Who: Hal and Fredrick (NPC) Where: Fredrick and Son's Chocolate Shop When: Saturday June 19, 2010, 10 am What: Hal asks Fredrick if Rhea can come to the chocolate shop for a tutorial, Hal is surprised by Fredrick's reaction.
To call or not to call, that was the question that ran through Hal's head all day. Sure he had seen Rhea a couple of times since he had told her he would call, but he never actually called. He knew, he knew very very well that he couldn't just pick up the phone and call her. Well, he could because he had her number and he wanted to, but things were never that simple. He didn't want to put her in any sort of jeopardy because of what he could do. At the tender age of six he had made a promise with her. She wasn't going to leave him alone in the world and he was going to protect her from the bad in the world. While he had been hoping and praying that the promise she made as a little girl no longer had any affect on how she conducted her life, he still took the promise very seriously. He stayed away to keep her safe, he moved back to keep an eye on her and while he knew to anyone else that would make him a borderline stalker, to him it was just all part of keeping the promise.
Now that he was working again, he thought a lot about how he had told her he was going to teach her how to make chocolate at some point. He could have always brought her to his apartment, but then she would know where he lived, and she'd probably try to see him a lot more than they were already seeing each other. He had promised to call her and only said he would see about teaching her to make chocolate, but still he was holding what he said very seriously. Probably because he wanted to see her again quite badly and didn't want to admit to it. He could always have her come into the shop and teach her a bit about chocolate making - but that would require permission from his boss.
Though his boss was a bit of a rough man on the outside, he was very much a gentle spirit. His voice kind of carried across the store, and he was probably old enough to be Hal's grandfather but he had kids later on in life causing his two sons and Hal's co-workers to be only a few years older than him. It had largely been a family operation until they hired Hal, something that Hal wished he had realized before he took the job. Fredrick was a nice man, and a good boss, but he was constantly making small remarks like Hal was a part of their family. It could have been due to the fact that Hal had made the mistake of saying that he had no family, but Fredrick had taken quite a liking to him without Hal really ever saying or doing much to deserve such a thing. First it started with little comments about how great of a worker Hal was and then it progressed to inviting Hal over for family dinners and then Fredrick started calling him son. That in itself had freaked out Hal enough to want to move.
But he couldn't move, not with running into Rhea again, so he tried not to dwell on what Fredrick did or said. There were people who had families, and ones who didn't. People who deserved families and nice lives and those who didn't. Hal had convinced himself that since he could see the dead that he was of the latter group. His own mother had abandoned him, clearly it was a sign that he wasn't worth being around, and soon enough Rhea and Fredrick both would realize such things. It was only a matter of time. And it was coming to that very conclusion that he decided he needed to ask Fredrick about Rhea coming into the store. She was probably going to call him a freak and disown him soon enough, so he should take advantage of what little time he had with her while he had it.
As one of Fredrick's sons, Peter, was finally back at work, Fredrick could come to the back a lot more often to get the candies, which was what Fredrick was doing just then. The old but sturdy man came bursting through the door, still laughing at something a customer had said, like he knew that Hal had been thinking about him. "Good morning Hal, how are those chocolates coming along?"
Hal nodded a hello to Fredrick. Even when he was asking him for something, he couldn't be too warm to him, he didn't want to give the guy the wrong impression that he wanted to be a part of that guy's family or whatever Fredrick was trying to do. "Pretty good, sir."
"Hal, you can call me Fredrick, everyone calls me Fredrick!" He said with a laugh. They had that same conversation about every single day. Fredrick was his boss, it was weird to call him by his first name, but the only thing worse than calling him sir was calling him by his last name.
"I know." Hal replied looking back at the chocolates. He paused for a moment before looking back up at Fredrick. "Sir, I mean Fredrick, was wondering about something."
Fredrick smiled as he turned to face Hal, holding a couple of bags of candy in his hands. "What's that?"
"Well," Hal started getting quite nervous now. "I know there are like rules about health codes and all of that and security reasons against it, but this friend of mine wanted to know if I could teach them how to make chocolates, you know, really basic stuff. I'd understand if you said no, I just thought I'd ask."
Fredrick's smile grew as he set down the bags of candy on the counter that Hal was working on and shook his head. "Does this friend of yours need a job? Because if they're interested, really interested, you could intern them."
"Uh no," Hal said with a laugh trying to imagine Rhea doing this sort of thing for a living. "No, she just wanted to learn a bit more about it. Thought it sounded like something she'd want to know."
"She?" Fredrick's eyes lit up as Hal realized he shouldn't have given that part away. "Is she your girlfriend? Hal, you never said you had a girlfriend! I want to meet her."
Hal snorted, his face going red from embarrassment. "She's not my girlfriend. But I did grow up with her."
"But your face is red!" Fredrick gave him a light shove. "You want her to be your girlfriend."
Hal had to fight not to wince and tell him that he needed some personal space. "I don't know about that. We're just...well we're not even really friends anymore. I just ran into her and we got onto the subject of chocolate and she asked if I could teach her something. And I don't have any equipment for this at my house, so I thought I'd ask you if she could come here. That's all."
"Tell her she can come any time!" Fredrick exclaimed happily. "Call her today, tell her to come today."
Hal shook his head. "I don't know about her coming today but I'll tell her she can come okay?"
Fredrick nodded going back over to the bags of candy. "What's her name Hal?"
"Rhea, Rhea Bennett." Hal couldn't look up at Fredrick as he said her name, because he had a feeling what was coming up next.
"Hal and Rhea." Fredrick murmured, causing Hal to wince. Yep, he was right. "Very nice. You're welcome to bring her to dinner any time." And with that, he headed back to the front to no doubt tell Peter about the conversation they just had.
Well, Hal had permission to bring her there, though he wasn't really sure he wanted to take her there now. Not with Fredrick being all weird about it, calling Rhea his girlfriend and inviting the two of them to his family dinner. What was he going to do when he saw Rhea? Would he notice the way Hal looked at her? Would he say something embarrassing? Fredrick was a pretty embarrassing guy sometimes. Would he call Hal son in front of Rhea? He sure hoped not, because that would be extraordinarily weird as well. But he had asked and that had taken a lot for him to do, especially the fact that he had to sit through that whole embarrassing conversation and he couldn't just let it all go to waste. So he had to call her.
I'll call her at lunch. He told himself with a nod before getting back to his work. Of course there were still two hours for him to decide not to call her, two hours talk himself out of this, which was probably what he would have normally done. All these years, all this time, Rhea had only ever been a phone call away and he never once picked up the phone. So why would this time be any different? It was so stupidly easy that it probably would have made him laugh if he realized the truth. He was fine with calling her now and asking her because someone else had given him permission to do so. It was the first time he had told anyone in his new life about Rhea. And they very clearly, very easily, was granted permission to see her. All these years of no, no, no to himself and someone else took the liberty of saying yes for him.