Halfwizard (Book 2 of the Troy Sanders Trilogy)

2: My So-Not-A-Date With a New Girl

“Can I help you with something?” Asian vase girl asked after she caught me staring at her for the third time.

Great one, Troy, I kicked myself mentally, you've finally earned yourself the title of “Creepy stalker”. “No,” I replied. “You just look like someone I knew before, that's all.”

“Ex-girlfriend?” she asked with a certain funny smirk on her face; no one liked to look like an ex.

“No.” I smiled at the question. “Truth is, I can’t actually place who or where.” I couldn’t very well tell her that she looked like a witch, now could I? I mean, how the hell was I going to explain it away if it turned out that she didn’t even know magic existed?

“Well, I’m Kendra by the way,” she said, extending a handshake.

“Troy.” I returned it.

“Well, if you’re done being cute and cuddly with the customer, Sanders, perhaps you can actually sell her something,” Mr. Andrews suddenly cut in out of nowhere- why did that man have to be such a killjoy?

Kendra didn’t seem to mind him though as she bought two Chinese floral-patterned vases and a necklace from the Victorian era. “Umm, I’m going out for ice cream after this. Would you like to come, Troy?” she suddenly asked as she got to the door.

It was a really awkward moment for me; no girl had ever asked me out before, even if it was just for ice cream- that was supposed to be a guy’s job, right?

“Thank you, but I can’t,” I replied as politely as I could put it. “I’m at work right now and I don’t close until about 4 p.m.”

“No worries,” she replied, much to my surprise, “I know this place that opens till midnight. That is, if you're up for it.”

I gave her a thumbs up. That girl was really unrelenting; reminded me of a certain beautiful girl I love. Oh boy! What will Vic say if she hears about this? She would probably say it was okay, I think. Oh God, I hope like hell this doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass.

Mr. Andrews worked me to the bones throughout the day so you could understand my relief when it was finally time to punch out. “I’m leaving,” I called to him and as if on cue, Kendra walked through the door- talk about real punctual.

“Ready?” she asked.

“I was born ready,” I replied, prompting a laugh from the both of us.

Mr. Andrews gave a string of instructions to me for the next day as I walked out but I didn’t hear a word of it. My attention was solely on Kendra as she was telling me stories about the Ice Palace, her favorite ice cream store in town.

It wasn’t until 6 p.m. that I drove Kendra home in the black convertible Grandpa Blake gave me earlier in the year. “It was a really lovely outing,” she said to me, smiling as I pulled up outside her home.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I replied.

I could swear I had never had as much fun with anybody as I had with Kendra; except Victoria of course. We had tried out every flavor of ice cream they had in the store, even resorting to combining flavors later on; and she made the whole outing more fun as she always added funny comments to everything at every chance she got. She also had a lot of game ideas which were really engaging- that girl was a lot of likable, believe me.

“We should do this again sometime soon,” she said, snapping me out of my thoughts. She was already outside the car and judging by her tone, she must have repeated herself many times over before I caught on.

“I really wish we can, Kendra, but I can’t,” I replied. Summer was just three days away and I had to get ready for Firewalt.

She looked kinda disappointed but said, “No problem, I’ll be busy myself anyway,” and began to walk towards her front door.

And that was when it suddenly dawned on me. “You’re new in town, aren’t you?”

“How did you catch on?” she asked, her face full of surprise. I mean, it could be fake, I wasn’t sure. After all, an average human was supposed to be able to recognize immediately if their date was new in town, not over five hours later.

Anyway, I decided to go for the less stupid reason. “I’ve known the Westons for years and I’ve never met you in their place.” I pointed at the house we were in front of so that she knew I knew what I was saying.

“I’m their niece, just came to visit before summer starts,” she replied. “Look, how about I get your digits? We may not be able to hang out but I can still chat you up sometimes.” She passed me her phone.

But I passed it right back. “I can’t do that either, Kendra. Besides, it’d be useless anyway because you won’t be able to get a hold of me all summer.” It would definitely bring a lot of questions if she called me and I didn’t pick up- better to be a jerk now than a jerk later, right?

“This is also because you have a girlfriend too, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that too,” I finally confessed. It would really be weird to explain how I met a pretty girl like her to Vic; and believe me, I was so tired of weird.

“The cool guys are always quickly taken, aren’t they?” she said, which prompted another laughter from me; that girl had to be very new in Krestwick for no one to have told her my humiliation stories as of yet. We’ll see how “cool” she thinks I am after that.

I was already so immersed in my thoughts that I couldn’t prepare myself before she suddenly kissed me on the mouth. “Why did you do that?” I asked, breathless with surprise and confusion- people weren’t supposed to kiss other people immediately after knowing that they had a girlfriend, remember?

“Just something to remember you by,” she replied casually and left- okay, could someone explain to me why pretty girls always seemed to have a crazy mysterious side to them?

I watched her enter her house and blow me another kiss before I got into the car and drove away. I drove around town for a bit to rid myself of the crazy feeling residing in the pit of my stomach before heading home.

“Where were you?” asked Mom as soon as she opened the door to see me; she seemed to have been waiting for me for a while now.

“I went out with a friend,” I replied but she still blocked the way, expecting more details.

When she saw none forthcoming, she finally allowed me to enter. “Your other friend has been waiting for you all day long,” she told me when the door was closed.

I was about to ask her what other friend she was talking about when I saw him; Roy Henderson. He was still dressed in his jogging outfit from earlier; and boy! he was looking very far from happy.