𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 • 𝘣𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘴 [✔]

chapter forty seven.

Detroit

Ben gently shook Claudia awake since she had fallen asleep a few hours before they officially arrived to Detroit.
Claudia groaned and playfully hit Ben for waking her up. Ben had pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. Claudia slowly started to open her eyes even though she much rather be asleep.

"Sorry to wake you up, you look very comfortable," Ben said.

"Yeah, yeah, let's just get breakfast." Claudia rubbed her tired eyes.

"It's five in the afternoon." He pointed out.

"It's morning somewhere."

So instead of going out to eat breakfast like Claudia wanted, even if it was the afternoon, Ben took her to a burger joint that he found after googling good places to eat. Ben opened the door to the burger joint, which they found out was also a bar. While Ben walked to a table that was near a window, Claudia took the opportunity to use the restroom.

On her way to the restroom, she accidentally bumped into a middle aged woman who was busy talking on the phone so she didn't hear Claudia apologize to her.

"Honestly, fuck you! You can't do that!" Lara yelled into the phone as she walked up to the bar. She sat in one of the high chairs and motioned for Nate to pour her a drink. She wasn't supposed to drink on the job, but their boss didn't really care.

Nate poured her a shot of whiskey. "What's wrong?"

Lara held up a finger, making him immediately shut up and wait for her to finish her phone call. "What do you mean I can't bribe someone? That's my specialty."

Nate watched as Lara continued to argue with the unlucky person on the other end of the line. "Oh, man." He sighed.

"You know what, fix this then we can talk. Bye." She hung up harshly then slammed her phone on the counter.

"What did you do this time?" Nate questioned.

"Why do you always assume it's me that did something?" Lara scoffed. She then looked away shamefully. "It was my dad this time. He fought again. He swears he's getting better, but I don't see it. That guy has major anger issues."

"Something you both have in common," Nate filled another shot glass with whiskey and handed it to Lara. "He loves you, Lara, I'm sure he'll realize what he's doing isn't going to help see you sooner."

"I hate it when you make sense, rich kid." Lara rolled her eyes.

"I think you have a table waiting." Nate pointed at a dark haired man sitting alone at the table by the window.

Lara sighed and grabbed her notepad and pen then walked to the table by the window. "Is it just you alone?" She asked the man.

"No, my . . . friend will be back soon. Do you have any lemonade?" He asked.

"Yeah, so a lemonade for your friend and for you?" She wrote down on her notepad.

"Ice tea."

"Okay. I'll bring those over in a sec."

After Lara left, Claudia had come back. She was admiring her ring that her mom had given her. She didn't know where Janis had gotten it from, but she took great care of it so when she gave it to Claudia, the english teacher was surpised to see it being given to her. She accepted the ring either way and took extra care of it.

She finally arrived at the table where Ben sat and sat across from him. "Did you order yet?"

"No, the waitress just went to get the drinks. I ordered you a lemonade." Ben replied.

"Thanks," Claudia smiled. "so i was thinking i can go to this diner that my mom said Lara worked at. I looked it up and it's not far from here."

"You sure she said a diner? Maybe she meant library or some nice little store down the street?"

"Lara's not the type to work in either of those. Just trust me."

Ben stared at her. She had a look of determination. And he did trust her more than anything.

A glass of lemonade was placed in front of Claudia while a glass of ice tea was placed in front of Ben. "Okay, do you know what you'll be ordering?"

Ben looked down at the menu for a quick second then picked the first food item he saw on the menu which was a grilled hamburger. Claudia ordered her favorite hamburger, a bacon and cheese burger.

"Okay, food will be out soon." Claudia thanked the waitress.

Claudia and Ben waited patiently for their food. He tried his best to make her laugh with corny jokes, which she actually did laugh. It didn't take long for their food to arrive. As they ate, Ben talked about his family, friends and he obviously had to thrown in how he won the role of Prince Caspian from Lucy's favorite person, Andrew Garfield.

"I'm in the mood for some tequila. I don't know, I feel like a need a tequila shot." Claudia laughed and looked at the bar.

"Go ahead, I'm not stopping you, but we do have to get going soon." Ben said.

So Claudia got up from her seat and walked to the bar where a middle age man was putting away shot glasses. He stopped when he noticed Claudia approach. "What will it be today?" He asked.

"Just a shot of tequila, please," she said.

But before the tequila shot was poured in front of her, she was asked for her ID. Claudia was surpised she was even being asked for her identification, but she took the card out and handed it to the bartender. Nate noticed the ring on her finger, it was so similar to the ring he had given his past love. But he didn't make much of it since he knew there was more like that ring. But once he saw the woman's ID, he thought he was going crazy.

CLAUDIA DONOVAN
05/04/1986

He stared at the card in his hands, not believing his eyes. But his staring at the card was interrupted by Claudia clearing her throat. The bartender then placed the card on the table and slid it over to Claudia. He avoided Claudia's stare and poured a tequila shot for her. Claudia noticed he remained quiet.

"Thank you," she took the shot glass to her table along with her ID. Once she sat at her chair, Ben asked her if she was okay.

Without a reply, she quickly drank the tequila. "Claudia, what's wrong?" Ben asked.

"Nothing . . . i'm fine, great actually. Come on, we have places to be." She took out a five dollar bill and placed it on the table. Ben knew she wasn't fine at all. He also knew that she didn't want to talk about it so he just mumbled an 'okay' and walked with her out the door.

Lara came back to the table to pick up the dirty dishes. She grabbed the five dollars and put it in her back pocket. She was so focused collecting the dirty dishes that she was startled by Nate standing by her side. "Jesus Christ, Nate! Do I need to put a fucking bell on you?"

But Nate didn't answer, he just watched Claudia walk away. He then quickly ran out the door, leaving a confused Lara behind.

"What the fuck is going on, Nate?" Lara called out to him, but she received no answer. She quickly followed him out the door and saw him staring down the street. "Nate!"

Lara looked in his direction, but she saw no one. "What's wrong with you?"

Nate turned to look at her. "I just saw her. She was here." He said in a low voice. He still couldn't believe it.

"Saw who? Be more specific, dipshit!"

"I saw my daughter, Lara, Claudia was here." Nate sighed. Then he started thinking if she was here also. "Holy shit . . ."

An: besties this was supposed to be up yesterday but because it was shorter, I decided to write more and publish it today so . . . yeah

and i have some news, i already know the ending to this and i feel like half of y'all are about to be pissed off idk but maybe more than half?? or maybe not that many but we'll see :)

also my friend suggested richard madden as garrett but, like i said, use ur imagination for the characters and picture them as whoever you want <3