just hanging out
essa pov.
The next day, as Cass and I are finishing up breakfast, Bobby comes bursting in. "I have surprises for you two!" he exclaims, holding out little wrapped packages. "You're gonna love them!"
Cass looks over at him from where she's washing the dishes. "What are they for? Is it some special occasion?" she asks over her shoulder.
He grins in amusement. "Nope, no special occasion. Just wanted to get you guys some gifts because we're buddies now!" he says enthusiastically. "And because I couldn't believe Essa doesn't listen to music. I had to change that."
"You didn't have to get us anything," I tell him honestly. Really, I feel bad because we have nothing for him. I reach up on tip-toe to put a clean dish in the cupboard.
"It's okay. I wanted to, and it's really not a big deal," he says, pulling me away from the sink.
I try to shake him off. "Come on, I'm putting dishes away!" I laugh.
"Take a break for a minute. You too, Cass. Get over here."
Cass dries her hands on a dish towel and comes to join us by the kitchen table. "Alright. So what is this mysterious gift?" she asks, smiling.
Bobby grins excitedly and hands each of us a small parcel wrapped in blue paper. "Now open them," he says. Cass and I exchange an amused look and peal the paper back. We both gasp with wide eyes when we find that Bobby was true to his word about getting me an iPod. He got one for Cass too.
"Bobby, oh, my God, you did not do this!" I exclaim, horrified. "This is way too much!"
He looks confused. "Don't you like them?" he asks. "I put some of my music on them so you can try it out and see what songs you like. And, if you have any CDs you wanna put on them, just come over to my house and I'll show you how."
Cass gives me an anxious look. "Bobby, it's really sweet, but we can't take these. They're too much. Too expensive. We can't get you gifts like these in return."
He still looks confused. "You don't have to. They're meant to be gifts. You don't have to get me anything back. It's more like payback since I was so awful to you both before this summer."
"I don't know, Bobby," I murmur, turning the iPod over in my hands. I believe it's an iPod nano, purple, with a touchscreen. Cass has the same one in pink.
"Don't know what? Take them, they're for you guys," he says, smiling. "Please, I want you guys to, or it'll be an insult." I can tell he's trying to trick us into keeping them and it makes me laugh. "You guys better like them, because I'm not returning them."
"Alright, I guess it's okay," I say, giving him a hug. "Thanks."
He smiles. "No problem. And if it makes you feel better, I got a blue one for myself." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an identical iPod. "I needed a new one. My old one was having issues charging and stuff."
Cass turns hers on and starts scanning through the songs. "Wow, you put a lot of songs on here," she says.
Bobby shrugs. "I have a lot of CDs. And those things still have a lot of room left for other songs. These things are awesome." I press the button to turn mine on and the home screen pops up. Bobby looks over my shoulder and presses one button on the screen. "Here, you can pick a background for it." Several purple background options pop up and I pick the one that look like bubbles floating over the screen. "And you can change any setting you want here," he says pointing to another button. "And here's the music."
I press the music button and scroll through the list, finding songs by Halestorm, Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, Black Veil Brides, and a couple other bands. "Oh, and I almost forgot!" Bobby says, reaching into his pockets. "They came with chargers and headphones." He hands each of us a pair of headphones and a charger.
"They're great," I assure him, turning mine off again. "So, you wanna stay and hang out?"
He smiles. "Actually, I was going to invite you guys over to play video games."
"Video games?" Cass says, wrinkling her nose. "Like, blowing stuff up with grenades and bombs?"
Bobby nods. "Well, yeah. Don't you like those games?" Cass and I exchange another look. "Come on, those games are fun!"
"We're girls, remember?" I say, going back to putting dishes away. "We're not into video games."
He rolls his eyes. "But you watch zombie movies and wear guy shoes," he says, looking down at my boots. "Come on, a lot of girls like video games."
Laughing, I shake my head and put some forks away in a drawer. "I don't know," I say absently.
"Alright," he says thoughtfully. "I have some racing games. A couple steering wheel controllers, and we can pick cars to race. We can even run each other off the road. It's pretty fun when you play multi-player."
Scrubbing one of the orange juice glasses, Cass says, "That doesn't sound bad. It sounds kind of fun actually."
I raise an eyebrow at Bobby. "What kinds of cars?"
He grins. "All kinds. Like, muscle cars that go really fast, and... I actually don't really know. I've only ever picked the muscle car."
I laugh. "Alright. Let us finish up and then we'll be right over."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A couple minutes later the three of us are in his room, and Bobby's starting up the gaming system. "You guys are going to love this," he says, grinning. There are a couple steering wheel controllers and he gives one to each of us, and shows us how to use them. Then he selects multi-player and the screen splits into three parts. We each pick a car and I paint mine purple and then we start the race.
Cass starts out in front and then I speed ahead, and she playfully bumps my car. I go spinning out of control, and laughing, I have to really shake the wheel to get my car back on the road. "You're ruining my paint job!" I squeal, joking. Bobby soars past both of us and Cass and I let out exclamations of surprise and each gun our cars to catch up.
When I finally catch up to him I crash into his car and he yells, "Hey!" and bumps my car back. In no time we're both laughing and knocking each other off the road. Cass takes the advantage and speeds between both of us and way ahead. "Hey!" Bobby and I both shout, and try to catch up but neither of us can get fast enough and she crosses the finish line ahead of us.
"No!" Bobby and I cry out, slamming on the pedals to race across the finish line. "Play again!" Bobby yells, punching the 'play again' button. The rest of the morning is spent racing cars, wrecking them, and screaming at the TV until a maid comes in to tell us Mrs. Townsend has 'requested' that we settle down because she has a headache.
"You win this time," Bobby says to me, since I won the last game. "But this isn't over."
After that we watch a Walking Dead marathon for the rest of the afternoon, hardly ever leaving his room. Not even for snacks, because he has a mini fridge in his room, so we just sit around eating Pringles and drinking Mountain Dew. "Ooh, we should order tacos!" Bobby exclaims at some during the second season. "You guys like Dorito tacos, right? From Taco Bell?"
"Sure, but do they deliver?" Cass asks, not really sure. At our house we rarely eat out.
"Doesn't matter? One of the help can go pick it up," he says, shrugging. "So, tacos?"
Cass shrugs at me. "Sounds good to me," she says, and I nod my agreement. "We'll just order, like, twelve and split them between us," he says, picking up the phone.
Half an hour later we're eating tacos, sitting on the floor, wrappers spread around us as we eat. "These are so good!" Cass exclaims with a mouthful of taco shell. "Who came up with these? I wanna marry whoever did!"
They really are pretty awesome. Doritos and tacos are like the best combination ever. The whole evening is spent pigging out of them, and watching a couple more episodes of The Walking Dead until Cass and I have to leave for home.