The girl nods her head. “He managed to find a place, then?” she asks, too casually.
Aisha seems to pick up on the tone, because she immediately scowls defensively. “Yeah,” she says suspiciously. “He got a job as a construction worker. Why, what’s it to you, huh?”
This time, it’s a different girl who speaks up—the last of the three girls sitting at the table. “Jen’s got a crush,” she teases. “She wants to know-“ She’s cut off when the other girl, Jen, leans over and punches her in the ribs with an audible thump.
“Shut up,” Jen growls.
Aisha rolls her eyes. “Doesn’t matter either way,” she declares. “He’s eighteen, a bit too old for you, Jen.”
Jen smirks at her. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done it with an older guy.”
Hissing in response, Aisha waves her hands dismissively at her friend. “Brian’s not like that,” she protests, narrowing her eyes at the other girl. “He’s all grown-up responsible now, no fun any more. He wants me to meet him at Frederico’s at six to talk custody or some shit.”
“Aw man.” Both of Aisha’s friends pout at that.
You tune them out at that after Aisha starts heckling them for their interest in her brother. Technically, she’s right about her brother being too old for high schoolers, but you’re pretty sure that wouldn’t stop a lot of people.
You lodge that piece of information away in your head anyway. Frederico’s at six. You’re fairly sure that Frederico’s is a restaurant located near school—not a particularly good one, if you remember rightly, but it’s fairly good for its price range.
The bell rings soon after, and you head to class, frowning mulishly as you try to work out your timetable in your head. Amy mentioned she’s working today, but by law, you can only volunteer until seven at night, and you’re supposed to tutor Madison until five thirty. That already gives you only an hour and a half with Amy, which doesn’t feel like enough—but you need to get Aisha’s attention, and preferably sooner than later.
Given her friends—and the heavy Brotherhood presence at school—you’d prefer to avoid drawing too much attention from Aisha’s friends. You don’t know Aisha’s friends, but there’s enough gang members at Winslow that you’re not going to risk it.
You’re lucky that most of Madison’s friends don’t seem to care too much that she’s spending most of her time with you now—and that’s something else you’re going to have to look at; why did Madison’s friends give up on her so easily?—but you’re already having to avoid doing too much with Emma and Sophia here so you don’t draw attention to yourself. Drawing attention from Aisha’s friends could go almost as badly. Maybe. You don’t know, and you’d prefer to avoid taking that risk.
With a little sigh, you wait until you get to class, then pull out your phone and send a short text to Madison, telling her that tutoring is going to have to be cut a bit short today.
If you head off at five, you can make it to Frederico’s by five thirty. If Aisha gets there early, and her brother doesn’t, then you might have a bit of time to introduce yourself outside of school. Then you can head to the clinic. You might have up to an hour with Amy then.
It makes you feel a little creepy to do it like this, but it’s the safest way for you to introduce yourself to the girl. And, honestly, you’d prefer to feel creepy than to risk having the attention of a gang focused on you.
As it turns out, Madison doesn’t object too much to you cutting today’s tutoring session short. She’s not happy about it, but then, neither are you. She doesn’t voice any objections she might have, though.
You sneak her a goodbye kiss for the day before you leave. You make sure to tug your jacket closed, hiding you against the lingering chills of winter in the air as you begin moving in the direction of Frederico’s.
You come to a stop just a couple of blocks into your walk, however, when you notice someone walking up ahead of you—someone with purple streaks in her hair. Aisha.
… Well, at least you know you’re heading in the right direction.
You’d been planning on jogging most of the way there, but there’s no point in that now. You allow yourself to drag behind Aisha some, confident in your ability not to lose her—you can feel her even when she turns a corner, after all.
She cuts through two parks and an alley on the way there. You feel a little nervous following her through them, but extending your power out doesn’t reveal anyone who feels like they want to hurt you, so you feel safe enough to go through with it anyway.
As it turns out, she does appear to know the shortcuts around here. You end up at the restaurant before it’s even half past.
The restaurant isn’t too busy, especially for this time of night. There’s maybe a dozen other patrons in here, two small families and what you think is a couple—two teen boys, sitting in what they think is a secure position, but you can see their entwined hands beneath the table. There are few enough people in here that a waitress heads over to you almost immediately once you enter the restaurant.
“Welcome to Frederico’s,” she says, affixing a plastic smile to her face. “May I take your order?”
“I’ll just have a coffee,” you reply. “Um, flat white with two sugars, if I can.”
She nods faux-enthusiastically. “Sure,” she replies. “We’ll have that out in a couple of minutes. Take a seat anywhere you like.”
You give her a cool smile and follow her directions. You choose a seat near the two gay boys, the seat in the restaurant with the clearest view of Aisha from where you’re sitting. After a couple of minutes, the waitress returns, bearing your coffee with her.
“Thanks,” you say quietly, taking it from her and putting it on the table. She gives you another fake smile and leaves, clearing your view.
For a few minutes, you sit there, subtly watching Aisha. She’s put a pair of earphones in, which are attached to… you can’t see; something in her jacket pocket. Maybe a Discman.
Once you’ve satisfied yourself that her brother isn’t here early, you take a slow sip of your coffee and extend your powers outwards to her.
Boredom is the first thing you feel—a thick, lethargic blanket hanging over her like a low stormcloud. Beneath that spirals a thin core of frustration, around which spirals anxiety and what you think is anticipation, although it feels more muted than you’d expect anticipation to feel.
It takes you a moment to find the threads of loyalty lying beneath it all. They’re more prominent in her now than they were when you started, which is helpful. You tug on them experimentally for a moment, noting her reaction—or, rather, her lack of reaction. She doesn’t even twitch. A smile spreads unbidden over your face before you can conceal it.
Sometimes, when you tug on people’s emotions like this, they have visible reactions—you always have to be careful pulling on someone’s lust, for instance, because working somebody up like that has visible indicators people might notice. You haven’t had any issues with that yet, and it’s unlikely that people will easily connect that with you, but it’s good to check what people look like when you play on particular emotions.
And, lacking a willing girl to test it on, this is really the only way you have to test.
You continue to tug on her loyalty for a few moments, waiting for her to look up enough from her plate of... whatever she’s eating, that she can see you. When she does, you quickly wave at her, drawing her attention enough that she meets your eyes. You give her a grin that she matches in turn.
She stands, picking up her plate of food and walking over to you. One of the waitresses watches her carefully as she walks, but she only heads over to your table and slides in beside you, carelessly placing her food on the tabletop.
“Hey,” she grins. “You’re that girl from school, yeah? You sit near us at lunch.”
You nod. “That’s me,” you say stupidly. “I’m Taylor.”
She snorts. “Aisha,” she introduces herself in turn. “I haven’t seen you around here before, I don’t think. Whatcha up to?”
You shrug and point at your coffee. “I volunteer at a clinic,” you half-answer. “I’m a bit tired today, and I wanted to have a coffee before I headed in. Figured I could try visiting somewhere new.”
“Eh, fair enough.” Aisha shrugs. “Freddie doesn’t make the best coffee, but it’s good for its price, I guess.”
You take another sip of your coffee before you respond, this time considering it. She’s right; it’s not fantastic. They burned the beans slightly, giving it an odd aftertaste, and you’re pretty sure they used skim milk. Still, though. “It’s not that bad,” you reply. “I’ve definitely had worse.”
She smirks at you. “I’ll take your word for it,” she concedes. “I don’t drink much coffee. Brian tells me it makes me hyper.” Her smirk grows larger at the words, and you can feel something rising in her. It reminds you of… mischievousness, maybe.
Raising your eyebrows at her, you set your mug back on the table with a heavy thunk. “Is that so?” you reply, giving her a slightly challenging look. “Well, we wouldn’t want you to get hyper, would we?” As you say the words, you nudge your coffee towards her.
Looking down at it, then up at you, she can’t help but let out a huff of laughter. She takes the implicit offer, picking your mug off and taking a mouthful of it. Almost immediately, she places it back on the table, sticking her tongue out with an exaggeratedly disgusted expression. “Ew,” she complains. “That’s bitter.”
“Bitter?” You stare down at your coffee, confused. There’s two spoonfuls of sugar in it. How could that possibly be bitter? Still, while her expression seems to be exaggerated somewhat, she doesn’t seem happy with the mouthful she just drank. “I guess it could be,” you reply. “This is how I normally have it, sorry.” You reach out with your arm as much as you can and give her a half-hug as an apology. Aisha barely seems to notice the movement, but her body unconsciously leans into yours, and she doesn’t try to pull away. You don’t pull your arm back, leaving it lying there across her back and idly rubbing small circles over her hip.
For the next few minutes, the two of you sit around, idly talking about the cuisine the restaurant offers. Aisha’s opinion of the food here isn’t very high—“The only food worth eating here is the salad and wedges,” she tells you with a serious look on her face. When you express your doubt, she gestures to her plate, telling you to try some. And, indeed, they’re rather average.
The two of you are just moving on to speaking about your favourite desserts—“Fried ice cream is the best!”—when something flares at the edges of your mind. You almost twist to turn to look in that direction when it registers—whatever you just felt, a flare of some strong emotion—worry? Anxiety? Fear?—it was strong enough to register with your power despite that you’re reigning it in right now.
You extend your power out, but evidently, whatever caused the flare has disappeared, because you can’t sense any traces of it now. You briefly consider extending your power farther out and seeing if you can catch it outside, but it’s not worth the effort.
Instead, you turn your attention back to Aisha and the discussion about desserts, putting that flare out of your mind. It was probably nothing. Somebody receiving a bad phone call or something.
It’s unfortunate that the two of you are in a restaurant, really. You give serious consideration to the idea of playing with Aisha’s lust a little and seeing how she responds to you, but that’s probably not a good idea, given the two of you are in the middle of a restaurant and she’s expecting to meet her brother soon.
When the clock has almost reached six, you slip your arm back around from Aisha’s waist with a small pout. She shifts slightly, but doesn’t comment on it. There’s no spike of irritation or disappointment in her, so you’re really not sure how she felt about that, but she didn’t push away through the conversation, so she’s… accepting, at least.
Outwardly, you don’t give any sign of your disappointment at having to stop touching her. “Sorry,” you say apologetically to her. “It’s getting late, and I have to be at the clinic soon.”
She looks confused for a moment before comprehension dawns. “Oh, right.” She shrugs. “It’s fine. I’ll see you around school, yeah?”
You nod, giving her a pleased smile. She can’t help but puff up a little, looking happy about your reaction. “Of course,” you say warmly. “Maybe we can have lunch together some time, yeah?”
“Sounds good.” She waves, giving you another small smile. “Seeya, then.”
Your phone rests heavy in your pocket. You’d called home earlier as you were waiting for a bus that could take you here. Dad wasn’t home then, so you’d just left a message on the answering machine telling him you were going to the clinic and that you’d be home by seven thirty.
It feels awkward to walk into the clinic this late during the day. You’re probably imagining the looks of curiosity some of the patients sitting in the chairs off the side seem to be giving you, but even so, it sets your teeth on edge. The confidence you were feeling earlier has vanished almost entirely, all of a sudden.
For a moment, you stand around awkwardly, not really sure what to do. Doctor Fitzgerald isn’t out here to give you something to do, and you’re not sure if it’s appropriate to just head straight into the storage room or the break room and get to work. Could you get in trouble for that?
