They strolled inside the burger joint which was quite welcoming with its bright-colored interior along with the red booths and loud environment courtesy of the overly cranked-up music, sizzling from the kitchen, a crying child in the background, and a long line to order which was normal for the late evening rush that occurred during this time.
He went to line up, and she tagged along with him and pressed a finger to her lips to think about what she wanted to get. To be honest, she was hungry since she wasn't able to eat much during lunch considering that she didn't have time to eat after doing a make-up assignment for another class that went longer than expected.
When she arrived at Carver Hall, Claudia already left due to another appointment that she had, leaving her to fend for herself and all that she could grab was a fluffy egg sandwich that didn't fill her up by any means. She said hello to some other girls and had to stop for a conversation leading her to have no time to get to her next class.
She did end up getting a protein shake bottle from the vending machine, but it definitely wasn't the usual nutritious meal that she normally packed and took the time to make in the morning. The cafeteria food also had a great selection she had often picked something up from as well, but the timing didn't work out at all earlier which was a shame.
Doing manual labor was totally fine with her, but it was quite hard to do on an empty stomach since she had no energy to keep up with the strenuous work that she had to finish on her own. Then again, she really did shoot herself in the foot since she didn't check in with Claudia first and wasn't in her full one-hundred percent condition.
Bouncing on her feet when they finally made it to the register, the young girl in her red apron and black cap glanced up at them after pressing a few buttons on the monitor in front of her.
Alice read the young girl's name tag that said in big black blocked letters, 'Taylor', and she smiled at the girl with her usual bright smile before giving her order of a regular sandwich with the meal size.
Alice turned expectantly at Noah, and he nodded and said that he would have to same as her to the cashier, and Taylor seemed uninterested as she blandly asked for the payment. Alice was about to pull out her phone to pay on the reader, but Noah had already inputted his card, and Alice placed a hand on his arm.
"It's fine. I can pay for my portion," she assured.
"I said that I would take out to buy you dinner, so I might as well not go back on my word," Noah answered before the card reader dinged, and he pulled the card out and slipped it back into his wallet.
"Thank you," Alice said. "I'll be sure to pay you back."
"There's no need."
"You can have a seat, and we will bring your food when it is ready," Taylor said before passing them a little plastic tent with a number on it.
Alice took the numbered tent with a nod. "Thank you."
Taylor gave another recited customer service thank you, and Alice looked over her shoulder to figure out where they should sit and eventually strode over to one of the red booths with the tall windows in the front after letting her eyes wander for a moment where they could people-watch because it gave her an excuse to be distracted.
Sliding inside the seat, Alice placed her hands into her lap while Noah slid into the booth across from her and placed his phone down on the table making her realize that she should do the same. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she took it out to see that it was a message from Claudia that was short and sweet.
Claudia: I'm so sorry. I will make it up to you later.
Alice: You should have seen what I had to do.
Claudia: Tell me about it tomorrow. I swear that I will do you a favor.
Alice: Anything?"
Claudia: Anything.
Alice: Hmmm, I'll get back to you tomorrow.
Claudia: Shoot. I think I screwed myself over.
Alice: Then you should have thought about it before screwing me over, darling.
After the message, she placed her phone down on the table with a cunning smile since she had just got the best idea for what Claudia should do considering that Alice normally does a lot of random errands for teachers in the academy, she would love to cast a bit of her workload to her dear best friend.
It would seem that Claudia already got the memo since Claudia started to send crying emojis and asking for mercy to which Alice didn't bother to answer except to react with the random memes that showed up on her keyboard for the fun of it. Alice tried her best to not step on any toes of the teachers in the academy, so whenever they asked her to do something, she did it right away.
The biggest culprit was the psychology teacher who liked for her to run back and forth from the library from time to time to check if the random textbooks sitting in his room went out of date for the course since it should be any time now due to the fact that he had to renew them every couple of years or something that she didn't catch since she wasn't really listening to him closely.
Leaning her chin on her hand, she meet Noah's eyes and lifted an eyebrow. "So what were you saying about your grandfather."
Noah sighed. "I thought you would have dropped it by now."
"Please feel free to shut down my assumptions," she said candidly. "I'm curious. Tell me about it."
His eyes flicked up and down her form, and she gave him a wink for good measure to lighten up the atmosphere that was starting to darken with his stormy mood. He eventually caved much to her surprise considering that he had no obligation to speak to her about anything, and she knew how much she grated on his nerves as do he for hers.
"Well, my parents don't pay for my grandfather's hospital bills, and they are starting to rack up."
Her brows came together. "What? That's horrible."
"My grandfather is currently in a vegetative state after going into a coma after a complication with his strong symptoms of stroke. It was too late, but that was years ago now."
"If your attendance rate goes even lower than this, you might not finish school, Noah," she reminded slowly.
"I'll be fine. I'm on track to graduate anyways."
She sighed. "The bigger question is if you're applying for university."
"I'm planning on taking a gap year to work a little bit to be able to save some money before applying to college," he answered. "But that might not happen since the pressure from my parents is too strong. I don't know how I'm supposed to figure out the balance between work and school then, but I'll figure it out."
Alice squinted at him. "I see. Take care of your health okay? We should at least finish this year strong."
Noah lifted a shoulder. "Now, that's a good plan."
"And it's a plan that will happen if you seriously try, Noah," she said with a frown. "You can't just keep on skipping through life since it's not all going to fall into your lap easily."
"I never said that I had it easy. Now, that's an assumption I would love to correct."
"Well, thank you for doing so."