Tempest (Royce/Winston)

045

Jacob's P.O.V.

"You haven't been answering any of my texts or calls".

I stared at Winston before nodding a little, "I know".

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No".

I hadn't spoken to Winston in a while, the last time we talked was when we were on FaceTime with Aspen. That was a week and three days ago. I didn't ignore Winston's calls and texts on purpose, something just happened that really messed me up.

"Did something happen?"

I nodded, answering his question without using my words.

"What happened? I mean, do you want to talk about it?"

We were in Winston's car because he was finally taking us to go get ice cream. He was free to take us days ago, but I'd been ignoring him, so really it was my fault we were just now able to go. I absentmindedly bit on the nail of my thumb as I stared out of the window.

"I had my second seizure four days ago" I murmured.

"Oh".

"Yeah".

"Do you want to talk about it when we get inside?"

The ice cream parlor wasn't very far from my house, but I'd never been to it before. It looked nice from the outside, I wonder how it was on the inside. Winston parked the car and we both got out, walking to the front door together. Winston held the door open for me, even though he didn't have to, but I still appreciated it.

The parlor had an old time feel to it, the floor was checkerboard and there was a bar with high stools, and a few booths. The color scheme consisted of a lot of pastel pink and teal, and white. There were neon lights lining the ceiling and pictures of famous icons like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Audrey Hepburn, and Betty Boop. The place made me feel like I'd stepped back into the 1950's, even the uniforms that the workers wore resembled something you'd see back in the 50's decade.

The parlor was so cool and seemed like such an upbeat and fun place, but I didn't feel the least bit happy right now. Winston must've took notice of this because he spoke up for me when a waitress asked how I was doing. She led us to a booth and placed two menus on the table before we both sat down.

"Take your time ordering, there's no rush at all".

"Thank you" Winston replied.

I placed my elbow on the table and rested my chin on the palm of my hand as I looked over the menu. I wasn't really hungry for food, so I avoided it all together and looked at the ice cream options. They had soft serve ice cream, gelato, sorbet, frozen yogurt, and floats.

"Do you know what you want to get?" Winston asked softly, carefully.

I shook my head.

"The creamsicle float is pretty good, it's actually my favorite thing on the menu. Aspen likes the soft serve a whole lot".

"I think I'm going to get the strawberry lemonade float".

"That one is pretty good too".