Ready or Not

Chapter 7

Warren:
Joonie is with you now?

You:
Yes. I'm in his car.
We are almost at the market.

Warren:
When will you be done with him?

You:
I'm not sure.
If you want to come by and hang out at my place, you can.
The grocery shopping shouldn't take more than an hour.
As I said, I am doing the boring bits of my life today.

Namjoon sees you texting and asks, "Who is that?"

You reply, "It's Warren. Wanted to know what I was up to."

Namjoon pulls into the parking lot of the grocery store and parks the car. As the two of you exit the vehicle, Namjoon asks, "Did you tell him I was with you?"

"Yes, of course. I told him you volunteered to help me with my chores today."

"Does he text you wanting to know what you are up to often?" He asks as he grabs a shopping cart.

"No, I wouldn't say 'often.' He had texted me last night about me leaving without announcing myself. Guess I'm in trouble now," you say as you give him a rueful smile.

Namjoon asks, "Why did you leave without saying goodbye last night?"

"I told you. I didn't want to see where things would go next. I was feeling uncomfortable. It really had nothing to do with you guys. It was me."

The two of you enter into the store and you consult your shopping list and start grabbing items that you need and putting them in the cart.

Namjoon stops you in the middle of the aisle and says, "Nothing happened last night."

"Oh, okay. I'm sorry to hear it." You shrug your shoulders as you look at the shelves lined with cleaning products.

A bit taken aback, Namjoon asks, "What? What do you mean 'sorry to hear it?'"

You reply, "I was told that those evenings usually end up in hookups and I am assuming that when you said, 'nothing happened,' what you meant was that you didn't end up with one of those girls in your arms. Although, I'm surprised because the blonde one was all over you. You seemed to enjoy the attention." And you give him a playful wink.

Then he says, "I didn't want those girls."

You ask, "How come?" as you try your best to feign non-interest, you grab another item off the shelf and deposit it in the cart.

Namjoon lies and says, "I don't know."

You glance up at him, shrug your shoulders, and say, "Oh, okay."

What Namjoon wants to tell you is that the person he wanted to be with last night was you. That he still wants you. But he can't seem to get the nerve to say anything of the kind.

Then you say, "I thought that blonde girl, Kelly, I thought that was her name, had your full attention last night. What happened to her?"

"My attention wasn't on her." Namjoon replies.

You say, "You could have fooled me. So, was it the other one? Um... what was her name? Lara, Laura? Something. She was drop dead gorgeous." When he says nothing, you turn to him and ask, "Well, was it Lara/Laura?"

What he ends up saying is, "Never mind. It's not important. Can we talk about something else please?" It comes out sounding sharper and testier than he had intended.

You hear the sharp edges in his reply and say, "Yea sure. Of course. I'm sorry Joonie. I shouldn't have been so nosy. Who you sleep with and when, is completely none of my business. You know, you can say that next time, that it's none of my business. I won't be offended. Sometimes, I don't know where the boundaries are, and I keep pushing. My curiosity always gets the better of me. I'm sorry, don't be too mad at me. Okay?"