Smoothies

Marinette sat in the empty café, tapping her phone the table as she waited. A strong smell of cleaning supplies filled her nostrils from the freshly wiped surface and from the counter where a waitress scrubbed at the coffee machine. A small bell rang from the entrance of the building as the door was pushed open, drawing Marinette's attention to where Adrien entered.

He glanced around before seeing her at the other side of the café and waved. "Hey, Marinette."

"Hi, Adrien," she greeted, placing her phone flat on the table.

"Can I get you something to drink?" he asked, noticing she hadn't ordered yet.

"I actually wanted to get one for you," Marinette blushed. "Since you bought that wine on Saturday, I can treat you to coffee. Obviously there's a bit of a price difference but…"

He chuckled and held a hand up. "You don't have to do that, I offered and wouldn't expect you to owe me anything. Plus, I don't actually drink coffee."

"Tea?"

He shook his head.

"You've gotta give me a clue here, Adrien," she joked, a smile playing on her face as she stood from the seat to approach the counter.

"I would just have water," he informed her, glancing up at the chalkboard menu on the wall. "But what are you having?"

She followed his eyes to the same menu and bit her lip before deciding. "Strawberry smoothie."

"Aw."

"It's just one," Marinette coaxed, edging closer to the waitress. "If you don't say no in the next few seconds, I'll buy you one too."

Adrien filled the air with a melodic laugh. "Okay, okay."

Marinette ordered the two drinks and returned to the table where Adrien was sat to await their order.

"Aurore told me to send her a text when you're ready to speak with her," he explained to Marinette with a soft smile.

"Oh, Adrien I don't know. I'm scared I'll babble and- Uh!" She covered her face with her hands. "What if I say something stupid? She'll think I'm a loser and everyone will hear about it and I'll never get signed onto a film ever again."

"Marinette," he chuckled, reaching across the table and putting his hands on hers to move the barrier away from her face. "You'll be fine. If it makes you feel better I can leave you to the phone call and wait outside, or I can stay if it'll help."

Marinette nodded her head once, eyes big and fixed on his face. She never gave him an answer.

"Two strawberry smoothies," the waitress said, placing them on the table. "Enjoy!"

"Thank you," Adrien smiled at her as she left them. He moved his hands from Marinette's and picked up the cold smoothie glass, looking at the pink drink with narrowed eyes.

Marinette watched him wordlessly.

"I never drink these," he said finally after feeling her watchful gaze. "They're full of sugar."

"They are." Marinette picked up her own glass and moved the straw into her fingers. "It's natural sugars though, so I think that makes it okay. Then again, I do work in a bakery so who am I to comment?"

Marinette took a sip of the smoothie while Adrien waited to see her reaction. She nodded her head towards his glass.

"Try it before you judge."

He took a quick drink and his eyes widened. "This is so good. I definitely need to order more to make up for the years I've missed. You're a bad influence getting me to drink this."

Marinette giggled. "You made me drink like, half a bottle of wine on Saturday so I think we're even."

Adrien smirked as he continued to drink the smoothie. "It was a nice evening though, wasn't it?"

"It was lovely!" Marinette assured, perking up in her seat and nodding her head over-enthusiastically. "I had no idea you and Nino were friends."

"Good friends. He's my best friend, in fact. Followed closely by my agent… that sounds really sad, actually," Adrien trailed off, focusing on the glass.

The young actress shook her head. "No it doesn't. I'm good friends with my agent too, there's no way I would've landed this job without her."

"Me neither."

Marinette raised a brow, wondering how a superstar like Adrien wouldn't have been able to get a job on an indie film. People must have been begging him to be in their films.

As if reading her mind, Adrien sat straighter and changed the subject. "Want me to text Aurore?"

Marinette let out a small groan in uncertainty.

"Hey, you'll do great. Aurore is so nice, I'm sure you and her will get along well."

"Okay then," Marinette agreed, placing her smoothie on the table determinedly. "Yeah, I can do this. I was born ready."

Adrien chuckled and took his phone from his pocket, typing a quick text as another message came through.

"Oh, Nino just text me," he told Marinette as he opened it. He started reading it aloud. " 'Hey bro, on Friday the club is having XY come in as a guest DJ for the night so I'm just introducing him, meaning I've got time to hang out. Alya and I wondered if you wanted to join us there and you could invite-'…"

His voice cut off as he turned a shade of crimson.

Marinette averted her eyes to the smoothie in front of her.

Adrien cleared his throat and placed his phone down on the table before looking across to her. "Are you busy Friday night?"

The young woman spluttered as she took a sip of her drink before shaking her head.

"Do you want to come with me and our friends to see XY?"

Marinette grinned, her pearly white teeth beaming. "Sure. Love that I would."

The corner of Adrien's mouth turned up into a smirk as Marinette mentally slapped herself.

"I would love that," she corrected.

"It starts at seven thirty," Adrien told her. "I could pick you up or we could meet there or… Whatever's best?"

Marinette wanted to choose the first option, but after a moments consideration she changed her mind. "We should meet there. It won't be very dark at that time so people might see you outside and then that just raises all kinds of questions."

"Smart," Adrien concluded with a nod of his head.

"I like to think I can be."

Adrien's phone began to ring and he looked at the caller ID that lit up the screen.

"It's Aurore," he told Marinette. "Do you want me to leave you to the call, or stay?"

"Uh, um, stay!" She panicked, sitting upright and fixing her hair as if Aurore could see her.

Adrien nodded and slid a finger across the screen to answer the call. "Hey, Aurore. I'm doing really well, thank you, how about yourself?... Oh, yeah I heard about that. That's the paparazzi for you… No?..."

Marinette waited patiently, mindlessly biting her fingernails. Adrien glanced at her.

"Yeah, Marinette is here with me right now. I'll pass you over… Okay, speak soon, bye."

He held the phone across the table and Marinette's shaking hand took the expensive smartphone. She held it to her ear for a long second without saying anything.

"H-Hello?"

Adrien rested his chin on his hands, watching Marinette as she spoke on the phone to the actress.

"Th-thank you so much, Aurore!... Yes, I am…"

The actors made eye contact across the table. Marinette's bright blue eyes were huge with excitement, glistening as she listened to the voice on the line. An affectionate smile grew on Adrien's face.

"I can't wait for it to come out, I'll be first in line at the cinema watching it!" Marinette giggled. "What was that?"

Adrien swore Marinette stopped breathing as her hand flew to her mouth. Adrien tensed, feeling his stomach flip in the moment.

"Of course! Oh, uh, I would love to so much. Thank you, Aurore, that is incredible. What's that?"

Marinette's face paled.

"Y-Yeah! Okay. Thank you so much. Bye!"

Adrien's face contorted with concern as the phone cut off and Marinette sat blankly staring at the table. Without making eye contact, she held his phone out to him.

As he took it, Marinette covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath, her heart beginning to resume its regular rhythm and her fingers stopping their continuous trembling. After a few seconds, she opened her eyes and grinned at Adrien, the sight of him just making her heart beat faster again as he visibly relaxed at her expression.

"Aurore Beauréal has just invited me to the Paris premiere of her new film."

"What?!" Adrien beamed. "That's incredible Marinette."

"I know," the young actress blushed. "She did say I have two conditions for going though…"

He raised a brow.

"I have to bring a plus one," she began.

Adrien nodded slowly.

"Anddddd," she stared at him with pleading eyes and a bright pink face. "It has to be you. Her rules!"

With the heat flushing both actor's faces, they looked at one another in silence for an eternity.

"You don't have to," Marinette spoke, breaking the peace. "People would talk and I completely understand that changes things, and I'm already super grateful for you arranging that phone call so if you don't want to it's-"

"I want to go Marinette," Adrien assured her, green eyes fixed on her face. "So what if they talk, friends can hang out together right?"

Friends.

Her smile reached her eyes, straining the muscles in her cheeks as she nodded her head. "Yeah, of course! Oh gosh, what will I wear? What do I do? I've never been to a premiere before. It's only a few weeks away, I need to prepare. How many photographers will be there? Probably a lot, right? Why am I agreeing to this?"

"Marinette, breathe."

Stopping her rambles, the young woman met the eyes of Adrien again, grounding her.

"I talk a lot when I'm nervous."

"I never guessed," Adrien remarked with a wink.

Butterflies attacked Marinette's stomach as she examined his face.

He took a sip of his smoothie, blissfully unaware of the woman's eyes fixed upon him.

"I'll be with you the whole night and it's not as overwhelming as you think. Some interviewers will want our comments, but since we're not actually in the film it'll be very few caring for us so we can mostly just enjoy the night. It'll be the red carpet first, we'll go inside and watch the movie, then there's the after party…"

"After party," Marinette mused.

The young woman was consumed by the thought of the premiere. It did sound overwhelming, and maybe it was just that Adrien was used to it, but at the back of Marinette's mind developed the anticipation and fear for her own film's premiere, no matter how far away it was.

"Give it some thought," Adrien instructed her. "And you can make your mind up on the night; we still have a few weeks until the premiere yet."

"Thank you."

Marinette's gaze fell to her smoothie, not noticing how the man opposite her kept his own eyes lingering on her a few seconds more.

Thank you to everyone who came back to this story now I've updated, I'm so grateful! Your reviews are so encouraging, so please if you have anything to say whether good or bad do leave it in comments for me to see what you're enjoying or not, and let me know where I can improve. Also, I am loving reading the theories you have for what is going to happen in the rest of the story (which I'm not going to confirm or deny if it'll happen, but I do have this entire thing planned out)! I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and I look forward to updating again soon.

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