How To Steal A Kiss | √ Completed

25. In A Ridiculous Coat

Sometimes I wonder if I'd ever offended the universe in any way at all.
Maybe in a past life I had offended the gods and forgot to sacrifice a goat to appease them.
Or perhaps I had murdered someone and gotten away with it in that life, only for my punishment to be meted out to me in my present life.

Nonetheless. I didn't deserve this.

Ashley beamed at me with a grin too wide for her face, "Fancy meeting you here,"

"Yes. Fancy" I replied with a tight smile.

Her smile faltered, "What happened to your pretty face?"

"Something I wouldn't like to talk about,"

She nodded once, "You're still sexy as fuck though,"

She took a step forward and looped her arm in mine, "And here I was thinking this holiday was going to be boring"

"I'm beginning to suspect that you're the source of my bad luck" I mumbled as she pulled me along with her.

"Oh Zion, don't be like that. It's actually nice to see a familiar face in a sea of foreigners,"

I stopped in my tracks causing her to halt too, "How did you get here so fast?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" She blinked in a doll like fashion.

"Quit playing dumb, Ashley. We vacated not less than 24 hours ago and somehow, you're already in a completely different part of the world. Do you care to explain?" I crossed my arms.

Ashley turned red in the face.

"Are you honestly so obsessed that you stalked me all the way to Russia?"

Her eyes widened at my accusation, "You are the most arrogant, selfish bastard I've ever come across! I regret ever meeting you!" Then she burst into tears.

Taken aback by her sudden outburst and succeeding waterworks, I didn't know how to react, especially since we were still in public and the little scene Ashley was making attracted a great deal of attention.

"Hey, hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so rude.." I pulled her in for a hug while she sobbed against my sweater — remind me to burn it with jet fuel later.

Ashley didn't stop crying and I began to feel really uncomfortable, so I resorted to the last available option,

"I'll do anything! Just name it! Please stop crying, I'm so, so sorry"

She automatically stopped crying and smiled up at me, "Anything???"

Already regretting but being a man of my word, I nodded slowly.
Her smile widened and she stepped out of my embrace —Phew! — "Meet me at the bistro two blocks from here in two hours, It's a date,"
She winked and blew me a kiss, then disappeared into the river of pedestrians with her short skirt sashaying with every step.

I think I just had a deal with the devil.

Then it occurred to me that Ashley must have pulled that little stunt to avoid answering my question.
Quite impressive.
I hadn't expected her to have enough brains to think so fast.

Perhaps enough STD's.... But not enough brains.

With a 180° turn, I retraced my steps back to Zoe's condo.
Zoe had a pot over the stove and was twerking in a pair of white shorts while reading from a cookbook.
The speakers were playing an awesome new song by Drake.

"Hola Z!"

She looked up from the book and smiled at me, "Took you long enough,"

I shrugged as she added a spoon of paprika to whatever she was concocting, "Z, you know you don't have to cook. We can always order takeout,"

"And miss my chance to poison you with my terrible cooking? Hell nah,"

"At least you finally admit that it's horrible,"

Zoe laughed.
When we were little, Zoe had originally wanted to be a witch. Eventually she grew up and discovered for herself that witches weren't real — unless you counted Mrs Anders, the old cat lady who lived near the grocery store and always threatened to eat our kidneys when we were little — So, in lieu of Witchcraft, Zoe took an interest in science because it involved 'mixing potions' and stuff. Although she insisted on cooking her concoction in the name of food for us every now and then.

"I'm saving space to eat later. I've got a date," I silently thanked God for the run in with Ashley.

"A date? So soon?! With who?"

"Ashley,"

"I'm taking a wild guess here but, are you talking about Ashley Mincks? The slut?" She eyed me curiously

"Uh.. Yeah" I answered uneasily

"Well, just don't bring syphilis into my home," She went back to her brew

" Eew!  Zoe!!"

"I don't even wanna hear it. I'll save some food for you. Have fun lil bitch. And don't get lost, siblings aren't easy to find in any store around here" She yelled as I walked out the door.

That was Zoe's equivalent of 'Call me if you need anything', 'Stay out of trouble', and 'I love you'
I chuckled and decided to think of what to do until it was time to meet Ashley.
I checked my phone which I had earlier set to local time and saw that I had roughly one hour left.

Since it was too cold to explore, and it was still snowing lightly, I decided to head on to the bistro and wait there.

                                  * * *

The bistro was cozy and smelt of meat. Boiled, fried, grilled. All of them.
The waiter had asked if I was ready to order, but I had told him no.

After the whole hour went by, Ashley still hadn't shown up.
I patiently waited twenty more minutes just in case she was being 'fashionably late'

Twenty minutes later...

Ashley still hadn't reared her disgusting head and the waiter kept casting me pitiful glances.

In anger and embarrassment, I stood up from my seat, uttered a few choice curses under my breath and strode out of the bistro.

I swore to avoid Ashley from then on.

With my head down and my vision still clouded by anger, I didn't see the person coming.
I bumped into someone dressed in a long dark coat that had a hoodie attached, making the person look like something straight out of a fantasy novel.

From the impact of the collision, we both stumbled and fell in front of an alleyway. It was late and the streets were quickly getting empty.

I quickly jumped to my feet to help the person up, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. God I've been apologizing a lot today, but I was clumsy and stupid, I'm so —"

The scent.

Vanilla?

Could it be?

Slowly, the person looked up, and a pair of surprised but angry amber colored eyed glared back at me.
It was then that I also noticed the equally angry looking reptile perched on her shoulder.

"Riley?" I smiled

"Wesley!!" She hissed with enough venom to paralyze a whale.

And that hiss, brought back all the joy I lost in the past few weeks.

A/N: There she is people :) Welcome the Nerd witch with a vote!
Check out my other book if you can. It's called SOUL JACKSON.
It's not for extremely religious people.

Your crazy amateur writer,
Sommy❤

Edited: 2nd June 2020