I’m not even joking, Sara just straight up stole my beverage to make me shut up and I felt offended but hey, she can be scary sometimes so I just shut up. Ava went inside to go make some drinks for us all so she wasn’t there to witness the stupidity about to unfold.

“Ruby, shut up and talk to Potato. You know he rarely visits, so at least try to be nice to him.”

“But Sara, he’s all the way over there, and I’m here in my chair” –She yelled at me– “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll go right now.”

Now I was pretty annoyed that someone just decided to pull up with no warning, but if it was him interrupting, I think I should at least give an ounce of my attention to him since he only comes over with my other friends.

I kinda waddled over to him and fidgeted a bit. I was semi-nervous so I tried to engage in eye contact. I think.
“Hey Eugene, what’s going on? Haven’t seen you around this place in a while.”
He shrugged, “Nothing much, I came to your house for a favor though.”
I spoke with a very confused voice, “Alright, what is it?”
“You heard about the beach fair right?”
“Yessir. Why, what’s up?
He whips out tickets, “Well, are you busy today?”
I kinda wanna mess with him, you know, see if he can handle it.
“Eugene” –I raise one eyebrow– “are you asking me out?”
Well, I originally thought he was going to say, “Oh god no, I just want to hang out cause Angel and Dodger are busy at the moment.” But when I said if he was asking me out, the dude started to blush and continued to speak like everything was normal so I was very confused.
“No, I just want to hang out. Thought you would want to come so I came to ask you.”
I became very surprised, “Yeah sure, I would love to go!”
And then the honking just broke the silence.
“HURRY UP POTATO,” –honks every 5 seconds– “I GOTTA GO TO CVS TO BUY MORE JACK DANIEL’S!”As soon as his dad decides to start yelling, we just stare at each other in disbelief then begin to start laughing, and eventually, Eugene speaks up. Oh yeah, I’m really the only person Eugene lets me call him by his real name. Everyone else calls him Potato, even his parents, cause of a stupid incident that involved him and potatoes when we were kids.
“Well, guess that’s my cue. I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
I just chuckle and say, “yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s a date!”
He just walks away, and as he’s walking away, he looks over his shoulder once and smiles.

I only have one thing to say. The beach fair is awesome. I absolutely love going to the beach and I love food. Put those two things together, and I’m gonna try to live in that heavenly place, especially with all the great seafood restaurants there. Surprisingly, Eugene actually likes the same things I do. We both can have a conversation about one thing I love, food. For some odd reason, he kept staring behind us and tried to 

make me go in front of him at all times. I sort of got concerned and asked him what was up.

He sighed. “You haven’t noticed the guy following us?”

I clear my throat and calmly ask him a question.

 “Pardon, what?”

“Wherever we go, I see this guy everywhere we are. I’ve been trying to lose him by going in large crowds but somehow he still catches onto us.”

At this point, I start to replay memories of where we just went. Then I realize that he’s right. There was a guy that looked really familiar. I kinda thought that it was my ex at first but I just shrugged it off, but now, I think it might be him.

I started to freak out and told Eugene what was going on. “I know who is following us. He’s my ex and for some reason, he doesn’t want to believe we’re over so he keeps a tab on me. I was able to put a restraining order on him but he still follows me. He’s really aggressive so we should keep our distance.”

To be honest, when he had the most serious face I have ever seen him pull off, that almost scared every organ out of me.

He grabbed my shoulders out of nowhere and decides to look at something in the distance. 

“Alright let’s make sure this guy doesn’t get his hands on you.” 

How ironic since Eugene just grabbed my shoulders. Well, considering how he’s acting, I think he had this thought running through his mind:

Okay, who the hell is following us and how am I gonna protect this beautiful, gorgeous, amazing girl? Alright, I gotta replay movie scenes in my brain and try to be as cool as possible to impress and protect her.

I really hope he thought that.

We both were really close for some strange reason and he would never let me leave his side. Honestly, I felt like a child but I knew that he was just trying to protect me from a guy who looks like Dwight from the office. Then, we were both starving so of course, we got shrimp popcorn–which by the way, is delicious–, and as we were sharing the food, laughing about how we were eating an abomination, we heard a bellow.

“RUBY, I MISSED YOU!”

And at that very moment, I realized, I done goofed up. My ex, Richard started to give chase and Eugene grabbed my hand and started sprinting. Honestly, I thought I was just flapping in the wind on how fast Eugene was running. Richard almost caught up to us but Eugene bashed into a porta-potty and closed it. Yeah, a porta-potty. Not the best place to hide in, right?

Well anyways, Richard was outside yelling and looking for me so, of course, I was terrified. 

Eugene, at the worst time, decides to frigging blame me for the entire situation in the porta-potty.

“Why, on earth, DID YOU DATE A MANIAC?”

I calmly yelled back. “BRO, I WAS LITERALLY 14, I DIDN’T MAKE SMART DECISIONS!”

“OH, HA HAHA. THAT WAS 2 YEARS AGO. LIKE YOU MAKE SMART DECISIONS NOW."

“Oh come on. Like the PORTA-POTTY IS A GREAT IDEA TO HIDE IN. YOU BROKE THE FREAKING DOOR!”

He just sighs and tries to end the argument.

“Alright, let’s just try to find a way to get out of here without him knowing.”

Suddenly we both hear a quiet voice say, “Uhm, excuse me but this is occupied.”

TURNS OUT, THERE WAS A GUY TAKING A DUMP IN THE PORTA-POTTY WE STORMED IN. WHAT A WONDERFUL COINCIDENCE.

I spoke in a guilty voice, “Oh Fu...”

We just leave without saying another word. For real, that was the most awkward moment in my life. Richard exhausted himself and just left the fair. Don’t ask me why security didn’t escort him out. 

Eugene and I just decided to take a walk to the pier to take a break and relax. Considering the fact that the walk was silent, I tried to make conversation.

“Jesus, I’m sorry for, you know, having that huge fiasco mess up our day hanging out together. I had a lot of fun, you know.”

He just shrugged. “Nah, it’s alright, you have nothing to apologize for. In fact, I’m sorry for saying those things to you.”

“Heh, it’s fine. I’m not stupid, that’s for sure. I mean, I had the idea of getting shrimp popcorn so I am clearly smarter."

"Pfft, alright. Glad you had fun."

Honestly, we had walked around the pier for somewhere around 30 minutes, but, it felt like 5 minutes. I could really just calmly talk with Eugene and he didn’t say anything while I spoke and actually listened. I guess that I really appreciated that. But for some reason, I felt this sad feeling when we arrived at my house. Weird.

Eugene turns to me in a disappointed fashion. “Alrighty then. I guess I got to go huh?”

I don’t know why but all of a sudden, I felt really nauseous and my stomach started to gurgle out of nowhere.

He spoke to me in a surprisingly hopeful tone. “Ruby? Do you think we can hang out again soon? I honestly had a great time so I want to go someplace with you again.” “You know what Eugene? Ye–BELURGH”

BRO, WHY DID I THROW UP? WAS IT THE SHRIMP POPCORN? DUDE, OH MY GOD, WHAT IF HE THINKS I’M DISGUSTING? I DIDN’T EVEN GET TO ANSWER HIS OFFER AND IT WAS A REALLY SWEET OFFER TOO.

He looked like a goldfish looking at me, “Uh…Do you need help getting you inside your house?
“P-please…”

Straight up, I wanted to die when he was carrying me inside cause I could barely walk at all. Sara and Ava had decided to stay over at my house and surrounded Eugene when they saw him carrying me bride-style. Sara was about to smack Eugene across the nation but thank sweet Jesus I was able to convince her that he was helping me. She still kept an eye on him though.

Eugene gently laid me on the couch, “Alright, I’m going to get you water and I’ll be off. In the meantime, please don’t strain yourself too hard.”

I felt really weak but I was able to speak since I was already embarrassed and shaken up by the adrenaline rush of throwing up.

“Eugene…can you stay after getting the water? I think I need you as moral support since I destroyed your view of me by throwing up on you.

He just smiles. “You never made me change my view of you. My view of you is that you’re extremely passionate and crazy but also mature and kind when it comes to it. I like that in a person. So I promise, I’m not going anywhere if you don’t want me to.”

Alright, this is the part that reminds me of a book series that is half romance, half horror. Eugene smiles at me and starts to lean forward and I just knew he was going to kiss me with my vomit-covered mouth but I still leaned forward anyways. So you know where this is going. He kisses my filthy lips and honestly, best kiss ever. His lips felt so soft, more soft than cotton. I could smell his cologne, which, I never actually noticed during the time we hung out together. But anyways, when we pulled apart, he just smiled at me and left to go get water. I became a tomato right after.