{Coin Operated Boy} ~ Chapter 2 ~

    "You looked so rediculous!" Cloe said, laughing so hard she almost choked on her slurpie. We had just left Hot Topic, and somehow she convinced me to try on a plether mini-skirt that had a pink fluffy bunny tail attached to the back, and straps crossing the front with the words "Hunny Bunny" stitched in. It looked stupid.
    "Yeah, you didn't look so hott either." I replied with a playful glare. Which was a lie, of course. Cloe, being Cloe, pulled it off completely. I thought she should actually buy it, but I didn't say anything. We both knew I was attempting to protect my self-esteem, but it didn't work since we both knew. But Cloe's such a great friend that she played along.
    "I know! What was I thinking?" She laughed again and I sucked on my slurpie, randomly looking around.
    Suddenly Cloe tugged on my arm, marching in some odd direction. I whiped around violently, being dragged along helplessly behind her.
    "Where are we going??" I demanded, tripping over myself.
    "Ovwer membremgrafell." Cloe said, still sucking on the straw of her slurpie to get the last bits.
    "I didn't know you don't speak english." I replied.
    She chucked her empty cup into a trash bin and turned to talk to me, but still charging forward, gripping firmly to my arm.
    "The compbot store! I'm gonna buy you something." She said excitedly.
    "Okay, pause," I said, and we stopped. "One, Compbot stores are THE MOST expensive stores anywhere in the world... that I know of. And two, when did we decide that you're going to get me a gift?"
   "But... I thought... to cheer you up..." Cloe said, her eye glazing over and a "Mommy, can I please have that puppy since you ran over my other on last Christmas?" look to top it off.
   "FINE!" I said, and she smiled broadly, pulling me into the store. As we entered, two boys were rushing out, all four of us smashing into each other. Cloe was caught by one of the boys, but I went tumbling to the ground.
   "Ow..." I moaned, rubbing my back as I sat up. The boy with blond hair scooted past me, mumbling a quick apology, but the boy who'd caught Cloe hadn't let go yet. He had black hair and dark eyes and looked asian, Japanese probably.
   "Elliot, let's go." The other boy said, holding the door open.
   "Yeah..." Elliot replied, staring at Cloe with stars in his eyes. He finally released her and ran out the door.
   "Gee, what gentleman." I said, pulling myself off the floor.
   "Yeah..." Cloes said airily, staring out the glass door. I rolled my eyes and turned to look at the store. There were a lot of models in this store, and I began browsing the racks of the newer cat models.
   "Are you interested in buying something today?" I heard the storeclerk ask Cloe.
   "Yeah, but do you know who those boys where that were just in here?" Cloe asked. I giggled under my breath. She was such a flirt...
   "Boys?" The graying clerk repeated. "I'm sorry, I've been in the back room for the past twenty minutes. I didn't know anyone else had come in."
   "Oh... that's okay." Cloe said.
   I turned and went over to the clearance rack of human models. There was a small child with brown hair in pigtails and small grey eyes. I bent down to look at her, then read her tag. She didn't speak or eat and she only processed information at 10 searches per minute. I patted her head and went to the next one, which was a man in a modern suit with black hair. He also had the same setbacks as the little girl.
    Well, I guess that's why the call it 'clearance', I thought to myself.
    But a different robot caught my eye. He was about three inches taller than me and looked like a teenager. There were a few teen compbots, but none like this. His skin was light tan and his eyes were like amazing sapphires. His black hair fell across his forhead, a few strands over his eye. A moment before I looked down for his tag, I could have swore he'd blinked, but it must have been my imagination. I hesitantly took my eyes from his beautiful face to look for his tag, but he didn't have one. He was wearing a blue button up shirt and black pants. I looked back up into his eyes. He looked too real...
"Wow, what a cutie." Cloe said, coming up behind me.
"Yeah... I mean, I guess..." I said, hoping Cloe didn't notice my studder.
She didn't. "Are you kidding me? Look at him, Sarah, he's gorgeous!" She exclaimed, gesturing to the compbot dramatically.
"Yeah, and he's also a ro-bot!" I said.
"Fine, do you want to go to another store?" Cloe asked. Wow.... that was the fastest she's ever given up on getting her point across...
"Um.. yeah, sure." I said, reluctant to leave the beautiful robot.
We began leaving the shop and had just stepped out when she stopped. I turned to look at her but all I saw was a flash of red and her saying "I forgot my purse!!"
She was so forgetful sometimes... I sat on a bench and waited for her. A good three minutes went by until I realized that
1. It should take no one that long to retrieve a purse.
and
2. That flash of red was her purse.
I got up and ran into the store where Cloe was standing at the counter with the storeclerk. There was a piece of paper in front of her and she had a pen in her hand. No... that wasn't just a piece of paper. That's a contract! I looked next to her, and sure enough, the cute compbot from before was standing next to her.
"Cloe! Please, please tell me you didn't just do what I think you did." I said, horrified.
"No, not yet," She said, then wrote her name on the contract. "Now I have!" she said happily.
"No! Take it back!" I yelled at the clerk.
"Sorry, no can do," he said, rubbing the back of his head and looking genuinly sorry. "That there's a two month contract."
"Cloe!! How could you? I told you no, and that meant NO!" I yelled. Suddenly, her eyes glazed over. Yes, we all know what's coming.
"But... I just thought.... Does this mean... my gift isn't... good enough?" She asked.
I sighed, dropping my head and fighting back tears. For some reason, whenever I got really surprised, scared or very, very angry, I had an overwhelming urge to cry. No, I'm not a cry baby, I just... leak a lot.
"It's fine, Cloe. It's... fine." I mumbled. She brightened up instantly and smiled hugely.
"Yay!" She said, clapping. I looked up into the compbots sapphire eyes again.
This is going to be an interesting summer...