For a while I just keep tapping my fingers against the table, looking around as if the place looks interesting. It's a little weird because I'm the one who asked for this. I'm the one who basically forced this girl into spending time with me, and now I'm not saying anything.

But she doesn't seem to mind; since we walked into the pizza place about five minutes ago, all she's done is look outside the window and pick at her nails. She doesn't mind that I'm wasting her time. Or if she does, she sure as hell is good at hiding that.

I don't know for how long I'd be able to just sit and do nothing though. I've already caught myself several times staring at her, and opening my mouth to say something but for some reason, I couldn't find the right words. I have so many questions, but my brain and tongue are still blocked by my state of shock.

"Ready to order?" I look up at the man I know all too well, given how many times I've come here since I moved, and for once I knew what to say.

"I'll have a capricciosa," I begin, and once again mentally cuss out the alcohol laws of America before continuing, "...and a coke."

Joel nods, writing down my order, before turning to Angel. "And for the lady..?"

I look at her as well, and I'm a little surprised to see her looking at me, her eyes a little narrowed. I can't name all of the things I'd do to know what's going through her head right now.

"Just a beer," She looks up at Joel and gives him a tight smile, which he doesn't respond to. He just keeps looking at her.

"I'm gonna have to see your ID," He says, and I'm again left a little surprised to see her unzipping her jacket a little and pulling out her ID. I haven't actually thought about how old she is, but so far I know she's over 21. So not only is she taller than me, she's also older than me. What an interesting night.

He nods once again after looking at the little square object for a couple of seconds, confirming my thoughts. This really is an interesting night.

"You're not going to eat?" I ask as Joel walks away, and she only shakes her head. I wouldn't either If I were her. "So," I start but glance over my shoulder to see if he's still near us, before turning to Angel again. "I'm guessing you're over 21?"

She blinks at me twice, her lips forming the smallest of smiles. "You're guessing right."

I nod slowly, "So it's not just a fake ID?"

Angel closes her eyes for a second too long, and I'm guessing that means my question is ridiculous. Which I am also starting to realize myself. "If you're implying that I look younger than my actual age, thank you."

A wide smile slowly spreads across my face; that is officially the longest sentence she'd said to me, and I'm afraid that it's going to stay that way. But for now I'm just enjoying the slight progress. "What is your actual age?"

She runs her tongue over her upper lip as she glances down at her hands, and then back up at me again. "A girl never tells."

I narrow my eyes at her, and study her features; before she pulled out her ID and revealed that she's older than twenty one, I thought we're the same age; she doesn't look a day over nineteen, hell, she could be even mistaken for a minor. Now I'm beginning to be a little scared of the correct answer to that. "Would it help if I told you how old I am?"

She tilts her head to the side as she watches me, "I don't see how that could help."

I'm a little taken aback by her answer, though I'm afraid I should be getting used to it. From when I first spoke to her twenty minutes ago, I knew she wasn't going to just spit everything out easily; I'm wondering if she's always like this.

"Can I guess?" The dumb question leaves my mouth a minute later, and I look up at her not so excited face.

"Sure," She shrugs, and I can't help but narrow my eyes at her again.

"How am I going to know you're not lying?"

She shrugs again, and runs her thumb along the edge of the table. "You're not."

I'm starting to feel like I'm in a horror film and being Punk'd at the same time. "Then what's the point in guessing?"

"You tell me."

That feeling just intensified; is this girl for real? "I'm just curious."

"So I've noticed," Angel says, and an amused half-smile appears on her lips when she hears me sigh. I still don't know whether she's irritating me on purpose or if she's just joking. Though from what I've seen so far, I believe it's neither of those.

"I just-" I'm cut off by a large plate being placed in front of me, along with a glass bottle of coke. For a few seconds I just stare at the food, not even thanking Joel when he said 'enjoy', and snapped out of my thoughts when he left.

"I just-" I'm once again interrupted by Angel, and this time she was pushing her green bottle of Heineken across the table, toward me.

"What- are you doing?" I stammer, putting all of my energy into not reaching for the bottle myself.

"Take it," She says, and her words are like music to my ear. "I'll have your coke."

I glance behind myself, to see that Joel was nowhere in sight. "Won't they notice, though?" I ask, referring to the other two people in the room, as well as Joel when he comes back from wherever the hell he went.

She shrugs yet again, and I feel like that is going to be a part of her answer to all of my questions from now on. "No one knows how old you are."

I blink a few times, and watch her pull my coke toward her, until she raises it off the table and brings the straw to her lips. "Well, I guess... thanks," I say awkwardly as I finally take the bottle; I wonder if I look as desperate for alcohol as I feel. That must be the reason she ordered it in the first place.

"Don't mention it," She says as she twirls the straw around in the bottle, "I can imagine how different this is from Ireland."

This is the first time I'm going to have alcohol after months, but her words make me lower the bottle on the table when I've just brought it to my mouth. I can't remember how many people have made me do that in my entire life. "How did you know I'm from Ireland?"

"Your accent." Of course it's my accent. "And from how thick it is, I can also assume you haven't been here for a long time."

New record in the longest sentence category. "Um, yeah, just a few months."

She nods again, and takes another sip of coke. "And what brought you to one of the most dangerous cities in the United States of America?"

Another record; if I was the one asking the questions and her answers were this long, it would mean serious progress, but this is good too. "University, I guess."

Angel nods again, this time not looking away from my eyes. "What's your university?"

"UIC."

"What are you majoring in?"

"Architecture," I say slowly and finally take a gulp of my beer. "And I'm minoring in English."

An impressed look appears on Angel's face, but after a second or two her expression changes to her calm, apathetic, almost vacant one from before. Well then.

"I wanted to go to UIC."

There are several reasons why I almost feel ecstatic as she says that, but the biggest one is definitely her giving me a piece of information about herself. "Really? What field?"

She purses her lips as she stares at nothing in particular, and takes another sip of her coke before looking at the bottle, "Medicine. Neurosurgery."

I almost laugh at her answer but manage to hold it in; she definitely doesn't leave the impression of someone who would want to study something as serious as neurosurgery. Or any kind of surgery. Or medicine, all together. She'd probably do well at... I actually don't know what.

"Are you serious?" I ask with a wicked smile on my face, to which she doesn't reply because we already know the answer. "Why didn't you?"

I notice her take a semi-deep breath, and finally look up at me, the already small look of amusement in her eyes gone. "Your pizza's getting cold."

Her words make me blink a few times, before I finally realize what she just said; and really, when I touch the crust of the food that I've completely forgotten about, it's almost cold. I got a little carried away, so now I'm sort of disappointed that she stopped talking.

There's something I never thought I wouldn't be glad about on a date with a girl.

"Well, thanks for the beer," I repeat my words from before, deciding to start speaking again before the tension became as thick as before at the sudden change of subjects. "How can I repay you?" Honestly, I was expecting her to say 'you can ask me a question'.

"You could stop asking me questions, for example." And I got the complete opposite.

"Why though?" I dare to ask as I bring one slice of my pizza to my mouth. "You know a lot of things about me."

Angel narrows her eyes at me once again, and I notice another tiny smile on her lips. Progress? "You haven't even told me your name."

I raise my eyebrows and stop chewing for a second, "Really?" I could have sworn I've given her my name, but when I think about it, I don't remember doing that in fact.

She shakes her head, her smile a little more evident. "Well then," I begin, hoping it's the right decision, "I'm Niall, I'm 19 and from Mullingar. That's a small town in Ireland."

Angel looks around before nodding, and looking back at me again. "Cool."

"Oh, come on," I say in a bit of a whiney tone, and she cracks the biggest smile of the night; it's not even that wide. "I just know your name and what you wanted to study in uni."

"That's enough for someone who forced me into coming here." I knew she was going to mention that, but by the amused look in her eyes that's returned, I know she's not serious about it. Not entirely, at least.

"And for someone who stopped you from committing murder?" As soon as the words leave my mouth, I have to grip my jeans in order to not literally slap myself. What kind of a person puts it like that? I would rather not get any answers from her than have her hear me say that.

Guess it's too late for it now.

"You know what?" As Angel speaks, I slowly look up. I thought I would see her features forming a hard expression, her hand clutching the bottle of coke as tightly as she can to hold her anger in. But when my eyes meet hers, I'm surprised to see the look in her eyes didn't change at all. "Fair enough."

She leans on the table, crossing her arms before herself and stares at the table for a couple seconds. I carefully watch her to try and predict what she is going to tell me next, but her constant poker face is blocking me from doing so.

"How about this, you guess my age, and I promise I won't lie?" Even if the look on her face wasn't so emotionless, there is no way I could have predicted she would say that.

"Um..." I stutter, blinking at her a few times to see if she's joking, or testing me. But even though her face is giving nothing away, somehow I know she's not playing with me. "Alright."

"Cool." She presses her lips together for a second, "Go."

I blink twice again, glancing down at my food. This is the longest I've had pizza in front of me without having at least one slice of it. "Well," I start as I slowly bring one to my mouth, "Your ID says you're over 21."

Angel nods, and I feel a little relieved when a small smile appears on her lips. I can only think about what it means.

"So... I'm gonna start with 21?" I raise my eyebrows as I bite on the slice, though I have to gulp when she shakes her head. So the age difference is larger than two years. Awesome.

"Um... 22?" I ask again, and feel my heart rate increase just a tiny bit when she shakes her head again. Three years, more than three years. "Okay, if you're like 30, I'm gonna have to freak out a bit," I say as soon as the thought crosses my mind. Is she one of those women that are in their late twenties and look like teenagers? Obviously, yeah.

Angel's smile widens, but it's still nowhere near an average one. "If you'd continued, you would have guessed right."

I raise my eyebrows again, and she tilts her head to the side again as she watches me. "I'm 23, Niall."

"Oh," Is all I say, and stare at the ground for a few seconds. So she's four years older than me... that's not so bad, I guess. It's not like I'm going to date her.

I shake my head as soon as the thought crosses my mind; the mere thought of dating someone like her is bizarre to me. I've known her for only half an hour, forty minutes maybe, and I already know we're polar opposites. She's Yin, and I'm Yang.

"Do you have any other questions?" She raises her eyebrows, but by the entertained look in her eyes, I know she's being sarcastic. Glad we've gotten to this point.

"About 600, but it's alright." I literally stop chewing on my pizza when she grins at me; the first - and I hate to think it might be the last one in a while - time she gives me a real, toothy smile that reaches her eyes as well. I never thought I'd be this elated about a girl smiling.

Though as fast as it appeared, her smile fades away, along with the happy look in her eyes. The look on her face rapidly goes back to being emotionless, maybe with a pinch of amusement still present, but I was sure that would disappear as well. "You should smile more often," I can't help but say; now that I've seen her with an actual happy face, even if it was for just a few seconds, I kind of want to see it again.

Angel breathes out through her nose, as if what I'd said is bizarre. "I should be given reasons to do it more often."

She makes me stop chewing again, but for a completely different reason now. I've probably struck a nerve there. "Um... I'm sorry."

I feel a little relieved when her lips curve a little again, and she narrows her eyes at me for the tenth time tonight, studying my face. "What for?"

"For... you, feeling that you don't have enough reasons to smile."

I feel awkward as I say that; here we are, in the smallest pizza place in Chicago, having beer and coke, and a deep conversation to top that. If anyone had told me I'd be doing this two days ago- two hours ago, I would have probably asked them if someone had put something in their drink.

"It's alright," Angel's voice pulls me out of my thoughts, "I wasn't exactly complaining."

Her words leave me confused yet again, and I look around as if expecting the objects in the place to give me an explanation. She basically told me she doesn't have a problem with not having much to smile about - and I want to say I'm sorry again, but her it-is-what-it-is kind of expression tells me I shouldn't.

As she looks at her watch, I bring my fourth piece of pizza to my mouth, and continue to look at her. She's done nothing peculiar or out of the ordinary in the time that we've spent together here, but I can't help but find her a little fascinating. Her personality, that is. And the fact that I watched her beat the living shit out of a man twice her size.

Angel presses her lips together as she looks at me again, "I'm really gonna have to go now."

"What?" I mumble, my mouth full of food, but she's already stood up. "But it hasn't been an hour yet."

She shrugs and leaves ten dollars on the table, "Thanks for the coke."

"Wait." I finally swallow everything that's in my mouth and stand up, and for a few seconds we just stand and stare at each other. "Let me walk you home."

"No, it's okay," She gives me one of her half-smiles, "I know my way home."

I blink a few times as she starts walking away, and when I turn around I'm relieved to see Joel sitting behind the counter. "Hey, Joe? Could you pack my pizza up, I'm gonna take it with me."

As he nods, I hear the door close, and start sprinting toward the exit before Angel got completely out of my sight. Luckily, when I walk out, I see her only about ten meters down the street.

"Wait," I say loudly, once again walking behind her while she didn't stop at all. Is this what having déjà vu feels like? "Come on, stop."

"I think you should be the one to stop." Her words make a small smile appear on my face and I shake my head; it's like she hasn't noticed how persistent I am.

"You know I'm not going to," I reply, the smile my lips are forming audible as I speak. I hear Angel sigh, but she doesn't slow down. I'm lucky I'm a fast walker.

"Come on," I repeat, and this time I'm not afraid of reaching out for her wrist to stop her. I can tell she's surprised when she finally faces me, but doesn't do anything about it. I'm pretty sure she's realized I'm as harmful as a ladybug by now.

"You do know what happened to the last person that didn't want to leave me alone, right?" She raises her eyebrows at me, but I know she's not angry, or upset, or anything. Maybe a little annoyed, but not enough to injure me.

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna do anything bad," I say, pretending that I don't notice I'm still holding her hand. "I just want to get to know you."

"How do you know that's not a bad thing?"

If this is the start of another deep conversation, I'm gonna need another beer. "'Cause you're not a bad person."

She blinks at me once, taking a step closer. Damn, if only she wasn't in high heels, the moment would have been perfect. "And how do you know that?"

"I don't," I say, determined not to break the eye contact. "It's just a feeling."

Angel nods slowly, but I know she's not entirely convinced. Here comes another question. "Why do you even care so much?"

"Because," I shrug, "You're weird. I like you."

My words cause her lips to form another smile, almost the same as the one from before, that I could still see before my eyes. "Well, isn't that just the most legitimate reason you could have given me?"

I grin in response, to which she replies with a barely noticeable shake of her head. "Go get your pizza. I won't move."

*******

I'd really love to know what everyone thinks of Angel? I like to think she's not your usual fanfic girl hehe

Dedicated to @anniallated_ for the perfect description of Niall (and we were only one chapter into the story). I'm glad everyone is liking it so far, thank you and don't forget to vote and comment! x