Bike Troubles - Roxy Attn: Any

[Roxy Rivera]

The school day was done and Roxy had made it out, relatively unscathed. Sure the morning and been a little interesting...mostly due to that weird Sebastian kid who Roxy had made a mental note to avoid. The rest of the day had mostly been uneventful. She'd had a sugar rush most of the morning thanks to the cotton candy, and she'd hardly eaten much lunch and now she was craving a really good after school snack.

She headed towards the bike rack with an extra skip in her step, excited that it was the weekend and she had two whole days that she didn't have to worry about school. By the time she got there, the rack was mostly empty as it seemed everyone tended to rush out of school as quickly as possible on Friday's. Roxy' was no exception. She already had plans of hitting up the candy store for some more sugar...or maybe she'd stop and get a burger or something...she was pretty hungry.

Either way, food was the plan, until she saw that her bright green beach cruiser bicycle had a flat tire. Roxy let out a sigh as she walked over to it to give it a closer inspection. She knelt down next to it to see a nail jammed into the tire. She must have run over it on the way to school that morning without realizing. The air must have let out over the course of the day.

Roxy stood up and placed her hands on her hips, not as eager to walk, but she supposed she had no choice. Now she just had to decide if she wanted to take her bike now or hold off and get her dad to drive her back to school later and pick it up.

Tag Any

[felipe]

The afternoon had sped past and before he realised it the final bell had sounded. Felipe still hadn't heard from Jessica and hadn't seen her around school. Maybe she was ill? He drew out his phone to send her another text, fingers poised over the buttons as he wandered out of the main building and towards the bike shed.

No... If he sent another one wouldn't it look like he was stalking her? If she was ill then she wouldn't be reading her texts and if she wasn't then she would have had his first one by now nd by not replying that might huint she wasn't interested. If so he'd only be making an even more annoyance of himself by hounding after her. It was better to wait... Assuming he could!

He pushed his phone back into a side pocket of his pack before slinging it over one shoulder and extending his stride. A short (ish) ride home and then he'd have a think about what to do that evening. The weekend stretched out before him, too, but hopefully something would come up as the prospect of spending it alone had absolutely no appeal what so ever.

He reached the covered bike area and dropped down into a crouch to unlock the chain around the front wheel of his transport home. He glanced up mid way through completing that action and peered through the spokes, squinting slightly to try and make out what the figure at the far end was doing.

She - it was female for sure - seemed to be examining her wheel. A flat?

Felipe pushed himself back to his feet and wandered down the virtually empty row... "Need a hand?" he asked and the brunette looked up at him, pointing at the tyre.

"Ah... that looks terminal," he added. "We might be able to patch it to get you home though... I have some stuff if you want me to try...? I'm Felipe," he added in something of an after thought.

[Roxy Rivera]

Roxy wasn't really paying attention to anyone around her. She was more intent on deciding what to do with her bike when the older boy appeared, offering her help. She looked up at him...definitely an upperclassmen...a junior or a senior...and a cute one at that. Roxy didn't hang out with a tone of older people. Her best friends were freshmen like herself and when they did end up in a group of upperclassmen, like she had earlier today or when they'd gone ghost-hunting, they were more the types that were interested in crazy antics than anything else, so they weren't exactly intimidating. Okay, maybe she wasn't exactly intimidated...Roxy didn't exactly scare easily, but still, she wasn't used to good looking upperclassmen giving her the time of day unless they too were in search of cotton candy. In fact this was the second time today she'd met an older boy by the bike rack...she'd have to start riding her bicycle to school more often!

"Uh, yeah, thanks," she said, offering the other boy a smile. "I guess it happened on the way to school and I didn't really notice until now," she admitted. "Too bad too cause it would have been easier to fix had I caught it when the air was still in the tires," she said as she pushed some of her hair behind her ear. She wore it down and wavy today, but now she was wondering if it would have looked better had she taken the time to straighten it. She supposed it looked good wavy even though it took less effort.

"Oh you keep stuff with you?" Roxy asked, raising her eyebrows. "I was thinking about just walking it back, or catching the bus or something," she said, since the LA buses had bike racks on the front of them, "but if you can patch it, that would probably be easier."

She smiled. What luck. Cute, older boy fixing her bike. He had a nice accent too. "I'm Roxy by the way," she added, deciding to introduce herself, "Do you go to Gould? Or Silver? I don't think I've seen you around before," she admitted, although partly that was because of her crowd rarely reaching beyond other freshmen.

[felipe]

"Nenhum problema," he replied with a smile. "And yes. From habit I carry a basic repair kit," he continued. "The roads back home aren't anywhere as good as this and too many times I ended up having to push my bike back to the house. A habit I seem to have continued with here," he added with a laugh. "I attend Silver," Felipe replied. "And not many people have seen me. I'm pretty new to here. In fact, I only really have met a handful of people and am happy to be able to add you to that list. Um momento." Felipe pushed himself back to his feet after crouching down next to Roxy to examine her damaged tyre. He darted back to his bike and was soon back with a small repair kit.

"It is only going to be temporary but will hopefully be enough to see you reach home. I'm sure you will need a new inner tube, though, as the nail has gone in deeply." He opened the repair kit and emerged with a plug. Felipe opened a multi-purpose tool and used it to remove the nail. Had the wheel still held air he would have left it in place and suggested she make for home as it was but the tyre was as flat as it could get, meaning the nail wasn't forming an air-tight bung.

"This won't take long," he assured her. "Do you have very far to go?"

[Roxy Rivera]

"That's probably smart," Roxy said, standing up when he did. "I guess I don't always ride my bike to school that much...a lot of times I get rides and stuff," she said. "Even if you repair it, do you know where I can get some air?" she asked, "Or is a pump part of your repair kit?" she asked, kind of wishing that he was flirting more, but maybe he just thought she was too young. Roxy had a bit of a wild streak in her that most people didn't realize...this was what fed her interest in older boys. Who knew what she'd have gotten into had she been on her own all the time. Luckily for her, her friends kept her escapades rather innocent. But at that moment Roxy wasn't really thinking about that being a good thing. Right away, she thought that perhaps she should start dressing more mature.

"So you're new," she said. "Where ya from?" she asked. Judging from his accent he wasn't from around here, but you never knew. He could have moved to the states when he was young. Some people lost their accents and others did not. "I go to Gould," she said, not saying what year she was, partly because he hadn't and partly because she didn't want to admit she was a freshman, even though it was probably obvious.

Roxy didn't really know what he was talking about with the inner tube. She was just going to ask her dad to get her a new tire...simple as that. Her family wasn't exuberantly rich, but being upper middle class, they could afford a simple bicycle tire. "Don't worry about it," she said when he assured her that it wouldn't take long. "I'm just thankful for the help," she said with a grin.


"Nope, not terribly far," she said shaking her head. "I live in Santa Monica," she told him. It wasn't the closest, but not the farthest either. She kind of wondered where he was going but didn't ask.

[felipe]

"I also have a pump," he reassured Roxy. "So you will be fine once I've dealt with the actual hole. Otherwise we would have had to blow it up by mouth and that would have been tricky," he added with a wink. "And you're right. I'm very new to the area. I am originally from Brazil. São Paulo. Have you heard of it? It's actuially the biggest city in Brazil. Most people think Rio holds that claim but its not true. São Paulo is very different to here." Felipe had apparently mastered the art of understatement. "We moved here only a few days ago. In fact, my first day at school was the one of the shootings. It was... a strange first day." He'd done it again. Understating facts. Strange didn't even come close to describing those events.

"I'm glad you don't have far to go," Felipe continued. "This patch will be enough but it won't hold for too long." He squeezed a blob of rubber cement over the now inserted plug and waited for a few seconds for it to set. All that was left for him to re-inflate the tyre.

A couple of minutes later and the bike was ready to go. "In case it loses its air again I can lend you my pump... if you would like? Or, if you don't feel confident enough I am more than happy to ride to your home with you and make sure you reach it safely?" He offered the pretty brunette a bright smile. "I swear I'm not a serial killer or anything." Felipe rested his hand over the left side of his chest as he spoke, adding a further depth to his oath. "But then, if I WAS a serial killer I would hardly admit to it... would I?" he finished with another wink.

[Roxy Rivera]

"Wow, you are prepared," Roxy said, watching him as he worked on her bike tire. She nodded when he mentioned the place he was from in Brazil. "Yeah, I've heard of it," she said. Really it only sounded vaguely familiar and the other place he mentioned--Rio, she'd definitely heard of, but she didn't mention this. Roxy wasn't exactly and expert when it came to Brazil. A few names of places here and there sparked a memory but that was pretty much it.

"Eek, that must have sucked," Roxy said when he told her his first day was the shootings. "At least you seemed to have made it out alright," she said. Roxy had also been okay. She'd hid in a broom closet and hadn't come out until it was all over. She knew however that many of the students hadn't been so lucky. Like...Ezzie...she'd lost her sister. "I bet your parents wanted to move right back," she said, thinking it must have been really scary to start a new school and get shoot at on the same day.

"Yep," she said simply when he mentioned it being good that she didn't have far to go, and then he even offered to ride with her to make sure she made it. He smiled and winked and her and even made a joke. Roxy couldn't tell if he was starting to flirt or if he was more teasing her as if she was a little kid. "I suppose if I was a serial killer, I wouldn't admit it either," she smirked. "Who knows, I could be one...always the one's you'd least suspect," she teased back. "As for riding back with me though, it's okay. Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't want you to have to go out of your way," she told him. After all, she had no idea where he lived. For all she knew he needed to go in the opposite direction and while his offer was nice and even enticing, if he was flirting, it seemed silly to her to ride all the way to Santa Monica if he didn't need to.

[felipe]

"Nah, we are used to gang warfare. There's a lot of it in Brazil... and in the city where we lived. I admit that finding such similar trouble here was unexpected but back home it was a lot worse than this. But yes, I made it out ok." Felipe was trying to forget how close he came to stopping a bullet in his head when he'd stepped in between a gunman and Bree. "You know a Japanese boy called Tak... something? He stopped me from being shot. I haven't seen him since to thank him properly."

"Where do you live? I really don't mind riding with you... even if it takes me out of my way. I like the exercise." He smiled when she told him it was the Santa Monica area. "That's also where I live!" he stated. "Fantástico! There's no reason why we can't travel together. You probably know some short cuts as well and so will be helping me out. I'll get my bike..."

Felipe vanished again and was back soon after, wheeling his bike. He put the pack back onto his back and cleared up his repair kit.

"Shall we, querido...?" he said in invitation and he reached down a hand to assist Roxy to her feet.

[Roxy Rivera]

"Oh wow...then I guess it is better here," she said. "That's the first time anything like this has ever happened here...well, at least at school," Roxy told him. "Taki...yeah, I know him. He's dating Izzy," she said. "He knows one of my good friends, Thad," she said, not really going into the ghost hunting or cotton candy excursions she had hung out with him on.

"Oh, cool," she said when he was in Santa Monica too. He seemed really excited about it and Roxy smiled. "Yeah, I can show you a short cut, I know one," she said with a nod. She got onto her bike, bouncing it a little to see if the patch would hold. "It seems to be working, thanks," she said.

She waited for him to to put his kit away and unlock and get on his bike. "Yeah, sure," she said. "Does querido...mean go?" she asked. "Is that Spanish? My dad speaks fluent Spanish and kind of tried to teach me but I only know a few words," she admitted. Once he got on his bike, she started to ride.

[felipe]

"No... It means sweetheart," he told her with a grin. "And it's Portuguese... not Spanish. We speak Portuguese in Brazil. Its a very different language but sounds similar to most people. In Spanish I would have called you 'amor'," Felipe said and his dark eyes glinted with mischief.

They set off, chatting amicably enough with Felipe teaching Roxy one or two words in Portuguese. Hopefully she'd never get to use the greeting he'd taught her as most Portuguese people wouldn't like to be met with 'hello, horse's ass' but it would be seriously funny to be close by if and when that ever happened.

They reached a particularly pretty point in their journey and Felipe called them both to a standstill. "The ocean is so differnt here to what I'm more used to," he said. "The sea off the coast in Brazil seems so... angry. Here it's peaceful. I'm not sure which I prefer." The scene was as chalk was to cheese. Gone were the screes of cliff faces and the crashing, pounding monotony of waves against rock. Peaceful. Serene. A silence that was deafening in its own way.

He gazed out across the water. "How long have you lived in California, Roxy? All your life?"