around her all day, everyday, he had gotten to know her really well. She was awesome. And she understood him. It wasn’t often he found someone like that. He didn’t really know what to do with his current feelings.

He cleared his throat to let his presence be known and her eyes moved from her reflection in the mirror to his.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Are you going out somewhere?”

“Nope. Just bored.”

“Yeah, me too.” He watched her twist a strand of hair around the curling iron. “Want to do something?”

“Like what?”

“We could go out for dinner.”

“Where?”

“I dunno. Chi?”

“Don’t you need a reservation?”

He smiled. “It’s my restaurant. I just have to make a couple calls.”

“Oh. Right.” She pulled the curling iron from her hair and he watched as the now curled hair fell to join the rest.

“So do you want to go?”

“Sure. What time?”

“I have to shower still. Want to leave at six?”

“Okay.”

“Cool.” He left the bathroom and went to his room. He showered and then took his time getting ready. A few minutes before six, he left his room and went to Brenna’s room. He knocked on her closed door and she opened it a second later. His smile grew as he saw her. She was wearing a knee length white skirt and a lacy pink shirt. He hadn’t seen her look so dressy in a while. She looked beautiful.

“I’m almost ready,” she said, breaking him out of his trance. He nodded.

“Okay.”

She put her things in her purse and then came out of the room. “This restaurant had better be good or I’m gonna give it a bad review.”

He laughed. “You better not.” He let her go ahead of him on the stairs and then followed behind. They left the house and he drove to Chi.

“So what’s good here?” Brenna asked once they were seated.

He smiled. “Everything.”

“Of course,” she laughed.

His smile grew a bit as she picked up the menu. “So your birthday’s coming up soon.”

“Yep.”

“What do you want to do for it?”

“Nothing big. Maybe just a nice dinner or something.”

“No party?”

She smiled. “Maybe something little.”

“Cool. We can have it at the house.”

“Little.”

“Of course.” He watched as she looked back at her menu and then he looked to her hair. He couldn’t stop looking at it. Brenna hardly ever curled her hair and the way she had it made her look so pretty.

“So are you excited about Trace coming out next weekend?”

He moved his gaze from her hair to her eyes. “Yeah. It’s gonna be awesome. And he’s coming out again Halloween weekend.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He has a break that weekend. There’s this awesome party that some friends are throwing Halloween night. It’s gonna be great. You’ll come, right?”

“Sure. Is it like a costume party?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going as?”

“Not sure yet. Do you have any ideas for you?”

“I don’t know. I’ll ask Kate.”

He nodded and leaned back in his chair. “She’ll skank you up.”

Brenna rolled her eyes and he smiled at her gesture and then found his eyes moving back to her hair.

Damn, he thought when he realized what he was doing. I gotta talk to Trace about this.