Blank Canvas

●Chapter 16●

"Oh. My. God. ARIA JANE CLARKE?!" Kris exclaimed and slammed her hands on the counter and might I add, quite loudly. Her face was morphed into one of her infamous mad looks. It could scare even the scariest person or animal alive plus she just took my full name which was again not a good thing.

I winced and glared at her but she seemed unfazed by it. "I'm sorry, okay? It just slipped my mind," I tried to convince her coolly and gestured with my arms to calm her down but she didn't take any of it.

"I'm sorry. It just slipped my mind," she mimicked me in a high pitched voice and crossed her arms across her chest.

"Please I do not sound like that," I countered but she rolled her eyes, dismissing the point.

"Doesn't matter. Why do you tend to forget all the important news? Always?" She questioned, narrowing her eyes at me. She was angry but she seemed a little excited too. "And why is it that I always get to know about such things from your mom?" She resembled like a mother chastising her child who she caught doing some dirty shenanigans.

I sighed and gave her an apologetic look. "Look, I'm sorry, okay," I repeated. "Atlas just asked me to hang out with him out of the blue which exhilarated me and I agreed. So I was caught up in all my... happy mood." I smiled sheepishly and a small, unwanted blush crept up onto my cheeks.

Kris looked at me with a goofy smile. It was as if she was the one who went on a date or in this case a hangout. "Oh, wow! What else? Did you guys kiss? How was it? What was it like? Did you feel those, you know," she spoke excitedly, clicking her fingers as if trying to recall something, "yes, sparks and electricity?" She giggled in the end. She probably, no surely looked like a high school teenager.

"Kris, Kris, Kris." I chuckled and stopped her rampant by showing my palms to slow her down. She took a deep breath and looked at me expectantly. "We didn't kiss," I mumbled gloomily but quickly hid it with a small smile.

"What? Why?" She pouted and rounded the counter of my gallery and came to sit beside me on the small two-seater couch. "You guys are so boring. And here I actually fantasized about something wild between you guys." She smirked suggestively and I had to laugh at her thoughts.

"You're stupid." I didn't feel like sharing about the kiss Atlas had planted on my cheek not once but twice with Kris. It was a secret I wanted to keep to myself. It just didn't feel right to tell her about it.

"Where did you guys go though?" Kris asked after a minute.

"A field on the outskirts of our town. We rode horses and saw a beautiful clearing at the end. Everything was just so breathtaking. We also watched the sun setting and basically that was it. Cliché, I know but I loved every second of it," I finished, giving her the vague details. I smiled, reminiscing how much I enjoyed being in Atlas's company and saw Kris sporting a smug look. "What?"

"You're totally whipped, my baby," she drawled and swayed her shoulders, totally teasing me and it was working.

"Shut up, Kris," I said, slapping her shoulder and hiding my face behind my hands. I heard her laughing from beside me. "Don't you have work to go to?" I asked, trying to change the subject and clearly not wanting any more embarrassments.

She rolled her eyes, probably getting the hint and replied, "I took a day off. You know, the whole workplace is busy gushing about the entire workshop that's being held in our town this Sunday. And my major is to write reports regarding the hard news, not the soft ones." She shrugged. 

"But don't they, like, want all their employees when working on a big shot project?" I inquired, furrowing my brows.

"Yeah they do but I just wanted a day to cool off so pretty much why I am jobless for a day." She snorted and I grinned at her. "Which reminds me you should totally register for this workshop," she suggested.