One Day At A Time

Chapter Thirty: Hold My Hand

Saturday comes after the slowest school week ever.
Every single class period felt like it lasted two hours as opposed to its actual forty-five minutes.

But the school week is over and done with.
Today's the day of Ava and Lilly's road trip and-or first date.

Both of them are buzzing with excitement on Saturday morning, packing themselves their own little bags for the trip.

Ava packs a can of bug spray and a large water bottle then sits in her room, waiting on Lilly's, "I'm on my way" text.

She occupies her anxious and excited mind with tidying up her room.

She makes her bed, organizes the books on her desk, and throws away the little pieces of trash on her bedroom floor.

Her phone buzzes on her desk a little while later, after she finishes picking up the trash in her room.

And when she sees the message from Lilly, she quite literally jumps with excitement for a good few seconds.

When she calms her jumping down, she waits for five minutes, and then Lilly's car is in her driveway.

She has never been so happy to see it in her entire life.

Ava throws her backpack over her shoulder and walks outside, going over to Donna on the porch and giving her a quick, loving hug.

"Thank you for letting me go, Mom." She says.
Donna pats her back.
"Of course, honey! I hope you have a great time. Just, please be mindful of the bugs, okay?"

Ava lets her go and smiles softly at her.
"Okay. I'll be safe."

She steps off of the front porch and slides into Lilly's car, her heart racing with joy as they head down the road.

About ten minutes into the road trip, Lilly has Ava plug in the AUX cord to play a playlist from her phone.

Lilly, in all her excitement, had told Lucas and Rose about her and Ava's date, which lead to Lucas profusely asking if he could make them a road trip playlist.

She trusted him with making the playlist.
She knew that he would make it nice since it was for such a special occasion.

In all honesty, Lilly was also way too curious as to what kinds of songs he would put on the playlist.

So, the, "Epic Roadtrip Playlist 😎❤️🏳️‍🌈" is pulled up and shuffled.

She has to give Lucas credit, the songs that it starts with are good songs, sweet songs.
It starts out with, "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" by the Beatles, then goes into, "Ease My Mind" by Ben Platt, and it continues on.

Ava is smiling happily and tapping her foot against the floorboard.
She gets to sit here with Lilly for an hour, listening to music and talking to her.

Lilly smiles herself.
She's happy as hell right now, sitting in the car with her girlfriend.

She might never get used to how good it feels to call Ava that, to call Ava her girlfriend.

They sit in their happiness for a while, until the saxophone intro to, "Careless Whisper" by George Micheal fills up the car.

Lilly groans dramatically.
"Oh my god! I knew there had to be... something weird on this damn playlist!"

She looks over at Ava, who is cracking up at the sudden shift in the songs.

In one second, they were from sweet songs to... the song that unanimously makes people think of sex.