Disconnected

"Good morning, sunshine," Alex practically sang as Jack trudged into his kitchen, plopping himself down by the counter with a groan. "Have a good sleep?"

"Fuck off, please," he moaned in annoyance, making the elder laugh – which, in turn, only made the younger groan even more, dropping his forehead onto the marble counter.

"Question," Alex started as he slid a cup of coffee over to his best mate. Jack hummed in response, lifting his head to drink the coffee. "How'd you get in my house?"

Jack shrugged, "I think Lisa thought you were at home or something so she gave the cab driver your address."

"Oh." He blinked. "Well I wasn't home."

"No shit, Sherlock," Jack shot him a half-lidded flat look, earning the middle finger from the other male.

"How was your night?"

"Dunno. Probably got to kiss that chick. Maybe I slept with her." He spoke, fingers massaging his temples. "Can I go back to sleep?"

"No," he shook his head. "You're going home, because I'm going out soooo goodbye."

"I hate you."

"Sure you do,"

-----

Alex looked up from the screen of his phone to the sound of a low engine purring as it pulled up by the sidewalk next to where he was waiting for Cara. It was a human instinct to glance up curiously, but most people would just return back to whatever they were doing afterwards. Alex stayed staring since the car pulled up right in front of him and the window rolled down, revealing the face of the person of whom he was waiting for.

He raised a thick eyebrow, "Nice car," he commented with a small nod, eyes travelling down the body of the car.

"Thanks," she grinned. "Well. Get in, loser, we're going shopping." Alex frowned. She chuckled, shaking her head. "I just really wanted to use that line. We're not going shopping, but you're really killing my vibe here."

Alex laughed, "What vibe?" He teased, pulling open the door and sliding into the car, letting out a small sigh of content at the warmness in the car, even though the window was still open.

She rolled her eyes, grinning slightly as she rolled the window back up. "It's gone now. You killed it."

"Did not," he scoffed in a mock offended tone that made her giggle. Giggle. It was the most adorably thing he'd ever heard. "So where are we going?"

Cara shrugged her shoulders lightly. "You hungry?"

"Starving,"

"Then we're going to this diner nearby. It's set up like an old, classic diner in the eighties or nineties or something. I don't know. I like it, s'cool."

"Sounds awesome," Alex shot her a half-smile and she glanced at him to smile back at him. "I feel like the roles should be reversed right now. Like... I'm supposed to be driving and taking you out to eat."

"It's 2014, Alex," Cara laughed lightly, shaking her head lightly. "Girls can take guys out on dates."

Alex smirked then, "Oh so this is a date?"

She shrugged, "Never said it wasn't. But hey, if you don't want it to be then – "

"– it's a date," he interrupted quickly.

Cara only laughed lightly in response and Alex let his lips curl up into a smile at the sound of it. He loved this. Whatever they were doing. He really still didn't know much about her but hey, that was what dates were for, weren't they? To get to know each other, up to the extent that they could just sit and be comfortable with each other – even if he already was rather comfortable with Cara, even though they'd literally just met.

Alex glanced over at her, watching her as she drove. Most people said that women drivers were the worst – and sometimes he agreed with them, because Lisa's driving could be either be terrifying, or completely frustrating. Cara, on the other hand, wasn't that bad of a driver. He liked to think that he was a better driver (male ego pride and all) but she looked so relaxed whilst sat behind the steering wheel that Alex even felt like watching her was a privilege.

The elder didn't feel the need to fill the silence that enclosed them in the motor vehicle with pointless chatter because she already had music playing from the radio speakers; the speakers being connected to her iTunes playlist on her phone. A Green Day song had just ended, and then one by Issues started playing, instantly making a small smile curl at his lips. So even her music taste was top-notch.

They drove in silence till she eventually pulled up in a car park in front of the diner she had mentioned prior, and it really looked like one of the classic oldies diner from the outside – he could only imagine what it looked like from the inside. Alex stepped out of the Audi, shutting the door almost gingerly behind him because the car was so damn nice that it would actually pain him to see a dent in it.

"Looks cool," he spoke as she locked the door behind him while he caught up to her so that he was walking next to her. It was a subconscious action as he placed a hand on the small of her back, the other hand going into the front pocket of his skinny jeans. How the fuck his hand managed to fit in the pair of jeans that seemed to fit like a second skin was a wonder to all.

He pushed open the door then, letting her walk through it first and then following suit as he took in the interior of the diner. The thing that made his smile even widen though, was the fact that the main underlying theme of the whole diner was music. Old records were pasted on the walls, music notes filling the empty spaces, and an actual proper jukebox sat in the corner where a bloke in a hairnet had just put a song in. The bloke in the hairnet, having walked away and gone out of sight, left the patrons of the diner with the sounds of Elvis Presley completing the atmosphere in the diner.

"This is awesome," Alex breathed out as he slid onto the tacky and brightly coloured leather seats, eyes still glancing around the place as he took it in. How could he not know that a place like this existed where he lived for a good three-fourths (or more) of his life?

Cara chuckled softly and his eyes wandered over to land on her amused expression – probably at how his grin was so childlike and how his eyes were practically shining with excitement. She shrugged her shoulders lightly, "I used to just grab my skateboard and roam around after school. Found this place, and I fell in love."

"So you'd marry this place if it proposed?" He teased, picking up the menu as she did the same.

"Hell yeah," she responded immediately and he chortled. "Good food, great company, killer music. What more could I ask for?"

Alex laughed again. "Too bad for you because you've got competition now."

Cara raised an eyebrow, "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," he nodded once, eyes darting to the menu. "– I just fell in love with this place, too. I wanna marry it. You can't have it."

"You haven't even tried their food yet!"

"Our love is deep enough for me to trust her," he diverted his eyes over to her as he brought one hand over his heart. "– Or him. It. Him. Her. Him. It –"

"I get it!" She interrupted with a short laugh, making him grin. Then she let her eyes slide over to something diagonally behind him as a fond smile crossed her painted lips. "Hey Kate," she greeted.

"Hello, sweetheart," the sixty-something year old woman greeted. "I haven't seen you in a while. Where've you been hiding your pretty face?"

"Been keeping it stowed away in my wardrobe," she joked and the older women laughed lightly.

"And who's this?" Kate, apparently, asked as she sent Alex a friendly smile that instantly had the male smiling back at her. "New boyfriend, perhaps?" She teased, chuckling as Cara's cheeks pinked and she brought a hand to her forehead, rubbing at it.

"This is Alex. Just a mate."

Alex turned to her then, a wicked grin on his handsome face. "Thought you said we were on a date?"

"Ooooh, how exciting," Kate cheered, clapping her little and worn hands together lightly so as to not disturb the other patrons. "What ever happened to that other fellow? Bean, was it?"

"Bean?" Cara echoed with a laugh of confusion. "What – you mean Dean?" The elderly woman nodded. "He was just a friend."

"Pity," Kate said thoughtfully. "Handsome one, that boy." She turned to Alex then, "Though this one is also really handsome. Bit too much hair for me, though. Sorry, love, you're not quite my type."

"Kate," Cara groaned – and Alex, though a faint blush brushed at his cheeks, couldn't help but laugh since the scene before him seemed to be like one of an overbearing mother trying to embarrass her teenage daughter at her first date.

Kate chuckled, shaking her head lightly as she pulled out a notepad and a pen from the front pouch of her apron, "Alright, alright. I'll stop. So what can I get you, lovelies?"

Both young adults placed their order, and then Kate was off and away from them. Alex turned to look at her, only to see that she was still rubbing at her forehead and shaking her head lightly – making him chuckle. He reached a hand over the table, gently pulling at her wrist so that she would look up and he would be able to see her face.

"She seems nice," he settled on saying, and she only groaned again though one could see the beginnings of the smile along her lips.

"She is," Cara eventually replied, smiling properly this time.

"I never asked, but I'm still kinda curious," he started, "– how do you know Dean?"

"He's a... Coworker," she spoke. "We work together, and we hang out sometimes, and the party was something he insisted on bringing me to in case Lisa forgot he was coming, or she cancelled, or whatever."

"So... You were his back-up plan?" Alex raised a thick eyebrow.

"Pretty much, yeah," she chuckled and Alex couldn't help but follow suit afterwards.

"What do you do for a living, then?"

"I'm a, uh, test pilot."

"A test pilot?" He repeated, blinking at her. "Like... You fly but you don't fly? What? How does that even work?"

Cara let out a single laugh, "It's like... You know those companies that make aircrafts and stuff?" She asked, and he nodded slowly. "The design and stuff has to be evaluated before they can have the planes out for actual flying. I'm the person who flies those new and modified planes and shit."

"That's a cool job," Alex spoke with a nod as an impressed look crossed his features. "I think, at one point in my life, I wanted to be a pilot. So you're basically living my dream."

She chuckled, "You mean you didn't always want to be a rockstar?"

"It was one of the dreams," he grinned. "I wanted to be a lot of things when I was a kid. Every kid did."

"Not me," Cara spoke nonchalantly with a single shrug of her shoulders. "I always wanted to be a pilot. The counsellors at school thought it was just a phase or something, because apparently women pilots are so rare that they didn't even know they existed, but it was what I wanted, and what I got for myself." Alex smiled at her and she bit down on her bottom lip lightly, "It's like you with your band, probably. I'm guessing you guys said a giant fuck you to everyone who told you the band was never gonna take off?"

Alex laughed, "We did." He nodded. "Wrote a song about it, too," he added on; making the both of them laugh.

"The highest level of fuck you," Cara giggled.

"You probably wouldn't even be able to reach it in your fancy plane and stuff," he joked and she giggled more – a smile curling at his lips as she did so.

Their food arrived then; two plates filled with greasy burgers and chips, and two large cups of soda to complement the meal. Thanking Katie, since she'd been the one to serve them their food and drinks, they were then tucking into their meals like they hadn't eaten in days. Alex didn't even have time to admire how the person sat opposite to him had a model-worthy figure and ate without even trying to be shy about it in front of him, for when he took the first bite of his burger, he almost let out a moan.

"Good, innit?" Alex glanced up to meet the smirking face of the brunette before him, a chip in her hand as she chewed on it.

"This place better not fuckin' propose to you," he started, swallowing the bits of burger he had of his mouth. "– because imma propose to it first."