Considerate Expression

Claudia patted her hands on her knees while sitting cross-legged only feeling jittery that they were done with what they needed to do. Rowan was sitting on the side chair that was curved oddly making Alice worry about a person's posture in that chair considering it was shaped as an eggshell with his leg tossed over one side haphazardly.

"I call for an ice cream moment," Claudia said as she continued to pat her knees.

Noah got up from his lounging position with his legs on either side of Alice's body. "I'm down."

"Let's head to the nearby convenience store," Rowan put his hands together.

Alice immediately brightened up at the mention of a convenience store, and she remembered that there was a high chance that Rowan didn't know that her family was running one. Claudia glanced over to her left where Alice was sitting, and she subtly shook her head at the silent question that Claudia was asking.

She kept that piece of information on the down low, but at the same time, if someone was actually interested in her well-being, it didn't take them too long to find out.

It was something that she had come to terms with and was able to navigate well after seeing various different types of expressions on the news, not that Rowan would even care less about it.

It was also the fact that she didn't want to turn the conversation into something all about herself, so she avoided the easy topic that had presented itself to her. She stood up since she was also looking forward to a tart popsicle as well after the long day to wake her up with the lovely mixture of sweet and sour.

Claudia headed to the restroom first before they took off, and the boys were on their phones waiting which prompted her to do the same as they waited. Noah was peering over Alice's shoulder as she was posting her makeup of the day to her social media and stayed silent while she added her usual filters to the screen.

He frowned. "Why bother adding blur on your face when you already don't look like the photo."

Her mouth dropped open in shock, but she was able to see that he was being very clear about his thoughts not taking the blow to heart. Noah was one to be quiet about his actual thoughts, so she would take his words into consideration. It wasn't like he liked to waste his breath anyway. "Ah, okay. So not this one?"

She was still trying her best to analyze him because once again, he was so unpredictable. It made her wonder what he thought of her only to realize that it was going to veer off into an uncomfortable realm if she didn't stop the train.

She ran a hand through her wavy curls that were almost on the verge of falling out, so she took a brush out of her bag to run the comb through.

Alice didn't want her hair strands to get tangled, so it was best to comb them out before that happened since she still wanted her hair to seem fresh despite losing the wave that she worked hard to achieve every morning.

The muted brown hair that looked natural after she worked hard to achieve for a long period of time fell around her shoulders in a half-moon, and she fluffed up the front to give more volume before slipping the wooden brush back into her bag.

Her back felt warm since she was now hypersensitive to the body behind her, feeling his cold heat that she had unexplainably found comfortable now. It was hilarious because she was practically calling him out for being a lizard.

Her shoulders were quaking, because she was trying to hold in her laugh so bad, she knew she probably looked like a lunatic to Noah but it was fine. 

He motioned next with a tilt of his head, and she swiped to the next photo which he nodded when she finally glanced up. 

"That photo looks the best."

Her thumb paused over the photo where she was winking into the camera with her lips curved softly, showcasing the pearled silver necklace with a small pink bow as the accent mark. She added the filter since she wanted there to be a retro kind of feeling, one that a film camera would give off if she had the time to go out and buy one. 

Her makeup was done in a different style than she would normally go for with the light blue eyeshadow as the accent point and silver shimmer that was done very expertly to look like daily makeup rather than coming off as too strong. Her pale lavender lips tied in the cool-toned look she was going for, and she smiled as she took in the photo.

"This one is pretty," Alice said after a moment. "I like it."