Chapter 2: Trademark It was a long walk home, made even longer by the two coffee stops I had to make mid-way. Totally necessary, I swear. The first place had a broken frothing machine. And what's a delicious double shot caramel cloud macchiato without the froth? Nothing I tell you. Nothing. *In Gollum's voice* I turned the corner onto my street. "There you are!" A girl with the most intricately braided bun and killer make-up stood on the pavement outside my house. She had red sneakers, black pants and a purple set of headphones around her neck that matched her lipstick. "Cearra?" I said. She was chewing bubble gum that she popped when she saw me. "GIRRRRRRRRL, you made me wait!" Now I live on a very quiet street. It's the main rule of suburbia. Everyone has their issues that they keep nicely locked away behind a trimmed front lawn. We may not have a trimmed lawn, but we have garden gnomes. "You went on the most insane date and you never gave me an update?!" Cearra loudly shouted, "I've been waiting years." "It's been a day-" "Years! And why won't you respond to my messages?" I looked down at my zero-messages phone and that's when I suddenly realized, "Oh! I must have run out of data." "Who doesn't have unlimited data in this decade?" "Me, like I said. And now that we've covered I'm poor, is there anything else we should discuss?" I asked. Cearra blushed and her confidence eroded into a pile of guilt. "Sorry, I didn't mean to go there. I didn't realize you didn't have... maybe you could join my family plan?" "Sure, I'm hoping to upgrade my family this Christmas," I joked, and then had to emphasize that it was a joke because her expression did not look amused, "Really, it's a joke." She came a long way to talk about limited data plans. "Hey, hey!" Cearra yelled, realizing that I was distracting her, "Your date with the hottest guy in school is not in my imagination and I need to hear about it. Every single detail. Where you went, the weather, what he said, how he said what he said... You left me on a cliffhanger." I didn't realize anyone was waiting on an update. "Let's start with the weather," I said, surprised she'd even given me that easy out. I glanced nervously at the house across the street. He lives there. He's lived opposite me my whole life and only started to notice me last summer when we were camp counselors together. I wonder if he was inside now, ignoring me again. Maybe he could hear us. At the volume Cearra was speaking in, I'd be surprised if Canada hadn't heard her. The sound of a car pulling into the Dawson driveway caught my attention. A beautiful lady got out with perfectly blown out hair. She was carrying grocery bags. Cearra really needed to keep quiet now. "He is in so many girl's fantasies," Cearra continued, still facing me with great focus, "Do you even know the kinds I'm talking about?!" "Please, can you keep your voice down?" I asked, noticing that the woman had spotted us. She waved and began to walk towards us. I tried to motion Cearra to stop talking, but it only egged her on. "My voice down?! Girl, I want to hear you shout it from the rooftops. Did you two fuc-" "Woah, woah, we did not." "Tragedy. Honestly, Millie, I know you didn't have a lot of friends before, but you need to know how unbelievably insane this is. Luke Dawson is the guy we want to see in every erotic fantasy. He's the guy you want to rip clothes off, scream his name and stare at his naked-" The lady coughed. She was standing right behind Cearra now. Cearra stopped talking and slowly turned around. She stared into the lady's immaculate face while I tried not to melt into the pavement. "Cearra," I introduced her, "Meet Mrs Dawson. Luke's mother." ** The silence was incredible. It was terrible. There was this awkward energy in the air, and I wasn't sure how to dissolve it. Febreze? Mrs Dawson had just heard us talking about ripping her son's clothes off... How do I come back from this? Unsurprisingly, Mrs Dawson was the mature one out of us all and addressed the tension directly. "Hello Millie. I saw you and your friend talking and I wanted to come by and say hello. I didn't realize that you two were..." "Talking about your son?" I embarrassingly finished for her. I might as well get this over with. It's not like it's the first time I've publicly humiliated myself in front of Mrs Dawson. I remembered when I sat on her couch in her perfect home and blurted out that I'd kissed their son. Right before the brothers started fighting each other and all kinds of tea was spilled. Could it get any worse? "We appreciate your son," Cearra said. Well, that made it worse. I stared at my friend as if she'd grown antlers and Cearra shrugged back, "It's true. Sorry Mrs Dawson, but you must know what you created." "Some conversations should not be for my ears and this is one of them. Excuse me. I'm sure we'll see each other soon," Mrs Dawson told me, walking back to her car before we could respond. We didn't respond. We were in shock. Mrs Dawson took the remaining bags of groceries out of her car and walked inside. Elegant exit. Cearra took her headphones from around her neck and exhaled. "Woah, that was..." Her words dissolved off the tip of her tongue when the door to the Dawson house opened again. Someone else exited. A very different Dawson. He must have known we were out here, standing like fools outside his house. His eyes were on us from the second he opened the door. He was wearing a black t-shirt, even though it was winter, and his muscles were visible for us to admire. Cearra dropped her headphones and he smirked. That captivating, confident smirk. That I-know-you-think-about-me-in-the-shower look. And trademark blue eyes. Luke Dawson.