First Encounter

It was a hot summer’s day with a perfectly blue sky and a soft breeze.

The weather was perfect for a garden party. It was that perfect point in the summer when most flowers were in bloom and it’s considered acceptable to laze around in the sun all afternoon.

The garden of the Chadwick family was no exception to those rules. The rosebushes looked exceptionally stunning in the sunlight and Flynn Chadwick had already spent an hour outside reading a book.

He came to the end of his current favourite mystery novel and wondered if he could sneak back into the house to get the next volume. He looked around surreptitiously for his mother. He was supposed to be on his best behaviour for the impending garden party. His parents hosted a lot of those in the summer and this one was apparently very important.

Flynn stood up and began sneaking around the rose bushes. There might be enough time to sneak into the house.

“Flynn! The Albury’s have arrived!” his mother shouted loudly. 

That scuppered his plan. He scowled and trudged across the garden until his mother was in sight. She smiled at him and took his hand.

“There you are. I promise this one won’t be too boring for you. The Alburys have a son the same age as you and there won’t be any other guests this time.”

That caused his mood to dramatically increase. He hated the parties with lots of guests asking for his name and declaring that he was adorable. The only decent things about those parties with all the cake and sweets available. He had an insatiable sweet tooth.

His mother led him to the veranda where a group of three people were waiting. The man and woman had to be Mr and Mrs Albury. The surname was familiar to him as his parents often discussed business matters at the dinner table. The blond child standing in between them had to be the son. The son looked to be around 10 which was the same as him.

The cake in the child’s hand was much more interesting than the child himself. Flynn fixed his attention on it with intense focus. It had to be a homemade chocolate cake.

His father was already talking a mile a minute with the man and woman. Flynn met eyes with their son and averted his eyes immediately. His shyness was still uncontrollable. His mother pushed him forward with a light hand.

“You can go off and play with him. However, you must greet Mr and Mrs Albury first.”

“...Hello,” he muttered and stared at the ground instead of making eye contact with them.

“Aw, he’s adorable,” Mrs Albury commented and leaned forward towards him.

Flynn stepped out of her reach and darted behind his mother. He hated meeting strangers.

“Sorry, he’s a little shy,” his mother explained.

She was always doing that. He was glad that she didn’t hold it against him. One day he would be able to talk to people properly. Right now that thought seemed to be impossible.

“Flynn, you can show your new friend to the refreshment table,” his father said and bent down so they were eye level. “He’s called Lucas and he brought a cake with him.”

“I have eyes,” Flynn retorted quietly.

“In the future you will be seeing him a lot so it would help if you became friends,” his father replied gently.

His father straightened up and pushed him forward with the same softness as his mother. Flynn had no choice but to look at Lucas.

“I’m Lucas Albury,” Lucas said formally and held out his hand.

Flynn bit his lip and managed a two second hand shake before drawing his hand back like it was on fire. He hated the formality that came with meeting new people. In the future he would hopefully master it.

“Let’s get some refreshments,” he said quickly to avoid eye contact and strode off in the direction of the table that had been set up in the garden.

Lucas followed a few paces behind him and surveyed the table which was full of cakes, sandwiches and teapots with different teas.. He went straight for the Darjeeling teapot and poured out a measure of tea with a steady hand that Flynn approved of. He was still not trusted enough to pour himself tea due to the hot water.

“I like four cubes of sugar in my tea,” he informed him.

Lucas prepared him a cup of tea to his specifications without passing any judgement about the amount of sugar which only made Flynn approve of him even more.

Then Lucas cut a slice of the cake he had brought with him and plated it neatly before holding it out to Flynn.

“I wanted to get into baking cakes, can you give me your opinion?”

The cake in question was a chocolate cake which was Flynn’s favourite. The top was studded with small chocolates that looked a little questionable. The rest of the cake looked all right and he found the texture passable when he took a bite. Flynn was also quite a critic after eating a lot of cake so he had an unusual amount of things to say for his usual standard.

“It definitely tastes like a child made it. There’s too much cocoa in it so there’s a bitter taste and it’s not been evenly dispersed in the cake. It could also do with some more volume, did you use any raising agents?” he paused and looked at the cake again. “What are the chocolates on the top? They’re too sickly to match the cake.”

Lucas twirled a strand of his blond hair nervously and coughed. He was definitely taken aback and Flynn began to feel like he had gone too far.

“...Thank you for telling me the truth, I guess,” he replied with hesitation. “I like chocolate making as well so I added the chocolate. It was probably too ambitious.”

Flynn tried to think of something he could say to comfort Lucas. His parents ran a chocolate company so there was something he could say and mean.

“I’ll give you my opinion any time,” he said and took another bite of the cake. “If you actually get good at the chocolate making when I take over the company, I’ll hire you without a second thought.”

It was a bold claim to make as the future was never certain and he might not want to take over the company when he was older or the company might not exist in the same way, but neither of them pointed that out. 

Lucas held out his shortest finger.

“Will you formally promise that?” he questioned eagerly.

Flynn stared at the outstretched finger with a skeptical eye.

“What's the finger for?”

“It’s for our pinky promise. Have you not heard of them?”

Flynn shook his head and Lucas smiled at him.

“That’s okay, you can learn now. It’s a way to formalise a promise. Hold out your baby finger.”

Flynn took that new idea in his stride and let Lucas link their fingers together. It was a strange sensation, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

“I promise to become good enough to work for you,” Lucas declared with renewed confidence and a charismatic look in his brown eyes.

“I promise to hire you if you meet my very high standards,” Flynn announced solemnly.

Lucas said something else that was lost in the ether of the dream. 

Dreams are something that will never be truly understood. It is never clear whether the dream was remembered correctly or the mind made up the transitions. Sometimes dreams are based on memories or things other parts of the brain was dwelling on. Other times they are not.

The current Flynn woke up and promptly forgot his dream the moment he opened his eyes. He had no memory of the promise he had made when he was 10.

There was also someone else who had experienced the same dream living across the city. 

Lucas fully remembered the promise and was waiting for a chance to encounter Flynn so he could fulfil his part of the promise.