Standing in the center of the aisle with a box of popcorn in his hands was a familiar face. Bailey wasn’t sure if he had been seen yet seeing as Zane hadn’t bothered to look away from the box. Unlike usual, Zane had his hair pulled back into a ponytail, allowing only a few strands of hair to fall against his chiseled cheeks but, he was still wearing his famous pair of black headphones.

Bailey bit his lip because he couldn’t help but think he kind of liked Zane with his hair pulled back.

For whatever reason, Bailey felt his cheeks warm a bit when Zane suddenly looked his way. Those gorgeous blue eyes locked with Bailey’s own green ones and, for a moment, Bailey swore that Zane saw right through him. It felt like he was being read like an open book but, then Zane’s eyes fell into their naturally bored state.

Zane’s voice cut through the tension, “What are you staring at?”

Bailey didn’t mean to stare. It kind of happened without his knowledge so all he ended up doing was sputtering out some pathetic ‘uh’ and ‘um’s that sounded very suspicious. Zane cocked a brow, looked Bailey up and down much like he was crazy before he sighed and turned to walk away.

“W-Wait!” Bailey called out with absolutely no idea what he was doing or why. He pushed his cart forward even when his mind was asking, what the hell are you doing? Seriously, he didn’t know. He swore his body was on autopilot.

Zane wasn’t waiting though. In fact, he was speeding up but, Bailey ran past his cart to catch up to him. He grasped Zane’s wrist that tore itself from his hold in the blink of an eye. Zane turned to face Bailey with a glare that had the boy biting his lip to keep back a frown. It seemed Zane didn’t like to be touched because he took another step back as if to distance himself as much as he could.

“What?” Zane asked, tossing the popcorn box into the basket he was holding.

That was a good question. What?

Bailey had no idea. His brain was scrambling to come up with a response and that seemed to agitate Zane. He was curling his nose up in annoyance while his eyes slammed shut. He pinched the bridge of his nose. It appeared he was going to say something but Bailey beat him to it by sputtering out nonsense, “D-D-Do you…or w-would you like to get uh…coff-coffee or something with me? Or food? Or like see a movie or—"

Bailey stopped before he could humiliate himself further. It was bad enough, especially when Zane actually threw his head back to let out an annoyed groan. There was no hesitation or thought before Zane looked back at Bailey and answered coldly, “Nope.”

Ouch, well that hurt even if Bailey saw it coming. He frowned at the expected answer, opened his mouth to ask again but realized he had nothing to ask. Instead he thought perhaps he could explain himself, although, he felt Zane already knew.

“Listen, I just want to thank you for Friday,” Bailey said, crossing his arms since he felt the temperature of the room drop. He was feeling a bit nervous and that probably had to do with being in front of Zane, who clearly didn’t want to be speaking to Bailey. “What you did it-it was…it was great. You could have just ignored me but you didn’t and I don’t feel a thanks is enough to express my gratitude, so, I want to buy you dinner or, like, take you out for coffee or something. I don’t know!”

Bailey didn’t like not knowing what to do. Zane made thanking him very complicated.

Ok, so Bailey was making it fairly complicated as well. Zane clearly didn’t want or need thanks while Bailey was hell bent on at least getting a coffee.

Sighing, Zane felt his shoulders drop at the trouble that Bailey was causing him. Honestly, all he wanted was to pick up some popcorn, pop and a pizza or two but he just had to run into Bailey. He wondered what being up there hated him for causing his life to intertwine with Bailey’s so much recently. He was beginning to think the boy was contagious and his bad luck was washing onto Zane because the only reason he came up with for seeing Bailey so much was that he had bad luck.

With Zane being anti-social and Bailey stubborn, they weren’t getting much of anywhere. Even if Zane continued to say no he felt Bailey would find some way or other to bother him. He needed to get the kid out of his life and fast so…he held out his hand.

Bailey stared at the hand before him with curiosity before asking, “Uh…what?”

“Give me five dollars,” Zane stated as if it should be obvious. It wasn’t, and Bailey voiced this through his confused expression. “For the coffee you would have bought me. Give me the money and we’ll call it your thanks.”

“No…that…that’s not the point!” Bailey wondered if Zane had any friends because who in the hell could put up with the guy? He was as anti-social as they came while Bailey sure as hell wasn’t. Bailey had every intention to explain ‘the point’ to Zane but he never got to it.

It happened suddenly and quickly.

Zane pushed Bailey to the ground without warning, not that it mattered. Bailey was too shocked to say a word when Zane rested over top mere seconds before there was a loud bang that rattled the whole store. It was so intense that Bailey couldn’t handle it and he threw his hands over his ears while his eyes clenched shut as if that would help. For a moment, the world itself seemed to shake and tremble with such intensity that, if Bailey wasn’t already on the ground, would have brought him to his knees. Then, suddenly, there was no sound at all while an intense wave of heat burst through the front windows and blew through the store.