Aubergine Purple

"Hey, I think you need one of these."

Ian turned his head from where he'd been picking tomatoes, seeing me hold up an eggplant, a saccharine sweet smile on my lips. He watched me with a dry expression for barely two seconds, before his lips inadvertently pulled up at the sides. He turned back around so I wouldn't see his smile, but too bad for him, I already had.

"Thanks, but I've got one already," he finally said, not bothering to glance at me as he did. I put it back down, and walked over to him, my hands interlocked behind my back.

"I just thought you could use the upgrade." My voice was a lot softer now, so only he would hear me. I hardly held back from bursting out in laughter when I saw his expression.

He had his eyebrows raised, disbelief at my audacity to question his size. "Hey, don't judge it until you've seen it."

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows. "What are you suggesting?"

"What do you think?"

He looked me straight in the eyes, watching with a slight smirk as I processed our conversation so far. I could feel my cheeks heat up more the longer I held his gaze, but I couldn't look away. I think I was doing a pretty good job of holding myself together considering how smoking hot the dude was. His face was personally chiseled by the Gods, I swear.

I was still in a daze when his hand moved up to my cheek in slow motion, and he lightly turned my chin towards the shopping cart by his side. My eyes involuntarily fell to that familiar shade of purple, and I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth, trying really hard not to scream.

"See?" He threw me a mocking smile, his dark eyes twinkling with mischief. "Got it already."

I couldn't string together a coherent response in time, and he'd turned back around, leaving me to dwell in my embarrassment. This always seemed to happen when I was around him, but I didn't mind all that much. At least he didn't think I was a monster. That's always a nice change.

It took us about another hour to get everything on his list. To be fair, he could've gotten home way earlier if I wasn't stopping at every aisle and fucking around. I expected him to tell me off ages ago, but if he was bugged, he didn't show it.

An ice cream break and couple more dick jokes later, we were both walking down the street. Him, to the parking lot, and me, nowhere in particular.

"I said I can drop you home."

"And I said you don't have to."

"It's 8 already, you should go home," he repeated from earlier.

Sitting alone with him in a car did sound enticing, but Ruth's words from earlier kept ringing in my head. Even after I'd decided to ignore it, I really couldn't after all. She was right, I shouldn't be stupid.

I turned to look at him, hoping to reassure him with a smile, "I'll be fine. I was going to walk home anyway." The fact that he seemed worried was kind of cute, and I was close to sure that Ruth was wrong. He wasn't like what anyone at school claimed he was either, and his friends would say the same.

"Can I at least walk you back, then?" He surprised me with the sudden question, and my eyes widened slightly. My house wasn't that far from here, in a pretty crowded housing area of town.

Just a walk back can't be that stupid, right?

"Well, alright."

We had to drop off the bags at his car, and I was starting to feel bad about wasting so much of his time. He kept assuring me that it was fine.

"What if something happens to you because I left?" he asked as we made our way to my place, walking side by side.

"What could happen, really?"

He looked at me for a moment, thinking, before he said, "I don't know. You just seem to attract trouble."

I let out a laugh, but it lacked much humour, "can't disagree with that. Not everyone gets framed for arson in their lives."

He looked at me with what felt like sympathy and...something else that I couldn't quite place. "I never believed that, by the way. You didn't seem like someone who'd do that."

His words had shocked me a bit. I didn't even know he was aware of my existence before last week. "Wait... did we know each other before?"

He shook his head, "you didn't know me, but the whole school knew you. You were the girl who flipped off the principal. Some people admired you, you know?" He smiled, seemingly at the memories.

"Yeah well, it didn't do me a whole lot of good."

"Did you actually do that, though?" He asked, his voice quieter, like he wanted me to let him in on the big secret. it was kinda cute.

"Yup," I was smiling, "twice. Once when I was leaving school too. The look on her face was so fucking satisfying."

"Wow," he breathed, surprised with the new information. "Only you've got the guts for that. It's kind of amazing."

"Oh, so I'm amazing now?" I wiggled my eyebrows at him, and he laughed, probably at how bad I was at it.

But his laughter quickly disappeared and he looked at me. For a moment I think I saw a hint of pain flash in his eyes. "Yeah, a bit," he replied, his voice sincere.

I wasn't expecting a serious answer, so I didn't know what to say. I tucked my hair behind my ear, wondering if he can hear my heart beating out of my chest. "Uhm..."

"What, you can't even take compliments?" he teased, quickly back to being the usual idiot, probably noticing my awkwardness.

I made a face at him, trying to mask how flustered I really was. "I don't get complimented very often, sue me."

"So is this how you fish for compliments, then?"

"Ian..." I warned, not really having a counter argument for that. It did sound like I was fishing for compliments, I hated to admit.

"Oh, I'm so scared you'll say I have a small dick again," he didn't even try to sound scared, his voice a monotone.

I simply flipped him off, and he laughed. I tried to keep a straight face, but gave up pretty easily, joining in.

I liked being with him.

It was nice, even though I was the one losing.