Wax

Twenty One

A/N: Hewo Beans!! It's Vanilla's birthday next weekend and I'll be writing a nice little special for him and also sharing my journey of publishing Vanilla on Instagram. Yes! Vanilla will be getting a hardcover physical copy (no paperback) and it will still be available, free t read, on Wattpad but just in case you'd like a nice little surprise for yourself on your shelf (eep that rhymed), the estimate release date would be mid November. Available on Amazon! 

I'll be documenting parts of my journey on Instagram at hisangelchip so if you'd like to know how far I'm progressing with the manuscript, or how the book formatting works, and how I design all my covers and jackets, feel free to take a look over there ^^ 

Enjoy the chapter.

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[Leroy]

"So... what, you guys are back together? Just like that?"

We were at this fancy new bistro café thing Erlynn insisted on visiting for brunch a couple of hours after the RV dream, waiting for our mains to be served. I had a game plan going into this, which mostly involved keeping my mouth shut and ordering everything she wanted on the menu to keep her busy. It didn't take very long for her to start asking about him and the trip and whatnot. I figured it was one thing to be hung up over unanswered texts but to see him by my side first thing in the morning probably gave the idea of him being the reason behind it all.

"Does he ask for your phone? Like, to check your DMs or... I don't know, delete contacts and messages?"

Five minutes into our conversation at the table and I was looking at the bottom of my cup of coffee. I had to remind myself it was eleven o'clock in the morning and I'd hopefully be seeing him in a couple of hours.

"I told you. My phone was dead, I forgot to charge it." I laid out, sliding her cup of coffee closer towards her. It worked. She busied herself with coffee for seconds. "And just so you know, lunch with you was his idea. He knows I haven't been spending a lot of time with you."

She rolled her eyes. "That's just him trying to even it out and make himself look good, Roy. Come on... you're not seriously giving this another chance. You said it yourself—you guys were practically opposites! It doesn't work like that."

"We still are," I pointed out. "And yeah, I did say that but you're taking it out of context. Again."

Thank fucks her lobster salad arrived and she turned to ask for an extra fork, cutting the look on her face short before returning to the conversation with something less fiery. "What are you talking about? You said what you said."

"I said we were opposites, but that it was a good thing."

"Okay, so why didn't it work out?" She was back at it again; it wasn't the first time we talked about this. Probably the third. Or fourth. Since we became neighbors. "If you guys were so naturally compatible, that period of three-four years—three-four years of nothing—yeah, small talk is nothing, Roy, just in case you've forgotten what it was like, that period wouldn't even make any sense!"

I'd ordered some overpriced craft burger thing with charcoal brioche buns that was actually the cheapest thing on the menu besides the soup but it was taking forever to arrive and regret was beginning to settle. I was bad with stuff like this and Erlynn knew perfectly well exactly how much I hated talking about the past in the middle of the day.