Chapter 85 : The date: chapter 2: the picnic

Isabella:

After Lucas had stormed into my room, eyes narrowed and brimming with anger over the fact his phone had crashed due to every blaring and consecutive alarm Grace had set and then once he had calmed down had proceeded to fawn all over me and effectively smear all my lipgloss (if you know what I mean); the two of us had set off for chapter 2 of our date to commence.

Mia and Grace had given us limited information for this next part of the date except for shoving us into Lucas' car and pointing at that bloody picnic basket sitting in the backseat claiming everything we needed was in there, so currently Lucas was mindlessly driving around with no clue where to go.

"Well I think the most sensible idea would be to go to a park," I suggest when we hit the 5 minute mark of our drive and jut my thumb over my shoulder gesturing to the picnic basket in the back. "I mean I'm pretty sure they're just sending us on a picnic."

"No way would Mia and Grace send us to something normal like a picnic, I bet whatever is in that basket is something we'd never expect."

"Ah, true..." I agree, pulling my lips into my mouth.

Lucas side glances my way - well more like side glances down at my boobs. "Why don't you just check to see what's inside?"

I smack his forehead with my palm so that he lifts his gaze to my eyes. "They said not to open the basket until we reach our location."

Lucas smiles sheepishly before making a big deal of looking around the car once we pull into a red light. "Do you see them anywhere here? Bells, I think we can take a peek, they'll never know."

"But-"

I'm about to rebute when my phone dings with an incoming notification, pulling my attention onto the lit up screen and effectively shutting my mouth.

I sigh. "It's them," I say out loud to Lucas as I read the message. "They've given us a location."

MiaTheTittylicious: Please drive to Warrenlake park, I will link the location down below.

Grace: NO PEEKING IN THE BASKET UNTIL YOU ARE THERE!

"Jeez, do they have a camera in here or something? How did they know what we were about to do?" Lucas asks as he leans closer to me so he can read the text. His close proximity sends a wave of his cologne up my nostrils and I actually get butterflies from the scent. Butterflies!

I shake my head and snicker. "I don't know but I reckon the two of them just have an Isabella-Lucas instinct."

"True," Lucas agrees with a scrunch of his nose. "Does that mean we can't take even a little peek?"

"No," I return, raising both my eyebrows. "Let's keep it a surprise."

"Fine," Lucas pulls back with a huff so he's sitting properly in his seat again. As he moves away, my eyes follow his movement and I quickly take the time to rake my eyes down his frame for the umpteenth time today, motivated by the swarm of butterflies still fluttering my stomach from the whiff of cologne I had gotten only moments before.

Lucas is plugging in the location Mia had sent into the gps before beginning to drive again as my gaze makes the journey down from his styled hair, gelled to tame the unruly strands, all the way to his jean clad legs. Mia and Grace had dressed him in a simple short sleeved, black, unbuttoned, button down over a white t-shirt paired with blue jeans on his long legs. His outfit was simple but it complimented mine well.

"God, they're sending us somewhere an hour away," Lucas tells me, snapping me out of my blatant ogling and causing my eyes to flit onto the gps.

When the numbers 1 hour and 15 minutes flare back at me I instantly reach for my phone and the aux cord. "Oh my God. We definitely need my road trip playlist for this."

"Of course," Lucas snickers.

"You know it," I reply, scrolling through my apps until I find spotify.

As I'm doing so, I feel Lucas staring at the side of my face. "You know I was stalking your spotify account the other day," he randomly admits, glancing sideways at me with a small smile playing on his lips, some sort of mischievous emotion flickering in his eyes.

I lift my head up. "Oh, you were?" I ask with a raise of my eyebrow.

"Yeah." He nods, his grin widening. "Why do you have a billion playlists?"

"Erm because I need a playlist for every occasion?"

"You have a sex playlist and you haven't even had sex yet."

"Hey I need to be prepared!" I return defensively, narrowing my eyebrows at Lucas for exposing me.

"Babe, chill," he laughs with a wave of his hand, "I like that you have a trillion gazillion playlists, the names of them are very creative-"

A smile suddenly replaces my frown, "I know," I reply pridefully. "I spent a lot of time coming up with those."

Lucas shakes his head amusedly. "Anyways, what I was going to say," he continues, the smile on his face growing even wider, "was that I found a playlist with my name on it."

I sink down in my seat and scrunch up my nose at the almost egotistical look on his face. "Hm you did?" I reply, tapping my finger on my chin, pretending as if I don't know what he's talking about. "I don't know where that came from, I didn't make one." I shrug my shoulders for emphasis.

He laughs, knowing that I'm just kidding. "Yeah well I'm disappointed you didn't give my playlist a creative name."

"I did! I gave you those cute little symbol things after your name!"

He scrunches up his nose in response and I swat his bicep with the back of my hand before grinning widely. "Anyways, do you like the playlist then?"

Lucas' demeanour shifts and he nods. "I love it," he tells me earnestly, mirroring my smile. "I made you a playlist too you know."

"Shut up!" I twist so I'm fully facing Lucas now, the seat belt tugging against me at the motion. "You did!"

"Yeah," his eyebrows quirk up at my excitement. "Check my spotify account."

I waste no time in pulling up Lucas' spotify profile and quickly scan his playlist library until my eyes fall against the most recent one named "Izzy" with a cute little smiley face following my name. A small elevated breath escapes my mouth as I plug my phone into the aux and press shuffle on the playlist, the intro of 'Die for you' by the weeknd filling the air inside the car.

"Hey! I love his song!" I exclaim, my eyes scanning the rest of the songs Lucas has put into the playlist, my heart growing in my chest as I do so.

My kind of woman by mac demarco

It girl by jason derulo

I wanna be yours by arctic monkeys

Grenade by bruno mars

Mirrors by justin timberlake

The list goes on.

Lucas' chuckle reverberates over the music and I lift my head to meet his gaze with undoubtedly the biggest smile etched across my face.

"You look like a 12 year old boy who just got given a playstation for Christmas," he states teasingly, although the softening of his hazel eyes tells me he loves my reaction.

I ignore his remark and tilt my head to the side, pressing the phone to my chest. "Lucas, I love this playlist!" I tell him, "you put way more better songs in mine than I put in yours."

"Please, Izzy," Lucas throws me a look, "you put you and I by one direction in my playlist, yours still beats mine baby."

***

The 75 minute long drive passes by in what feels like 10 minutes, we switch from the playlist Lucas made for me to the one I made for him the entire way, as well as mauling each other at every red light we pull into. Lucas finds a space to park once we reach our location and I unclip my seatbelt, hauling myself out of the passenger seat as Lucas follows suit on the other side.

"God, my legs and my back," I groan once I get out of Lucas' car, leaning forwards to stretch my back that's aching from the long car ride after shaking out both my legs and rolling my neck. I hear Lucas' footsteps approach me quickly, as if he's running and when his feet come into vision and he pauses in front of me, I straighten up and meet his gaze questioningly.

My confusion clicks into place when I catch his gaze locked onto my chest.

"Jeez, did you really run over to this side just to peer down the front of my dress," I snort as Lucas' eyes continue to stay glued onto my cleavage, a look of pure contentment crossing his features as he does so, the picnic basket dangling from one of his hands.

"Yes," Lucas says without a beat of hesitation and with zero shame.

I shake my head amusedly and move forward to link my arm through his. I begin dragging Lucas forward towards the park all whilst he ogles at me like he's never seen a pair of boobs in his life, he only snaps out of it when he almost trips and falls flat on his face from stumbling over a twig that he missed by not paying attention to where he was walking.

As we walk deeper into the park, my eyes begin to scan the surroundings of this unfamiliar park. It's quite pretty from what my eyes asses, quiet with tall trees that line the entire perimeter, their green and lucious leaves swaying with the cool breeze of the warm April air. Picnic benches scatter all across the grassy land with barely any people occupying them. In the far distance I spot a children's playground, seemingly deserted as of now which is odd due to the timing of the day but I'm not complaining, the lack of screaming children provides a peace that I like. The park for the most part is normal, it's only when we head a little deeper that Lucas and I notice the long stretch of lake crossing the middle of the park, ducks gliding across the water that's glimmering under the bright sun.

"Oh ducks!" Lucas exclaims, his eyes widening an inch as he waves his hand towards the ducks off to the left that are waddling out of the water. He turns to me as I scour the area for a spot to sit, somewhere under the shade but not on a picnic bench. "Do you reckon the girls packed slices of bread?" He asks, "because we should so have a competition to see who can get the most ducks to eat their bread if they did."

I settle the picnic basket down onto the ground and begin rummaging through it. "Lets see if they did," I murmur in reply, my eyes assessing the contents of the basket. I pause after a moment of searching however, and look up to meet Lucas ' gaze, my eyebrows furrowing together confusedly. "Erm Luke, there isn't any sort of food in here at all..."

Those words leave my mouth and coincidentally, it's the exact time Lucas' stomach begins to make a loud growling sound.

"You sure?" He questions, looking slightly pained and grabbing his tummy with his arm.

"Mhm," I nod, "Look for yourself."

Lucas reaches down into the basket and when my discovery is confirmed as he pulls out a clay mug and a box of beads instead of any food items, he groans in defeat. "What is this stuff?!" He grumbles, his eyes narrowing as he stares from the items in his hand and back to me, "does it look like we can eat a mug?"

He mutters a bunch of expletives under his breath.

"Do you want me to call them?" I grimace as Lucas then crouches down and begins emptying out the picnic basket, placing each item inside on top of the folded picnic blanket on the grass in search of food. However, every item he pulls out is everything and anything but food.

I think he's about to nod yes when his eyebrows draw together dejectedly but he falters for a second before replying. "Wait," he pauses and begins pulling yet another object out of the basket, "there's a letter!"

"A letter?" I repeat. "Is it from Mia and Grace?"

Lucas nods his head as he unfolds the paper and turns it around to face me, "yeah, come read it with me."

Dear Bella and Lucas

First of all, Lucas, stop throwing a hissy fit, in the picnic basket you'll find a fluffy purple purse and inside is a couple of dollars. There's a cute lil cafe at the far end of the park with an ice cream parlour attached to it, go get something from there.

Now, if you're curious about what's in the picnic basket, we shall explain.....

There are a bunch of little activities for you guys to spend the rest of the afternoon doing and at 6pm, we'll message you again for a little surprise (something you'll really like).

Ok that's it have fun, pls beware of the children if you guys get carried away humping each other - mia & grace xx

"Lucky for us there are no children around so we can hump in peace," Lucas' breath hits the back of my neck as he laughs and I jab my elbow into his stomach in retaliation, causing his laughter only to increase.

I twist my head to look up at him, ignoring his horny remark. "So do you wanna go get something from the cafe whilst I set up the picnic blanket and stuff?"

"Sure," Lucas nods, still smiling at his own horny joke.

I shake my head amusedly as he crouches down again in front of the basket. "Great, can you get me a slushy if they have one?"

"What flavour?" Lucas begins rummaging through the pile of activities until he finds the fluffy purple purse mentioned in Mia and Grace's letter.

"Blue raspberry."

"Okay," Lucas straightens up again and runs his hand up my arm before levelling me with a serious look, the fluffy purple purse dangling from his other hand. "Don't steal all the ugly coloured beads or paints whilst I'm gone, alright?"

"Hm," I sigh dejectedly. "I'll try not to."

He shoots me one last dimpled grin before stalking off in the direction he thinks the cafe may be in and I stare at his ass whilst he walks for a good minute before turning back around and beginning to set up the 'picnic'.

I take the white sheet and lay it out on the grass before settling all of the activities Mia and Grace had put inside in the middle on the top. There are a bunch of disposable cameras so I decide to snap a couple shots of myself and the park and almost blind myself with the flash in the process.

As for the activities, there are a bunch of things for us to do. There are little canvases, clay mugs and t-shirts for us to paint, a huge ass bead kit to make jewelry out of and a pile of porny books for us to read.

I pick up one of the books with yet another shirtless man on the front and snicker as I skim through the pages and read the blurb at the back.

Oh goody, looks like Lucas will probably get a book boner today again.

+

Lucas:

"Starting without me?" I ask as Isabella twists her head to see me readily approaching the blanket, hands clutching her slushy and several food bags as well as a wrapped gift that I had to go collect from the car. I had been gone longer than expected having had to stop by my car and it looks like Isabella got impatient waiting for me and has started painting. There's a book placed face down beside her and my eyebrows promptly raise at the cover. That is definitely Mia's doing.

"I've only done one brush stroke," Izzy returns sheepishly and I smile at her expression as her eyes fall upon the purple wrapped present held in my hand, watching as her eyebrows knit together adorably. "Hey, what's that?" She asks curiously, tucking a strand of escaped hair behind her ear as I settle down on the picnic blanket opposite her.

I place the bags of croissants and her slushy onto the ground and hand her the gift. "It's for you."

"For me?" She repeats, her eyes lighting up as she takes the gift from my hands. Her fingers brush mine as she does so and I swear a jolt of electricity travels down my entire body - she always has this effect on me.

"Yeah," I nod, watching as she fumbles with my horrible wrapping and tries to open the present. After a little struggle and some help with tugging on my part, the wrapping paper comes free and Izzy's eyes hone in on the gift in hand.

"No way," she breathes with a little laugh, glancing back up at me and holding the book up right to face me. "Really?"

I nod, staring at the new copy of 'The deal' I had gotten her, Garretts abs staring back at me. "I felt bad for erm...ruining your other one so I bought you a new copy."

"And what are all of these?" She asks, running her fingers down the side of the book where there are a bunch of flappy notes sticking out.

"Oh," I roll my lips into my mouth and snicker, "I couldn't help myself, so I re-read the book and I just decided I wanted to highlight some bits but I know you would freak if I actually wrote inside so I used those flappy things instead," I explain as she opens up the book. "The blue ones are just moments I liked, the pink ones are moments that remind me of you and I and the purple ones are the bits that we should recreate."

I can't help but smirk at her reaction to the last one - with a quirked brow, Isabella blushes slightly and tries to suppress a grin but I see the corners peeking out and after a beat a laugh pushes through her lips.

"Oh my God, I love it," she giggles, her fingers flicking through all the different flappy notes again. "But now I feel bad, I didn't get you a first date gift."

"It's more paying you back than a first date gift baby-"

"But still," she interrupts, "the annotations count for something." Isabella shakes her head before sitting up slightly. "Alright, erm, Lulu, close your eyes."

"Close my eyes?" I ask. "Why?"

"Just, do it."

"Okay..." I oblige and sit there for a second as I listen to Isabella shuffle about. "How long do I close my eyes for?"

"Just for a tiny bit," she returns. "I'm almost done."

After another minute passes, Isabella's voice cuts through the silence again. "Okay you can open your eyes now!"

I have to rub them to allow them to focus due to the sun but once my eyes adjust I stare down at the sigh in front of me. Isabella is sitting on her knees directly in front of me, her dress pooling around her legs, her palm is outstretched with something sitting in the middle.

"Here, this is for you," she tells me, grabbing my hand with her other hand and opening up my fist before disposing her gift into my hand gently. "Be careful," she says, "the paint is still wet."

Once she moves away, I stare down what is in my palm.

"Oh," I say.

It's a rock. There's a rock in my palm.

"Do you like it," Isabella asks with a giggle.

I continue staring down at my hand where the small rock that had L+I painted in the middle with a heart drawn around our initials sits. I glance back up at Isabella where she's stifling a laugh. I can't help the big grin that etches onto my face nor the laugh that follows. "I love it," I admit genuinely. "Best rock ever."

━

AUTHORS NOTE:

***if you write what you caused into the spotify search bar the playlist for this book should come up, then check out my spotify account for the individual playlists lucas and isabella made for each other****

omg hiiii, i swear it feel like i can't write about izzy and lucas as a couple without it being cheesy LMSIAO (whatevs i love it)

anyways it's freaking summer for me now woooOooooo!!!!!! MY plans today consist of cleaning my room and going to sit in the park to read by myself ;p

okay, love you lots - mai x

OMG WOW WHAT I JUST REMEMBERED THAT TMRW IS GONNA BE A WHOLE ASS YEAR SINCE I FIRST PUBLISHED THIS BOOK :') we've come such a long way its so crazy wow i love you all so so much, you don't know how appreciative i am for having you guys read my book <333