WaterMill Cafe Date

Walking through an arch, the two came to a small cafe. Part of the internal mechanics of the watermill came into the room, blocked off by the glass enclosure. The view of the cafe was amazing. There were two walls of windows that showed the landscape the two had just walked through. There were ten tables, three of them with customers, who looked to be in their seventies.

Alison paused until John’s grip on her hand tightened slightly and he used his thumb to stroke the back of her hand. She blushed deeply, reminded that the two were holding hands, and followed as John moved towards the counter.

The two were greeted by a friendly-looking woman who seemed to be around the same age as the seated customers.

“Good afternoon,” John said. “Could I get a hot chocolate and, uh…”

John turned to Alison who was still blushing and fidgeting. “What would you like?”

Before she could answer, the woman behind the counter spoke up, “Don’t worry, I’ll get your usual, so that’ll be two hot chocolates, one with caramel and whipped cream, anything else?”

“Oh uh... Yeah,” John replied before taking a look at the handwritten menu. “Could we get two gooey chocolate chip cookies, please.”

The woman nodded. “Could I recommend getting the fudge cake to share? Since it’s for you and little Ali, I can make sure to give you an extra-large slice.”

John looked at Alison who seemed to be keeping her head down and smiled. “That sounds great, thanks.”

“You two go take a seat and I’ll bring everything over for you once it’s ready,” the woman smiled.

John returned her smile and gave his thanks, then turned to walk back to a table sandwiched between the enclosed mill and a table of four.

They sat down and John looked at Alison curiously. “So, do you come here often?” A moment passed and Alison let out a small giggle, prompting him to pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh. “Sorry, I meant because the woman at the counter seemed to know you.”

“I know what you m-meant, ye-yes, I like to c-come here somet-times. Vanessa doesn’t l-like it here, so it’s nice t-to ca-c-catch my breath from time to t-time,” Alison explained.

“Seems like a nice place to get away, good view, pleasant atmosphere, seemingly good people. And of course no Vanessa in sight.” John laughed awkwardly. “Do you come to get away a lot?”

“Like once or tw-twice a week,” she said brushing away a stray green hair, “I wouldn’t wa-w-want to overst-stay my welcome.”

One of the older women from the next table leaned back. “Oh, hush you! We always love you visiting. It’s even nicer to see you with a handsome young man, you are a very cute couple.”

Alison mimicked a turtle and vanished behind her mussed up hair. John just smiled. “Thank you. I hope you’ve been having a nice day.”

“Oooooh, such a gentleman too,” the older lady cooed, “seems you hit the jackpot with this one, Alison.”Before she could continue, she was interrupted by the man sitting next to her, “Would you leave the poor thing alone?” He laughed. “Look at her, you’re embarrassing her. Just let them enjoy their date.”

John wasn’t able to see Alison’s face but he assumed it was much much redder than his own, and he wouldn’t be surprised to see steam coming from her ears. The woman went back to her table grumbling at the guy and then being told not to be so nosey.

“Hey Alison, it’s really nice you have people here who are interested in what you’re doing,” John said before leaning in, “and you are really cute when you get flustered.”

Alison fidgeted and the only noise coming from her was an “eep.”

Soon enough, though, their hot chocolates and cake were brought over to the table. “Alison, stop hiding in your hair, your date can’t see your cute face. Not only that, I let it slide that you didn’t say anything while ordering but I hope that you’re at least going to say hello to me before you leave.” The woman’s voice wasn’t aggressive but it was definitely firm, like an adult telling a child off.

Alison huffed before letting go of her hair, allowing it to show her full face blush. She looked at John, “S-sorry, John,” then up at the woman, “Sorry, Gran, it’s nice to see you.”

“That’s better.” She moved over to Alison and hugged her from behind. “This is because you didn’t greet me earlier. Just because you’re out with a boy, doesn’t mean you’re allowed to ignore me.”

“That’s n-not what I meant t-to do,” Alison defended herself.

“I know, I know, now you two enjoy and I’ll leave you alone,” the woman said before walking back to the counter.

“Gran?” John enquired.

“Y-yeah, she’s m-my mom’s m-mom,” Alison explained. “S-she doesn’t ac-actually need to work here, my m-mom pays for all h-her bills and exx-penses, but she l-likes it here.”

“That’s really sweet of your mom, and I can see why she’d want to come here. Though if she doesn’t need the money, I’m surprised she chooses to work here,” John mused.

“I think she l-likes keeping b-busy. She retired b-but got bo-b-bored of d-doing ‘ol-o-ol-old p-people’ stuff,” she said, making air quotes.

John laughed. "Makes sense, I guess. So how about we dig into this cake?"

Alison just smiled and nodded. The two dug into the moist and decadent chocolate fudge cake, the warm chocolate sauce that oozed from between the layers of cake only made it that much more delicious.

The 'slice' was as big as some whole cakes John had seen in stores. The two tried to eat as much as they could but were ultimately defeated, with more than a third of the slice still on the plate. The hot chocolate was delicious too; it had a bitter-sweet taste, though it leaned more to the latter, and it seemed thicker than any hot chocolate he’d drank before.

"Damn, I can't eat another bite, that thing is rich. Please don't tell me people usually eat one of these by themselves?" John questioned.

Alison giggled, shaking her head. "N-no, a-and Gran gave u-us like f-four servings."

"Well, it was well worth the three dollars I paid." John grinned.

A cocked smile lit up Alison’s face, followed by a red tint that painted her cheeks. Silence began to grow between them, and seemingly surprising the both of them, Alice was the one to break it, “S-so, it’s st-s-strange that M-mi… June s-started ha-ving us w-work together re-r-recently.”

“Yeah…” John said almost absentmindedly.

“Oh, I d-don’t mean it in a b-bad way,” Alison assured.

“No, sorry, I’m just thinking about something and don’t really know how to talk about it,” John explained.

There was another silence, but it was almost deafening to John as he tried to think of the best way to word everything. He took a deep breath before speaking, “Uhm, do you mind if we went somewhere we had a little more privacy? We have a bit of an audience.”

Alison turned to see more than a couple eyes on them. She turned back to John and nodded. After picking up the plate as well as both cups, Alison quickly walked over to the counter where her gran stood to hand them over and thank her. Then she rushed back over to John and the two exited the Mill.

“You said you had to go to a store to do something, right? We could walk in that direction if you want?” Alison suggested.

“Yeah, I guess that’d probably be a good idea.” He awkwardly laughed. After quickly looking online for directions to Primrose’s shop, the two started walking quietly before John worked up the courage. “So… you know how Vanessa and Frank bully me?”

“S-sorry, I-I’ve t-trie-” She cut herself off as John took hold of her hand.

“No, you don’t have anything to apologise for. I really don’t want to quieten you from speaking your mind or anything but this is kinda hard for me to get out,” John said. Alison nodded, blushed and lightly squeezed John’s hand.

He took another breath and looked forward as he spoke, “Because of the bullying, I mostly kept my head down and avoided looking in their direction. The only problem with that was that it meant that as time went on I kinda put you to the back of my mind and basically forgot about you.” He sighed and used his thumb to stroke her hand.

“Recently something made me aware of you again and I remembered middle school. I didn’t have friends there and it’d only been recently that I’d lost my best friend… Oh, that made it sound like they died, our parents had a falling out over something and they moved away, cutting contact with us…

“Anyway… my mom had encouraged me to try and make friends with someone. I saw that some of the other kids were bullying you; I didn’t really like that and thought since we both needed a friend, we could stick together, and to my surprise, the first week of middle school I had a really nice friend… until Vanessa showed up…” John trailed off.

He used his free hand to rub his face. “Right, back to the actual important parts… So, uhm, at the beginning of this week, a lot of things happened. I kinda met a girl.”

As John said that, he could see Alison’s face drop from the corner of his eyes, but he knew he needed to talk to her about it before anything else happened.

“So, things with her are complicated, to say the least. I needed some advice, and as strange as it might be, the only person I could think of was June. I talked to her about my insecurities of the open relationship Ellie… uh, the girl, had proposed and June reassured me on most of my hang-ups before asking me if I was interested in anyone else.”

John stopped looking over at Alison. “Uhm, Like I said, you’d kinda faded into the background but some things had made me notice you again. When June asked if I was interested in anyone else, you were who came to mind. I kinda asked if we could be partnered up so I could try and get to know you again. Ah shit, I’m telling everything out of order, I think everything’s getting muddled…”

He stopped and took a deep breath. “I think I asked to be partnered with you before talking to June about the situation with Ellie. Anyway, long story short, June basically advised me to let you know about the relationship I was in with Ellie and how that works before anything between us might happen, if anything would happen, that is… I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you, and I promise I didn’t ask June to get you naked or anything… I don’t know, I'm kinda rambling now and don’t know what to do from here…” John admitted.

Alison was silent and hadn’t looked in his direction for a while. Her free hand was tightly against her chest and her hair was used again to obscure her face. “S-so… wh-what is y-our rel-relationship l-like? W-w-what kind o-of r-relationship is i-it?”

John rubbed his neck. “Well, it’s open, I guess? She isn’t interested in guys. Before we got together she was only dating girls, and she said that we should have a semi-open relationship where other girls are fine for either of us.”

There was another long pause before Alison spoke again, “I-is i-i-it j-just s-s-m-making lo-love with o-other girls? O-or b-being i-i-in r-rel-relationsh-ships?”

It was John’s turn to pause this time. “I… uh… do you mind if I make a quick call?”

Alison shook her head without saying anything.

John let go of Alison’s hand and moved a couple steps away from her before calling Ellie. The dial tone rang out a few times before a bubbly voice came through, “Hey, hot stuff, how are you?” John laughed nervously, which Ellie picked up on. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing wrong, per se. I’m currently with Alison and I kinda told her about us and our relationship. She wants to know if things with others is just sex or if relationships with others is part of it?” John asked.

“You’re joking, right? After the thing with Lani?” Ellie asked. “You know what, never mind, I’m kinda busy but it’s fine, video call me and I’ll talk to her.”

John felt a slight knot. “Hey Alison, Ellie wants to video call, shall we walk and talk?”

Alison nodded and the two set off walking in the direction of Ancient Wisdom. He switched to video call and held his phone so the two of them would be in view of the camera.

“Oh my gosh, you didn’t tell me she was this cute. I love love love her freckles and look at how rosy her cheeks are,” Ellie gushed. “Oh, sorry. Hi cutie, I’m Ellie.”

Alison’s blush deepened and she closed herself off a little more but was able to get out a quiet, “H-hi.”

“Ellie, you’re going to make her uncomfortable,” John complained.

“Shush, she’s fine, mmmhh super fine at that,” Ellie cooed.

John rubbed his face. “What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

Ellie smiled. “Fine, sorry. Hi Alison. Listen, I’m not against John having another girlfriend so long as she’s alright with the relationship. I think it would be a good idea for you to maybe go on a date before deciding to say for definite if you’d want to get mixed up with this craziness,” she laughed, “but it might also be a good idea for us to meet up at some point in person to get to know one another a little more. Maybe we could get something to eat or something? I’m sure one of you two know a nice place we could go an-”

The call cut off and John felt an odd shift around him, like when your body lurches from a rollercoaster abruptly slowing down. He was too focused on his phone when he heard Alison’s panicked voice, “W-what’s g-g-going on? Wh-where are w-we? J-John?”

She suddenly clung to him, catching his attention before he looked up, to see the world had changed around them. “...No! Not again!” he complained.

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