Take Me by Surprise, It Will Blind Me

Never in my thought I would be in an awkward silent with a guy. Usually, the guys I went out with were my friends or just for-fun-dates. I leaned back onto the passenger seat while Cameron drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while he was driving. The mix CD he made for me was still playing in the radio and he looked like he was enjoying his own voice. It was an acoustic version of 'A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Touch Me' by Fall Out Boy, which reminded me of Pete. The weirder part was I didn't know Cameron was into 20th century's music.

"I didn't know you like Fall Out Boy.", I spoke up after being in an awkward silent for the whole ride. He looked over to me and smiled before shrugging his shoulders. "You had a music taste of a 40 year old."

Cameron chuckled. "Well, you never know. Remember how we liked to listen to your iPod at lunch time? I got the left one, you got the right one?"

I tried to recall the memory. We liked to sit together at lunch time outside by the football field, where we would sit below the tree and listened to my iPod with his earphones. Our heads would be attached, like siamese twins. I had a playlist that he made, which filled with Prince, The Rolling Stones, and his other favorites. One time, I made him listened to my music and the song got shuffled. I guessed it got into him. "Yeah. Just because of that?"

"After that, right when I got home, I Myspaced them and downloaded their album. They're good.", he explained and arched his brows, amused. I smiled and muttered along to the song until he turned right into an iHOP parking lot. We parked the car and he turned off the ignition. "I still remember how you like waffles."

"What other things do you remember about me?", I laughed as I unbuckled my seat belt. We got out from the car and Cameron suddenly laced his fingers with mine when we walked into the restaurant. My cheeks burned and I looked away so he wouldn't see me. Slowly, I pulled my fingers off from his, slowly that he wouldn't be offended. We got the corner booth and I slid in before him.

The waitress took our order and after she walked away, I sighed and played with my hands. Cameron was texting someone and I just let my eyes lingered on him for a bit. His lips curved into a pout while his eyes were concentrating on his phone. There was something on his neck that caught my attention. It was purple... It looked like a bruise... Dear God. "Uh, Cam...", I squeaked and he looked over to me. "I-I... There's something... On your...", I touched my own neck right where the 'spot' was on his neck.

He furrowed his brows and touched the spot with his fingers. "What... What is it..."

I held my phone up onto his neck so he could see the reflection of the spot and when he realized what it was, his jaw dropped. "Holy--", He exclaimed loudly before I covered his mouth with my hand. "Shit!"

"We don't need the whole universe to know!", I hissed before letting my hands dropped from his mouth. We looked at each other for a minute before his eyes glanced at me and then, he burst into a laugh. "What are you laughing at?!"

"You have one too!", He pointed at my face. I ran my fingers on my face before he stopped my hand right on my jaw line. It was now his turn to had his phone on my face so I could see my own reflection. There was a medium size hickey on my jaw line, but it wasn't that visible to naked eyes. "Oh my God!"

"I guessed both of us had fun last night.", he winked and right in time, our food arrived. We held our laughs when the waitress placed our food on the table with a confused look on her face. When she walked away again, we couldn't held it much longer. Our breakfast was filled with innuendos or us, trying to remember what happened last night, more likely, what was it like for the both of us. All I could remember was we safely made it to my room and he took off my clothes, I took off his, and the rest was blurry.

It was really a butterflies-in-your-stomach moment when I forced myself to remember what it was like. Amy was right, it was different with Cameron. I wanted to admit it to myself that I finally fell for someone, but suddenly, the ole' Dareen kicked the new one on the gut. Snarky and rude comments were already in the tip of my tongue, just waiting for me to open my mouth so they could flood out, but I bit my tongue as I chewed on my cinnamon waffles.

"About yesterday... Are you still going to tell me what happened between you and Trish?", I said after I swallowed the food I had in my mouth. It was probably a sensitive topic for him, but my curiosity was over the top. I had to know what happened.

Cameron looked at me for a moment after taking a sip of his coffee. "Well...", he trailed off. "After I dropped you home the other day, I had this voice inside my head, telling me to go to Trish's place, giving her a surprise."

His expression changed. Trish hurt him right. "You don't have to continue if you don't want to."

"No, no.", he shook his head slightly and placed his hand right on top of mine. "I wanted to tell you, I'm practically dying to tell you."

I nodded, waiting for him to continue. "Then, I went to her place. I found her front door strangely unlocked. So, I went straight in and... I found her under a guy on the couch.", he chuckled bitterly at the end. "I didn't need anymore explanation."

We went silent after he told the story. I bit my lower lip and peeked from the corner of my eyes to him. He looked down and had his eyes closed. There was a fight inside of me; the Ice Queen Dareen strangled the mushy, gooey Dareen so she wouldn't do anything, but fortunately, the mushy, gooey one won. I leaned over to Cameron and kissed his cheek lightly, just to boost him up again. After I pulled away, he looked over to me and smiled. "I needed that."

"You're ugly with that frown on your face.", I giggled and sat back straight. We finished our food, paid and went out to the car. He said he had a 'band thing' to attend to and he said he wanted to see me again tonight, but I needed some time to process this, so I just lied to him, saying that I wouldn't be home tonight because of my job. After he drove me home, I went up to the apartment when he already drove off.

Right after I walked into the apartment, I could smell the freshly made coffee and salty air of fried eggs. I found my friends and their... man in the kitchen, making breakfast like nothing happened to them last night. "Oh, here she is.", Feranix smirked when I came into the kitchen. She was only wearing an oversized plaid shirt, that I guessed was David's and a boxer short.

"I could see everyone's having breakfast.", I examined the food on the table before taking a strip of bacon off someone's plate. "Good thing I texted Arletta to let me do half-a-day work."

"Good thing the boss gave me a day off.", Amy chuckled as she sat on Eric's lap. Somehow, we were so casual about this. The weird thing was, I didn't have any snarky comment for them.

What I felt so far was... fluffy. That was the first word I had in mind, like, if you were a 5 year old kid and you were stranded in an island filled with candy. I had a smile on my face ever since I woke up and I felt like nothing, absolutely nothing could bring me down, even if, God forbid, Arletta stomped on the catalog that I had worked my ass off on. Amy noticed the changes I had and she titled her head to the side to get a better view of me.

"Uhm, Dare... Are you okay?", she asked carefully. I looked over to her with a bacon still dangling off my lips. "You... Smiled a lot this morning."

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know... I feel pretty good about today."

Feranix's jaw dropped to the floor, as well as Amy's. "Are we witnessing a miracle here?!", Feranix gasped and dramatically placed her hand over her heart.

"I think everyone should call Greenpeace because the ice queen just melted away.", David joked and took a sip of his coffee.

"What is the big deal?", I frowned at their reactions.

Amy stood up from Eric's lap and walked over to me before placing her hands on my shoulders. She looked into my eyes deeply like she was trying to read what I had in mind at the moment. "Please... Admit it... You fall for Cameron."

For the millionth of time, my cheeks burned. My eyes looked around the room so they would avoid Amy's eyes. Without anymore explanation, Amy gasped loudly and squealed before pulling me into her arms. Feranix joined in. "You did!"

"Okay, guys, remember that we have his two friends in the same room as we are.", I groaned while being squeezed by my friends.

"See? I told you he likes you, Dareen.", David pointed out with his I-told-you-so face while Eric just nodded, saying that he agreed with him. I rolled my eyes and excused myself to take a shower because I had to go to work.

The store was quiet because not much customer came in. I just overlooked the boutique and worked on some designs Arletta needed my opinion on for her 'exclusive customer' we met the other day. Even though she said the customer wouldn't like my taste, but I bet she wouldn't like Arletta's much more. If Dita Von Teese was looking for another wedding gown and Arletta offered her design, I bet Dita would tear the gown to pieces. It was something like... I don't know, a country hill-billy bride would wear. I just cringed at the design and shoved it into a binder that came with it.

I leaned back onto my seat and looked up to the ceiling as I hummed my favorite song off Cameron's mix CD. He totally nailed the cover of 'Beth' and it was my absolute favorite. The scene from last night stormed into my head again and I closed my eyes, trying to envisioned it again. They were dancing behind my eyelids, making me cracked a smile on my lips. When I was in the middle of my thoughts, someone knocked on the door of my office. I opened my lips and sat back straight. "Come in."

The door swung open and a familiar blond stood on my doorway with a guy behind her. "Ashlee! Pete!", I jumped out from my seat and tackled both of them into a group hug. "Oh my God! What are you doing here?!"

"Surprised!", Ashlee giggled and hugged back. "We decided to visit you for a couple of days before we're going to LA."

"You could've told me first!", I pulled away and took a better look of my closets friends other than Amy and Feranix. I let them to sit down on the love seat and we got into hours long conversation. They offered me to go to dinner with them and I accepted. After closing the boutique and said goodbye to the shopkeepers, I followed Ashlee and Pete out to their car and found Cameron, getting out from his car.

"Cameron?", I made sure. He heard me and smiled when he saw me.

"Hey.", he walked towards me and gave me a light peck on the lips. There was electricity that jolted throughout my body when he did that. It needed a little more time to adjust. "I was about to pick you up...", his eyes glanced to the couple next to me.

"Uhm, Cameron... these are Pete and Ashlee... I'm actually a friend of theirs...", I introduced him to them awkwardly. Of course he knew Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson. Probably only someone who got secluded from the outside world who didn't know who they are.

He stuttered before sticking his hand out to shake hands with them. "I'm Cameron."

"So this is the guy Dareen talked about so much.", Pete smirked as he shook hands with Cameron. I glared at him, telling him to shut up, but he just snickered. After a little chit chat, Pete asked Cameron to join us for dinner and he accepted the invitation.

I got into Cameron's car and we followed Pete and Ashlee as they drove in front of us. "I didn't know you're friends with the Pete Wentz.", Cameron spoke up.

"Well, that's because I never told anyone besides Amy and Feranix.", I chuckled. "I designed Ashlee's wedding gown and I helped them up with a couple things for their wedding. We became friends because I had to spend months with them."

"My girlfriend is friends with Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson, that's hard to process.", he chuckled again.

Something he said caught my attention. Girlfriend? Did he say girlfriend? "Did you call me... Girlfriend?"

We stopped at a red light and Cameron looked over to me. Both of our eyes met. "Y-Yeah... Come on, Dare, I've confessed my feelings for you. I thought... You know..."

Now it was his turn to get red cheeks. If it was a week and a half ago, I would laugh at his face for having the thought of us dating in the first place, but, it was present day. The Ice Queen Dareen got defeated by the mushy, gooey Dareen, so I just leaned over and gave him a kiss on the lips. "I don't remember what you said last night.", I grinned.

"You were drunk.", he grinned back at me. "But... I said that if only you knew how I felt about you all these times... Which is... I love you."