• Ryder looked up and stopped mid sentence and a grin spread out of those perfect smooth silky lips of his . Those lips that I hadn’t kissed or touch in way to long! I went over to the table and the two unfamiliar people looked up at me. One was a blonde hair guy sipping a coffee. His hair swept down across his brown eyes. He looked familiar. Was he in my Bio class? Next to him was a gothic looking girl. She glared at me. She had shoulder length black hair and dark eye makeup. She wore big baggy jeans that stuck out from under the small Café table and a black tank top.

    “Trinity!” Ryder said standing up and kissing me lightly on the lips. He turned toward the couple smiling happily. “Guys, this is Trinity,” he said introducing me. I smiled at them. The boy grinned bigger.

    “I’m Isadore but everyone calls me Is.” The boy said with a shrug. I nodded and looked at the girl. She sipped her coffee. Is nudged her on the arm. She glared over at him then looked to me with an annoyed smile.

    “I’m Cookie,” she said.

    “Come on,” Ryder said pulling to sit next to him on the empty chair. He looked so happy and that kiss was amazing! Even though it was to light. I wanted to be alone with him though. I was willing to meet his friends but I wanted to talk to Ryder…alone. “You want anything to drink or eat?” Ryder asked putting his arm around my chair.

    “Yes, just some coffee would be good,” I said with a smile. He nodded and asked a waitress over. She was a pretty petite girl with brown hair and light pink eyes. I hated the eye surgery to color your eyes. From what I heard it was painful. I never ever wanted to do it. I wondered if Ryder’s eye color was natural. It didn’t look fake, so it probably was.

    “What can I get you guys?” she asked all peppy. I almost rolled my eyes but was beaten to it by the girl Cookie sitting across from me. I raised an eyebrow, surprised.

    “She’d like a cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin,” Ryder said for me.

    “Okay,” the girl said writing it all down. “Anyone else?” Is grinned at her and put out his empty cup.

    “Refill please,” he said and winked.

    The girl giggled and walked away. Cookie rammed her elbow into his side. He grunted and gave her a ‘what?’ look. Ryder laughed so did Is.

    “So Trinity, how was it being stuck with my bro over here?” Isadore asked nodding his head over at Ryder. Ryder rolled his eyes. I laughed lightly and took off my sunglasses.

    “It wasn’t so bad. Ryder and I did a lot. It was fun…except for when the tornado hit.” Ryder nodded and Isadore’s eyes gleamed.

    “Really? Like what’d you do?” he asked. Cookie rolled her eyes again and crossed her big black baggy jean legs.

    “We played some video games, watched movie’s on the Thin Screen, painted, ran around in the carts.” At the mention of the carts Ryder laughed and nodded.

    “Oh yeah that was fun! If my boss ever heard about that, she’d flip her lid.” They all chuckled except for Cookie.

    “Do you think you’re going to get fire bro?” Is asked Ryder. He shrugged,

    “Doubt it. With all this crap on the newspapers about us getting stuck, she’ll probably promote me,” Ryder said with a small smile.

    “You going to take the promotion?”

    “Nah, I’m done working there,” Ryder said with another shrug. I looked out at the waitress and saw she was talking to a friend and glancing over at us with a grin. I frowned slightly. There was a man reading a paper and on the front had Ryder’s and mine senior pictures and a headline that stuck out. TWO STUCK IN WAL-MART!

    Ryder rambled on to Isadore and Cookie bumped into the conversation a couple times as I realized this wasn’t a very good place to meet. I looked up and saw the waitress coming over.

    “F*ck,” I muttered. Everyone at the table looked over at me with raised brows.

    “You’re Trinity Adams aren’t you?” the waitress asked. Ryder looked at the newspaper and his eyes got big. I looked away from her.

    “No, I—“

    “Oh my gosh! Can I have your autograph?!” Isadore’s eyes were wide and Cookie looked just as stunned. I bit my lip.

    “Sure…” She pulled out a pen and I quickly signed my name. She looked at Ryder and her eyes shown brightly.

    “And you’re Ryder Williams! Oh my gosh! I’m like so lucky! Can I have yours too? I’m a huge fan!” Isadore snorted and rested his hand on the back of Cookie’s chair.

    “Uh…yeah, I guess,” Ryder said with a frown and quickly signed too. She thanked us and walked away with a bounce to her walk.

    “You know, maybe I should have got stuck in Wal-Mart. I’d have every girl in this room!” Is said with fact. Ryder rolled his eyes and scoffed but laughed at him. Cookie stared at me with blank eyes as if she was looking for something in my soul. It scared the living hell out of me. I looked away and rubbed my arms.

    “Hey man, we’re going to go and leave you two love birds some alone time,” Is said with a wink. I blushed and Cookie glared. Ryder laughed.

    “Alright man, we’ll walk you out.” We stood up and walked outside. Ryder got into a conversation with Is leaving me looking at Cookie. She scared me. Seriously.

    “So, are you graduating this year too?” I asked.

    “Yes.”

    “Cool.”

    “I hate school.”

    “Me too.” even though I didn’t I did not want to get on her bad side. She’d probably gather her cult and throw pig’s blood on me.

    She glared even harder before she glanced to her side at the guys talking intently, then back to me.

    “Listen here, Ryder is one of my best friends and I don’t like to see him hurt. He’s already been through enough with Anne and all that I don’t want you breaking him anymore then he already is. Got it Red?” I stared, my mouth open. I’m sure if we had flies they would have flown in my mouth.

    “Um…yeah,” I said with a nod.

    “Ready Cook?” Isadore asked. She nodded to him and turned to give me a warning look. Then her and Is were walked away. I went to Ryder’s side and he took my hand in his.

    “So those were the friends I told you about,” Ryder said with a smile. I nodded.

    “They seem…nice,” he laughed.

    “They are. They are the only ones that go to parties and don’t drink or smoke. Because if our parents ever found out they’d send us to Timbuktu,” Ryder chuckled. I heard whisperings and turned around to find a group of people staring at us. I pulled my hand away from Ryder’s. He looked down at me with a frown.

    “What?” I jerked my head to the side to indicate the people behind us. He looked back and he sighed with annoyance. “Okay, lets go.” He took my hand and pulled me forward. I put my sunglasses back on and looked down as we walked.

    Camera crews surrounded my car, taking pictures, announcing this was my parents car and when I came back they were going to talk to me. I gasped as we saw it a few feet away. Ryder stopped and I hid behind his back.

    “Sh*t, this is getting bad,” Ryder muttered.

    “Ya think?!” I snapped.

    “Okay, lets go this way.” We went back an alley and hurried to the back then made a right.

    “What about my car?” I asked as I hurriedly along.

    “We’ll get it later. We can take mine. Unlike you I parked on a side street instead of the main road,” he looked over at me and scowled. I rolled my eyes but smiled.

    We got to his little gray Hybrid and got in quickly. We drove off and rounded a corner avoiding the paparazzi. I looked at the sky and thought of how wonderful it would look if I could paint it. Then a realization hit me. My paintings in Wal-Mart were destroyed. A frowned creased my brow. The one of Ryder was gone. I could make another but would it be as good.

    I looked over at him and noticed his hair was down and a little curly at the ends. No Mohawk. And it didn’t look as black as it was. More brown. It looked so soft. His eyes looked gray from this side and I tilted my head to find the purple. There, I found it. It was strange, one way it was gray, the other it was purple.

    “Are your eyes real?” I asked boldly. He laughed and looked over at me. He captured my hand and squeezed it lightly.

    “Yes they are. People ask me that a lot,” he answered.

    “Yeah, their so interesting, who wouldn’t?” I could feel my cheeks flame with embarrassment. Why did I say that? He looked at me and grinned, flattered.

    “Thank you,” he said sweetly. I nodded still a little embarrassed.

    “What is this place?” I asked as Ryder pulled me in through the hole in the gate. He smiled and pulled me up to the door. He pushed the rugged broken door in a few ways then slipped in, pulling me behind him.

    “It’s the old theater. It was abandoned a long time ago. They used to have plays and movies in here. They left it to rot after we got TV and Computer Concerts.” I nodded in understanding. I had one, but I wasn’t about to say that. Ryder looked like he didn’t like them at all. As we walked in darkness for a while then came into the auditorium and light shinned through from the part of the roof being off. It made dust dance and some old fat pigeons rested on part of the rafters. It looked so beautiful and old. Damn! I need to bring my paints with me!

    “They even still have some old costumes. Want to see?” He asked. I was still so busy looking around at all the broken red seats, the big stage with the ripped red curtain that I didn’t hear him at first.

    “There’s still stuff in this place?” I asked amazed. He nodded with a grin.

    “Is, Cookie, and I found this place a while back. We researched it and found no one owned it. Its just…here,” Ryder said looking around, clearly loving this place.

    “Can we go on the stage?” I asked.

    “Yeah! Let’s go.” This time I took his hand we carefully walked down the dusty steps and across the floor to the stage. Ryder picked me up around the waist and put me on the stage and he climbed up after me. I looked around at the rows of seats. There were three levels! How would it have been when the theater was open? I smiled. It would have been more amazing.

    “My dear! Aren’t you going to sing us something?” Ryder asked. I turned toward him and he had an old top hat on. I laughed. It echoed through the huge room.

    “I’m sorry good sir but I must decline. I do not want to break thy windows that are left,” I said in a good English accent. This time Ryder laughed and took off his head.

    “And we don’t want that do we?” I shook my head. He came over and smiled sweetly. He bent down as a bow and offered his hand. “My lady, would like to see the rest of the theater?” I bowed lightly and laughed.

    “You may dear sir.”

    Ryder pushed the curtain old dusty curtain to the side so we could step in. It was pretty dark and we could barely see the ground. The floor creaked and it moved as we walked.

    “Ryder, maybe we should go bac—“ The floor collapsed and I screamed as Ryder’s hands flew out as the boards broke under him.