The Invitation

It was a clear summer's day the band was playing on the south end of the beach and I could here the bass from the patio at the nearby café. The sun was at its highest point and the air was humid, but still manageable. This was the day I would meet Aiden.

Aiden and his friends were leaning on the sea wall, I didn't know who they were but I was quickly fascinated. Well… fascinated with Aiden that is. He was standing to the side, arms crossed; left leg was on top of his right. He was much quieter than his group who were rowdy and rambunctious, you could tell that he ran things by the way the others would act around him. You could easily tell he was respected. He looked the part of a typical bad boy with an 'I don't give a fuck' attitude, but despite that, I was still drawn to him.
Like a moth to a flame, I know cliché.

I revert my attention back to my friends, Nicole, Britney, and Stephanie; I've been friends with the three of them for quite some time, ever since we met at our first soccer practice when we were five. Though in all honesty, we didn't like each other very much; we had a knack for getting on each other's nerves since we all saw each other as competition. Yeah, we were little shits when we were younger. We would fight, argue, and pull hair to get our way; naturally we were split up into different teams in the league since we couldn't work cohesively. Although fate had other plans, that upcoming spring we somehow got signed up in the same ballet school, the Goh Ballet Academy. I'm not going to lie, it was horrible for the first few weeks, but our instructor Madame Selene, a strong-headed Russian woman taught us teamwork and to trust in each other; it was a rough year but we ended up better for it.

"Look at him," Britney muses as she wipes her chocolate brown bangs away from her face, she had these beautiful gray eyes, caramel skin, and was built like a model with curves; just a complete knockout in my opinion. "His arms are huge..." I followed her gaze it was directed at him, "Break me off a piece of that," she eyes him greedily as I shake my head at her. It's safe to say that Britney is BOY CRAZY, all she really ever does when she's out is check out boys for their 'potential', some times it's funny, but most of the time it's really rather annoying.

"I'm going to talk to them!" Britt exclaims, before she quickly gets up and saunters up to them like she's on a catwalk.

"What are we going to do, her hormones are going to get the best of her," Nic shakes her head at our friend.

"I think it already has," I retorted, "I just don't want a repeat of the week of rocky road ice cream." A few weeks ago, Brit "fell in love" with this guy named Ramon, they had a weekend fling and as quickly as he came, he had left. Leaving her shattered. She didn't want to do anything, just eat and watch rom-coms. Well if you can call rocky road ice cream real food… I digress.

As Nic and Steph started forgetting about the hormones of our friend, they began talking about school.

"Professor Ruhl's class is so hard, I didn't know she would give us so many readings, she's a killer," Steph exclaims. She is model tall with fiery red hair and an amazing athletic body, toned and lean. Nic on the other hand, was voluptuous; and in her spare times she moonlights as a plus-sized model, gorgeous angelic face, curly blonde hair, and blue green eyes. I have very pretty friends it seems.

"Yeah," Nic agrees and takes a sip from her iced tea.

I was the only one left looking at Brit, she did what she always did, flirt. And boy was she good at it. At times I envied her for being so confident around boys, I was never really good at flirting, it always ended up seeming a bit off. As I glanced towards her I knew she paid particular attention to Aiden yet he remained aloof, despite having one of the most beautiful girls at the beach gravitating to him. I notice her point at us, and I instinctively snapped my head back and began nodding to my friends, pretending I was engulfed in their conversation. I looked back up towards them quickly approaching our table, Aiden and I locked eyes for what seemed like ages, but his stare became too much like he was looking into me somehow, so I quickly looked down at my drink trying to hide the flush in my cheeks.

"Guys look at what I brought back," she smiled her goofy grin. She introduced us, David, the goofball who gave us a warm toothy smile; then Ryan probably the oddest looking, with big ears, short legs and arms, fixed us with an icy glare. Then Mike and Jeremy, who were twins over 6`2" with thick arms and seemed to be the muscle of the group, they were quite scary looking. Then the youngest Hal, who looked the most genuine of them all gave us a warm, inviting smile. Finally, there was Aiden, unequivocally the leader and the best looking out of them, he was tall around 6'3" with moss green eyes, short dark brown hair, and really, really built. He had a scar underneath his left eye that looked like it took more than a few stitches to heal. He was simply dazzling.

"Hi," the three of us said in unison. We all looked at each other and knew we all had the same idea 'what did she get herself into?`

She then proceeded to introduce us and invited them to dinner.

"Sure," Hal answered quickly, then turns to Aiden. "Aid, what time is the meeting?"

"It's at six o'clock, we won't have time," Aiden answered stiffly.

"Oh... all right," Hal said, looking disappointed.

"Maybe some other time," Brit offered with the same deflated look.

Then just as quickly, Hal's face lit up, "There's a party tomorrow night, it's going to be at David's house, you guys should come!"

"We'll be there," Brit smiles at him. "Here give me your number, and we can set it up," Brit answered. They exchanged their information and after they had finished Nic stands up to say that we had to be on our way too; we were planning to catch a movie after dinner, so we excused ourselves and walked to Nic's car.

"Kat, Aiden was definitely checking you out," Nic squealed, "why didn't you say anything?"

"You're teasing," I smiled.

"No really, you can't deny it, you could feel it," Steph steps in.

"Stop it you guys, he wasn't at all," Brit snaps. End of that conversation.

"Aww come one Brit, it's okay there's so many of them to choose from," Nic teases.

We climb into her car and made our way to dinner; the drive was lively with conversation of the movie and how attractive the boys were. Brit was animated motioning her hands around; she was apparently trying to explain the connection she had with Aiden. I, although present and accounted for was sitting in the back zoning in and out of the conversation. We pulled into La Terrazza the restaurant in the downtown core of the city, we were greeted by beautiful hostess dressed in all black leading us out to the patio, and I noticed that the sun was just about to set painting the sky with beautiful pink, purple, and orange hues. Summer is one of my favourite seasons, beautiful weather and the hot heat.

I remember as a child, my father and I would cycle to the top of a hill and watch the sun set after he came home from work. Then on the weekends my entire family would go on picnics in our backyard, sometimes even at the nearby lake. I miss those simpler days when all I cared about was getting home on time for my afternoon piano classes. Who would have known that my life would take a turn onto Crazy Lane?