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 Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 2:20 pm
Days off were going to be a rare commodity this school year, Paris was certain. Of course, that was how she preferred it. The more activity packed into her days, the less of an opportunity she had to wallow in whatever misery might currently be plaguing her life. She craved movement, preferred a busy schedule to long periods of inactivity.
Even so, she had every intention of relishing what few days off were allotted to her.
Mid-day on Labor Day found Paris stopping by one of her favorite cafés near the campus of DCU, dressed in a pair of knee-length yoga pants and a pink sports bra, with a zip-up hoodie (currently unzipped) thrown overtop for modesty's sake. Her ponytail swayed cheerfully back and forth, and around her feet Chris's dog Anna (their dog nowadays) frolicked contentedly. Paris stopped to tie Anna's leash to a post outside, gave her a loving pet and a scratch being the ears, and then headed into the café to place her order.
“A plain bagel, toasted, with chocolate chip cream cheese, and... a small strawberry and banana smoothie,” she said. “For here, please.”
She paid with her credit card and stood patiently to the side while her order was prepared, pulling out her phone to send out a few texts in the intervening minutes. The café itself seemed to be doing a moderate amount of business. Most of the tables inside already had occupants; she caught snippets of conversations from every direction. Happily chatting teens, fondly bickering adults, shrieking children...
Once her order was complete, Paris turned to make her way back to the door with every intention of staking claim to one of the shaded tables outside, but she ended up bumping into someone else before she could move too far in the appropriate direction.
She looked up with a winsome, apologetic smile and said, “Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry!”
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Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 11:48 pm
For the first time in...well...ever, Dominic was actually glad for his school-related busy schedule. He'd had, more or less, the most unproductive summer and was just glad to be out of the apartment for reasons that didn't involve life and death situations being had in weird costumes, surrounded by others.
That particular subject is a whole other can of worms, though.
In any case, even more surprising than his fondness for his busy school schedule was the fact he was actually on his way to a café near the university to do homework, and he was looking forward to it. Him. Looking foward. To homework. Hah! Personal progress, even if he did have to admit it himself. With a smile on his face he opened the door and started walking toward register--
--and right into a woman heading out.
"No, no, that's my bad," he said, smile turned apologetic. "You okay?" He paused and looked her once over to make sure that she was alright. When he got to her face though, he couldn't quite shake the idea of having seen her somewhere before. Curiosity filled his naturally bright cerulean blue eyes, and he straightened himself out.
"Uh, sorry to ask but.. do I know you from somewhere? You seem really familiar so..."
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Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 7:40 am
Paris's first response upon glancing up at the young man she'd bumped into was to blush—a normally uncharacteristic response, considering she wasn't one to be embarrassed, but it wasn't every day she ran into someone she'd hadn't seen since high school while in little more than skin-tight yoga pants and a sports bra.
Her second response was the blanch as the young man in question seemed to recognize her. The color drained from her face, leaving her looking a bit paler than usual. An awkward encounter like this had not been part of her plans for the day.
It wasn't often she ran into old schoolmates from Hillworth. She'd had so few friends while she was there and just as few acquaintances. Running into Colin Hargrove was one thing. They'd danced together before; there was a certain level of intimacy inherent in dancing. Even if they hadn't gone to the same school, chances are they would have encountered one another at some point.
Running into a guy she used to share detentions with was another matter entirely.
Paris might often have trouble retaining names, but faces she was fairly good at remember—cute ones in particular.
“Oh... uh... mmmaaaaaaaaybe?” she said. Her expression was caught somewhere between sheepish and deer-caught-in-the-headlights.
She did not look the same as she had when attending Hillworth. Her face was a little fuller even as the rest of her had slimmed down. Her hair was longer. Her style of dress was less provocative (yoga pants and sports bra notwithstanding). Her frame was a little more shapely too, of course. Her chest in particular.
“Did you... um... you used to go to Hillworth... right?”
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Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 10:15 pm
There was something just so incredibly familiar with this woman, and it did bother him that he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He'd seen plenty of pretty blondes, granted mostly in passing. And then of course there were the actresses of the famous variety, but he was more likely to get starstruck and tongue-tied around a woman like that. And then there were people from school; dancers, designers, engineers.. and of course blondes from other... majors. But plenty, was the point! Her prolonged "maybe" got a chuckle out of him though, and he looked at her curiously, as though she'd just offered him a challenge.
So he first filtered the least likely possibilities, then eventually dwindled all the options to either someone he knew but hadn't seen in a while, or someone with a minor amount of fame...
But the Hillworth thing also seemed possible. Sort of? It was an all-boy's school; maybe she was thinking he knew her brother or friend or something? Dominic pulled on a thoughtful expression when she brought it up though, then nodded slightly. "Yeah, I did, but..." and he looked at her more carefully.
It clicked. He knew exactly who she was.
"No, I think I've got it," he started, the realization getting him to smile again. "I'm sure I've seen you on some videos and stuff when I was doing...research...of a sort." There was no decent way to say "Googled a friend." "I remember liking at least one of 'em, if not all of 'em," he went on, his smile getting a bit wider. "I guess in some small way you could say I'm a fan?"
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Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 6:43 am
Paris winced when he seemed to realize who she was, but the response he gave was not one she'd been expecting.
She'd thought surprise would be the more likely reaction. Maybe shock. Maybe a little confusion. The last time this guy had seen her in the flesh, she'd sported a flatter chest and much shorter hair, forced into the awful plaid pants and dark sweater vest of the hellhole known as Hillworth. Not a suitable place for her by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, she'd not cared as much at the time.
Instead he mentioned videos, and Paris was left to assume he'd somehow stumbled across her Youtube channel.
“Oh...” she said. She felt guilty for letting him believe that was the only place he'd seen her, especially when he professed to being a fan. “Thank you, I...”
Should she explain herself? A part of her didn't want to. A part of her wanted to go on being Paris Gallo without any trace of her past creeping up on her to remind her that things hadn't always been so simple. But another part of her, the part that valued honesty, thought telling the truth would be best. After all, there was no telling when he'd figure her out on his own.
So she juggled her drink and her take-out bag with the bagel in it so that she could hold out an empty hand to shake as she introduced herself, “Paris Gallo. I, uh... before I was married, I was Paris LeFay...”
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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:18 pm
LeFay, LeFay... The name was so familiar that he squinted his eyes at her, curiosity getting the better of him. It was rude to stare, of course but he didn't really care at the moment. It was the sort of feeling you get when you know you know something but can't seem to remember...
Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Hilworth. Hillworth. Hillworth...
His eyes widened at the realization as he looked her up and down again, images of a vest-and-plaid wearing boy flashing in her place as he put two and two together. His mouth hung open for a second before he closed it again. What could he say, really? Paris had been the occasional detention buddy of his, after all. At the time she'd kept to herself and almost seemed to just put up with his presence whenever they got shoved into serving detention together after school for whatever shenanigans they individually got into. To see that Paris juxtaposed to the one before him was...mind-boggling, to say the least. So Dominic kept his mouth shut for a bit as he shook her hand weakly, letting the information register as a brief silence settled.
When he finally managed to find what he thought might be the right words to greet an old schoolmate, and maybe even friend--at least, he thought they bonded a little bit over the hours spent in detention--he gave her a smile and ran his free hand through his hair to try and shake the initial shock.
"Okay, well. Head outta my a** then, but let's be fair here. You aren't in uniform, the ponytail threw me, and you got married." His smile widened a bit at that, an indication that he was more happy to see her than he was surprised that she wasn't anything like he remembered. And he really was; she helped make those detentions a bit more bearable, and being older he'd sort of looked up to Paris in a way a budding rebel wanting to stick it to the man might. When she disappeared from the detention hall he found he missed the company and occasionally wondered where she might have gone to. "C'mon, now."Sunshine Alouette Sunnyyyy! I couldn't think of what he could say to make it less awkward.. XDD I hope this is okay~~
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Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 5:17 am
Paris watched as recognition dawned and made swift work of trying to determine what her next course of action might be. She figured this could go one of two ways—either the conversation would quickly turn awkward (or more awkward than it already was), or she would need to make a quick escape.
Awkward was fine. Awkward she could deal with. But slipping out and running away was never quite as easy as it seemed, especially with her way to the door blocked.
She made an attempt to smile and managed to get her mouth to twitch up at one corner. Okay, so his initial react wasn't that bad. That was good. Maybe she'd get out of this encounter mentally, physically, and emotionally unscathed. It was never easy to predict, how people she'd once known would react to her now, particularly when it came to students from her old high school.
Paris managed an awkward sounding laugh. Her expression looked like a cross between forced confidence and deer-caught-in-the-headlights. She shifted on her feet and looked around her former classmate in order to assess the distance between herself and the door—just in case.
“Yeah, well, you know, we can't all be wild and free forever,” she said, choosing to focus on the comment about her being married instead of getting in to anything else.
She looked her former classmate over. She wouldn't have called them friends, but then back then she hadn't really called anyone a friend. Now, she figured Dominic was one of the few people to come close. She supposed serving numerous detentions together caused some some of bond to develop. They'd talked, at least, during those long hours spent after school when they should have been silently working on their homework or writing endless lines, and that was more than Paris could say she'd done with a lot of people.
Or less, depending on how you looked at it.
“Dominic, right? Um... so... what are you up to these days?”
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Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2015 11:39 am
Had he known how awkward she felt about running into someone who knew her from all the way back in high school, Dominic might have actually apologized for delaying her, stepped out of the way and let her go about her day as she originally planned. Unfortunately for her, though, all he could really focus on was making mental comparisons of now-Paris and then-Paris while attempting to get over the surprise of running into his old detention buddy. So whatever glances she made past him and toward the door went entirely unnoticed, and instead Dom focused on actually catching up. He always was curious, after all, and now seemed an ample opportunity to ask a few non-probing questions.
How are you? How've you been? What happened after high school? That kind of thing, nothing out of the ordinary or even remotely invasive. That was fine, right?
Dom only chuckled at her married comment--he just got himself a girlfriend so marriage was so, incredibly far off his radar that he couldn't even think of anything in reply--and gestured to the closest empty table. He set his pack down on the chair he intended to use, effectively reserving the spot for himself and Paris, if she was interested. "Yeah, that's right. Glad I made enough of an impression that you'd remember," he said, still smiling. The expression flattened some as he answered her question, beginning with a shrug.
"Life, I guess," he said, "school, work, girlfriend if you can believe it, and family drama. The works." His tone perhaps had a drop of sarcasm in it, but the smile stayed. "You? I mean, besides those videos of you singing and stuff. 'A' grade stuff, by the way. Is that just a hobby, or...?"
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