Ilyana had volunteered to take Tony and Billy car shopping, on the condition that they have lunch while they were out. So Tony didn’t feel too much like a third wheel, she invited Mandy to meet up with them for lunch. As promised, Mandy met up with them for lunch. She could tell Ilyana wanted to be alone with Billy, however, so she spoke up.
“Hey Tony…can you take me home? I walked here and it looks like it’s raining.”
“Um…sure. Yes, I don’t mind.” he glanced at Ilyana and Billy for a moment before getting up. He felt his pockets for the keys to his new vehicle, said a bye to the other two, and walked out with Mandy. At the car, he held open the door for her, then rushed around as the rain started to come down harder.
“You’ll have to give me directions.”
“I know.” she said, proceeding to give him directions to her house. More than likely her Dad was not going to appreciate that she brought him over; she trusted him though, and wanted to be friends with him, so she’d deal with that problem when it came up. They sat in the car in silence for a few minutes, parked outside the house on the street, as they waited for the rain to let up a little bit. Once it did, they got out of the car and ran up to the door. Mandy used her keys to unlock it, then invited him inside.
He shook off some of the water and looked around. “Nice house.”
“I’d say thanks, but Dad picked it and laid it out the way he needed. Come with me, I’ll get you a towel.”
Tony followed her upstairs, waiting just behind her as she paused at a door, opened it, removed two towels, and handed one to him.
“Thanks.” he said, toweling off his hair first, then the rest of him.
“Sure. Come on.” she said, gesturing for him to follow her. She stopped at another door and opened it, and he could tell right away it was her room, as at least some of the decor was familiar to him. “Have a seat.” she said as she sat on the edge of her bed. He looked around, and took a seat at her desk chair. Mandy was thinking as she worked on toweling her hair dry. After a couple minutes, she spoke again.
“This is going to sound completely cliche, but come with me.”
“O…k..?” he said, getting up to follow her, towel in hand. He stopped in the hallway as she paused outside another door and slowly opened it, taking a peek inside before gesturing for him to stay there. When she saw no one in the room, she breathed a silent sigh of relief. Her Dad and Jacqueline must be out. She thanked the deities that watched over her for her luck and walked over to the dresser, pulling out a pair of basic sweats and a basic tee, then headed back out to the hallway. She gestured for Tony to follow, and led him to the bathroom.
“Go ahead and change. Leave your wet stuff there – I’ll go throw it in the dryer when you’re done. While you’re changing, I’m going to change. Do you remember where my room is?”
“That one, I think.” he said, pointing to a room.
“Yep. Now,” she pushed him into the bathroom. “Change.”
He smiled, mostly out of her concern for his discomfort, but he complied, and closed the door behind him. Mandy let out a breath and then headed to her room to change, stripping down out of her wet shirt, pants and undergarments into a clean, dry, relatively basic skirt and top. Since he hadn’t come back by the time she had finished, she opened the door for him to more readily find it, then proceeded to take her hair down while she waited, in order to dry it better, then brush and put it back up.
Tony took his time, thinking over the cliche he’d found himself in as he undressed, toweled off, and redressed, in what he could only assume were her father’s clothes. He made it a slow process, wanting to give her plenty of time to change herself. Much as he might like to catch her mid-change, he needed to respect that they weren’t together anymore. It saddened him a little, that fact – but at least she was still willing to be in his life at all, and that was something he chose to cherish.
When he felt a respectable amount of time had passed, he gathered his wet things, first emptying pockets of keys, wallet, and phone, putting them into the pockets of what he was currently wearing, then headed to her room. The door was open, but he knocked at the frame anyway to get her attention.
“I hope it fits okay.” she said.
“It’s fine. Here.” he said, handing over the wet bundle.
“Okay. Wait here, get comfy – I’ll be right back.” she said, disappearing through the door and downstairs to toss everything into the dryer. She stopped in the kitchen afterward to grab a couple of drinks and a munchie or two, then headed back upstairs and closed her door. When she entered, Tony was looking at some items on one of her bookshelves – just some little treasures she’d made sure to keep. Tony had gifted them to her, and she wanted to keep them even though they were no longer together.
“You kept them.” he said when he heard her come in.
“Well, yea…just because we weren’t dating anymore doesn’t mean that I don’t want or like them. They’re from you…we weren’t dating any more but you know how I felt about you. That didn’t change when I broke up with you.” she paused for a moment. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
“It’s okay.” he said, turning to look at her. “I’m just happy you kept them.”
She gave him a small smile. Feeling a little awkward, she turned and picked up her phone. “I still have a bunch of our pictures on my phone.”
“Do you?” he smiled, then the smile faded as a thought came to mind. “I don’t have my old phone…but, I think I backed them up onto my laptop, and I do have that, fortunately.”
While he was talking, Mandy sat on the bed, her back against the headboard. She patted the space next to her. “Well, come here. We need to do something while waiting for your clothes – might as well reminisce.”
He paused for a moment longer, then got onto the bed and sat next to her, though still tried to let her have some personal space. They spent a while scrolling through past memories – things from school, from their times dating with Blade, and some from their dates alone. All were happy moments, and Tony was happy she’d kept those mementos. He looked at her, smiling while she scrolled though pics, wanting badly to kiss her, hold her, touch her. But he restrained himself. he didn’t want to push her away, so he tried to respect her space and her current relationship.
After sorting through photos, she set her phone down, and went to check on his clothes. As they were not quite dry, she put them in for longer, then headed back upstairs.
“Sorry – not quite dry.” she walked over to her window, and peeked outside. “Looks like the rain is letting up though – that’s good.”
“Was coming down heavy for a while there.”
“Yeah.” she paused. “Netflix?”
“Yeah, okay.” he said, watching as she pulled up Netflix on her computer. They scrolled through choices for a while before they settled on something and began to play. Mandy was pretty sure that, by the time the movie was over, his clothes would be dry. She didn’t want to be rude, but….it was hard to be around him. Not in a bad way. It was just that she still cared about him. With a heavy sigh she got up after the movie was over, and motioned for him to stay put.
“Just stay here.” she said. “I’ll bring your stuff back and you can change in the bathroom, ok?”
“Okay.” he said, watching her again as he left. He sighed when she was gone, and thumped his head against her headboard a few times to knock some sense into him. He shouldn’t be here, he felt. He should have just dropped her off. He felt like he was risking too much by staying, and he didn’t want to cause problems.
When she returned, he was standing, waiting for her. This startled her slightly, as she wasn’t expecting it, but handed over his dry things. He smiled his thanks at her and left her room, heading into the bathroom to change into his own clothes. Again, he took his time, lingering on memories from days past as he did so. When he was finished, he folded up the temporary clothes he had been wearing, and handed them to her.
“I should go.” he said, sitting down long enough to pull on his shoes, which were still a little wet. He collected his keys, wallet and phone, tucking them back into the pockets of his jeans. He started to lean in to give her a kiss goodbye, like he used to, but he caught himself, instead straightening up, and reaching out to brush some hair out of her face. Unable to say anything else, he headed down the stairs and out the door, Mandy following behind. She closed the front door behind him, and watched as he got into his vehicle and drove off. She sighed, shaking her head a little as she went back up to her room, resolving to talk to Timur at some point.
Not tonight though – at least, not until later. Tonight was the party at Brandon’s. When she got back to her room, she called up first Trish, then left a message for Ilyana, discussing heading over early to make sure everything was good to go before everyone arrived.