Chapter 73 - Dreams Of Two Not-so Idle Wanderers

Wanting to cheer Winter up after she lost her floppy hat, Ace decided to take her to a restaurant with a live music band.

It seems like diners and eateries nowadays aren't just about the quality of the food anymore. People start looking for more than just a delicious meal. These days, certain places also have a memorable 'experience–this' that includes Instagrammable walls, artsy decor, and even cool music.

Being one who loves to enjoy a meal with good background music, Ace always finds it a huge bonus when he eats out and there's live music to boot. But the hard thing for some music lovers like him is that it's not so easy to find a good restaurant with guaranteed great live music. So, he decided to round up some of his top picks for restaurants that have the additional feature he's looking for.

"I bet you're gonna love this one, Winter. Oh, and don't worry. This is my treat," Ace said as he took Winter to the top of his list of places, ecstatic to show her one of his favorite spots in the city.   

There, she finds that the restaurant doesn't only have standard live music with acoustic sets or a grand piano, but she also learns that it happens to be one of the premier sports bars in the metro. It offers an intimate ambiance, indoor games like billiards, a lounge for watching ongoing sports events, and of course, a music band that changes genres every week.

For today, they're playing classical jazz music, her favorite type of music. 

"Woah, talk about classic, indeed..." Winter chirped as she took her seat across from Ace, staring at the music band playing on the stage in front of them all the while.

"I'd never been in this kind of place before. Do you come here often?"

"Yeah, I do - at least since I turned eighteen, that is. My favorite music band performs here from time to time. I go here to watch them."

"That's nice. You really do love music, huh?"

He nods and grins at that to which she smiles in return.

From that moment on, they continue to take pleasure in the enjoyment offered by the place as well as in each other's company. Like he promised, he treated her to some of the restaurant's bestsellers. She tried to refuse it at first, but when he reasoned out that he wanted to express his gratitude for helping him out earlier, she eventually relented.

'Come to think of it, everything about this moment had never been in my expectations nor my imagination just a short time ago...' Winter thought and glanced at Ace. 

'Spending time with the most popular boy in school was something I didn't know I'd ever do, much less becoming friends with him. I doubt we'd still be this close if I didn't save Ms. Miller back then, which is kind of sad if I think about how that event must take place first before this could happen.'

Indeed, everything happens for a reason, she believes - whether it's good or not. 

Winter is grateful for this friendship, though. She really wanted to avoid Ace before since she didn't want to get involved in any mess with his fan club, but in the end, she realized that it wasn't a good idea. Not only would she give those haters exactly what they wanted, but she would also make him feel bad and conflicted for the rest of their senior year. Right now, though, she's glad that things between them worked out of the better.

"Say, Winter, you really think I've got a model-like figure?" Ace brought up all of the sudden, making her snap out of her thoughts.

"Huh? Where did that just come from?" Winter giggled, not expecting that he would think that much about what she said earlier.     

"I'm just thinking. You see, it's my dream to own a place like this in the future. I want to play music in front of an audience too. But then, being a musician alone will not help me save enough money to build a restaurant. So, I'm kinda wondering if I can become a model or something, earn some money then further pursue a music career. I know you might want to point out that I've got a step sister who's literally the future CEO of a company, but I think it'll be much more fulfilling if I do this on my own." 

"And I think that's a wonderful dream to have. Of course, there are many ways for you to achieve it. Being a model can be one of them if you're serious about it. But the thing is, all that really matters is that you like what you're doing - whether it's for the purpose of earning money or not. And just so you know, Ms. Violet will absolutely wanna help you out in this dream of yous. You can also depend on her even just for a little."

"Sounds like you've got quite the experience. Do you also enjoy doing the things you're doing to achieve your dream?"     

At his question, she comes to a pause, thrown into deep thought. 

Her goal is to get back what's rightfully hers - the position of CEO and the head of the Middleton's. And what she's doing now to achieve that is forming connections with different kinds people who'll play a big part in the future. At first, she thought that she's taking advantage of them. She even felt like she would have to manipulate them at some point, and she felt bad about it because she knew she went through the same thing before she traveled back in time.

However, what Winter ended up with was relationships - ones that she wished to cherish as much as she could despite her fear of getting abandoned again.

"Well, I guess I do enjoy it. But it's still more challenging than enjoyable. I think you'll only be able to really experience the enjoyment once you see how worthwhile the outcome of your efforts are, including the good encounters you'll come across with along the way," Winter said with an earnest smile while Ace regarded her in contemplation.

"I see. So, what's your dream, then?"

"O-Oh,  ummmm..."

"I think taking up business suits you."

"It does?"

"Yeah! Violet and that Lexington dude always compliment you. They say you're smart and capable, which I definitely don't doubt at all. I even heard that you're giving advices that always turn out to be useful."

Winter can't help but blush a little. 

Even now, she's not used to those kinds of compliments. The Middleton's would call her incompetent and useless most of the time, after all. Even though she worked herself to death, she never got the recognition she deserved. But after she learned that they'd been plotting against her all along, she tried her hardest not to let their mockery and degradation get to her anymore.       

Ever since, she had decided to work hard for herself and for those who truly cared about her.

"By the way, Ace..." Winter called out again, putting on a flat look after recalling something.

"Did you just call Sir Lexington 'that Lexington dude'?"

"What? He's a dude, right?" Ace stated dramatically, acting like he was even doing Marcellus a favor by using his surname properly at the very least.

"What got into you two? You guys are being childish these days."

"Yeah, yeah. He's being childish."

She only let out an incredulous sigh at that, finding their relationship strange yet a little amusing. 

---

"Oh, so not a sugar daddy this time, but a guy friend instead? How interesting."

Despite saying it's interesting, the way August glares daggers at Ace is not how someone who's interested looks.

Contrary to what Winter was expecting, he was already at home soon after lunchtime. She thought he'd be out until early in the evening, but it turned out that he's finally at home when they arrived - and he's not at all pleased finding her with a 'guy friend' or so he called.

Now, the two of them are standing by the doorway, already getting interrogated not even a moment after they came.

"Don't treat Ace like a stranger, August. You know he's Ms. Violet's brother," Winter muttered, letting out a sigh when August only carried on with suspecting them.

"What? He's still a guy, right?"

"Ughhhh... You boys are really all the same-" 

"I do hope that he's only a friend, too. But that leads me to my second question. Do friends even spend nearly the whole day only eating out...? Together? Alone? And he's a guy?"

With how he always acts strict like this whenever she's with someone of the opposite sex, she doubts she'll ever even get a boyfriend - not that she wants to, anyway. He can nag and worry all he wants, but she's not going to pull out some reverse psychology here and start dating someone as an act of rebellion.

She does want him to trust her more, though. He should know her better than that.

"Oh, but you're mistaken. Winter and I are not only friends." 

Yet as soon as Ace decided to say that all of the sudden, smiling a beaming smile at the same time, Winter felt like she'd been betrayed while August went dark and saw red at that very moment.