Take Me by Surprise, It Will Blind Me

The chattering from the store floated to my office, making me cringed from the conversations. It was Saturday, but I had to work for just half a day, so it wasn't that much of a drag, I saw it as a thing to kill time. I rather spend it in the boutique rather than at home, doing nothing.

The conversations between the bride-to-be, her mom, her friends and the shop attendant couldn't be more interesting. It seems like she found her dream gown that she had to squeal, her mom had to gush like she was about to burst into tears, and her friends congratulated her and told her how much she'd look beautiful in the gown. All of it made me cringed.

It was 11.35, only 25 minutes away from my weekend. Amy told me that we were invited to a barbeque at Eric's friend place to celebrate their "homecoming". It took her and Feranix three whole hour to convince me that they wouldn't try to hook me up with someone just for a day and I surrendered, letting them drag me to the barbeque. They were ecstatic, like I told them that I'm getting married.

I decided to go into the store, checking things up. When I stepped in, the shop attendant that was serving the girl that I heard earlier, Hilarry, came up to me with a huge smile. "Dareen, someone wants to meet you."

"Who?", I asked as I furrowed my brows. She motioned to the girl in the white gown that I recognized as my first ever design, standing in front of the three angle mirrors, grinning from ear to ear towards me. "Oh."

"This is Dareen Turner, our shop manager and the one who designed the gown.", Hilarry introduced me to the girl, her mom and her friends.

The girl sniffled and I noticed her eyes were already glitsening as she walked to me and took my hands in hers. "Thank you so much. I love the gown and I'll wear it to my wedding, which is two months away. You're amazing."

Even though it made my stomach tied in a knot hearing about her wedding, I cracked a smile and nodded slightly. "T-Thank you. You're too much... I'm just doing my job."

She shook her head and pulled me into a careful hug so she wouldn't tear something in her gown. After talking a bit more with her and her mom, I got back to my office to find out it was already 11.59, Amy would burst in any second.

As I packed up my things into my bag, my prediction was right; Amy got into my office with another wide smile on her face. "You ready?"

"Yeah.", I nodded and followed her out from the store as I said bye to Hilarry and the others on my way out. Feranix was already in the back seat of the car when we got in, biting on her nails.

The ride to the house was filled with laughters. Feranix told me how Amy got flirted shamelessly last night by Eric and I just laughed at her face while Amy denied in a million word, but Feranix and I owned her. "Ya know, someone asked about you last night, Dare."

"Who?", I cocked my brow and looked over from my shoulder to Feranix. She glanced at Amy and I followed her glance. "Who?! Tell me!"

"If we tell you, what you're gonna do about him?"

"So I could plan a great avoiding plan. Do I know him?"

Feranix scoffed lightly. "If you look it that way, we won't tell you."

I rolled my eyes and decided to pull the 'silent treatment' on them. When we reached the house, there were a couple of cars parked up on the curb. Amy parked the car at the end of the curb and cut off the ignition. We got out and Amy locked the car before walking up to the front door. There were laughters and chats from the inside of the house, even calls or screams. I didn't know that it would be that crowded.

Amy knocked on the front door and a moment later, it swung open, and revealed a guy. "You're Amy, right?", he asked with a smile.

"Hey, David.", she chuckled and gave him a quick friendly hug, but I could tell that he was looking at Feranix. He let us in and there were a couple people in the living room, but a lot in the backyard and kitchen.

Amy and Feranix greeted some of the guys from last night and quickly joined them, while I, in the other hand, just sighed and decided to get a drink from the kitchen. Just a few of them noticed me when I walked in, but I pretended that I didn't notice their stare. The drinks were on the island and I took a red paper cup filled with what I guessed, beer, and turned around.

When I did, I bumped onto a guy, making most of my drink spilled on his shirt. "Shit!", I gasped. "I am so sorry."

"If you don't like my shirt, you just need to say so.", he groaned and tried to wipe some of the stain off with his hands. My face turned pale on his words and when he looked up from his shirt, he grinned. "Just kidding, paley."

Then, it hit me; he was joking. I rolled my eyes and chuckled a bit. "You got me."

He laughed a little bit and I handed him the nearest tissue paper. "Here."

"Thanks.", he smiled as he took the tissue and wiped the stain off with it. "You look familiar, though."

I arched my brows and shrugged, leaning with my hand on the island. "You too..."

After he thought it was enough, he threw the tissue away to the trash can near the sink and looked at me for a brief moment before his eyes widened. "You're Dareen, right? Dareen Turner?"

"Y-yeah... How did you know?"

He gasped a bit and grinned. "I'm Cameron. Cameron Leahy? We were lab partners in Chemistry back in high school, I kinda burned your finger with the bunsen burner once, and you dumped chili on me because I failed our Ancient Rome diorama in History class. Remember?"

"Oh yeah!", I exclaimed. How could I forget about him? He was my friend back in high school, well, we were partners in most of our classes, including PE. "How didn't I recognize you, it's weird."

"You look... Brighter.", he motioned to my hair. I took a strand of my hair and chuckled. "But definitely better."

"Well, thank you.", I smiled. "I need some 'brightness' in my life anyway."

He nodded. "Still being the ice queen?"

I narrowed my eyes and smirked. "Still being the gay-lord?"

"Hey!", he protested and I just laughed. "I cut my hair, thank you very much.", he hufted while running his fingers to his now short hair, which suited him much better.

It was nice to talk to a guy without being pressured because he was my "hook up", courtesy of Amy and Feranix. We caught up with each other and I definitely had some laughs. "So, you're a rockstar now, huh?"

He nodded as he took a sip of his drink. "Yeah, it's... Surreal. You know how I wanted this, right? And now I'm living it.", he said with some sparks on his eyes. One thing that made me interested on being friends with him back then because he had so much life on his eyes. "So, how about you, Dareen? What do you do now?"

"I'm a manager in a bridal boutique.", I answered simply. A moment after my question, Cameron laughed a bit. "What?"

"So, you're telling me, Dareen Turner, the ice queen, the one who dates gazillion of guys just for a game at high school, now works at a bridal boutique? A bit ironic, isn't it?"

I rolled my eyes. "I'm in this for the fashion, dumbass."

Cameron was still laughing until a brunette came up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Hey, baby.", she cooed.

"Oh, hey.", he smiled and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Trish, this is Dareen, my friend since high school."

Trish looked over to me and flashed me a smile. "Hi.", she chirped and released her grip from him before extending her arm out to shake my hand. "I'm Trish."

"Dareen.", I gave her a smile back and shook her hand. "So, you guys are together?"

"Oh yeah.", she giggled and pulled her hand away. I smiled and cringed unoticeably a bit. Even though Cameron was my friend, I still had doubts about he would stay with her forever, I always did to every guys in the planet. "You're Cameron's friend since high school?"

I nodded. "We were partners in most of our classes."

"She's the girl who dumped chili on me.", Cameron chuckled and Trish made an 'O' with her lips before giggling hardly.

"Oh, my, God!", she laughed. "He told me about you and all I could do just laugh!"

I smiled and Trish excused herself. "Well, she's... Interesting."

"She is.", he shook his head. "It's nice to catch up with you, Dareen. You should come to my show sometime."

"It'd be nice to see Cameron 'the gay-lord' Leahy living his dream.", I teased and he just glared at me.

"The same ole' Dareen Turner, never changed.", he smirked and gave me a fist bump before catching up to Trish. I sighed and decided to look for Amy and Feranix. I found Amy, talking to Eric at the backyard, but they were having fun and I didn't want to disturb them, so I looked for Feranix.

Feranix was at the living room, talking to some guy and there was David, standing across the room, talking to someone but his eyes fixed at my friend. I rolled my eyes and walked towards Feranix. "Oh, there's Dareen.", she waved to me.

"Hey.", I smiled. "Feranix, can I talk to you for a sec?"

She nodded and stood up, excusing herself from the guy. We went into the bathroom and she put the toilet lid down to sit on it. "What's up? And why are we talking in the bathroom?"

"Because we couldn't talk outside?", I asked back. "Can we go? I'm tired and I'm sleepy, I wanna take a nap."

"Sure.", she nodded. "I'm full and bloated anyway, I could use a nap."

We walked out from the bathroom and went over to Amy, pleaded to her to go home. She surrendered and took us home even though she wanted to talk to Eric more.

"So, did you guys have a great time?", Amy asked when we were already in the car and drove off.

"I talked to some guys who are in a different band, they're cool.", Feranix shrugged.

Amy turned her attention to me when we stopped at a traffic light. "How about you, Dareen?", she cocked her brow, interested in my answer.

"I... Talked to a guy."

Amy's jaw dropped and Feranix quickly leaned forward to between the passenger and driver seat. "You did?!"

"Who?! How?! When?!", Amy blurted out.

"Cameron Leahy, I spilled some drink on him and earlier at the kitchen. It was nothing, though.", I waved my hands a bit.

"It was something! A progress!", Feranix exclaimed.

"He's my friend. Amy, you know we were partners in most of our classes back in high school and I wouldn't even date him for a million bucks! He has a girlfriend, anyway."

They groaned when they realized Cameron was just a friend. I rolled my eyes and just leaned my head on the window.