I looked at myself in the mirror. This was more casual than my makeover on Blind Date, but I felt just as beautiful.
Oh my god, I thought. I was going to have sex tonight.
The pulsing in my body came back with full force. Looking at the time, I remembered that I had to get to school for the exam. Grabbing my backpack, I ran to the bus-stop and caught the next bus. The time was ticking away and it wouldn’t be long before the exam started.
Finally at school, I ran into the hall.
“It took you long enough! I thought you were going to miss the exam,” Whitney said. She was standing inside the room, looking up her designated seat. “Hey, you look nice.” A realization hit her and her eyes grew wide. “You’re going on your date tonight!”
“His phone,” I said. “I have it.”
“What?”
“He left his phone at my place last night. That’s why he hasn’t been answering my calls!”
“And you expect him to show up for the date still?”
I nodded. “I know he will.”
Whitney smiled wickedly. “This is so exciting! Are you ready?”
“For the exam or the date?” I asked.
Whitney laughed. “Take your pick.”
“Let’s go.”
We found our assigned seats, which were across the room from one another.
I looked around the room. There were no windows or clocks anywhere to indicate the time. I didn’t have a wrist-watch either, and my phone was tucked into my bag, which was off-limits during the exam.
I hoped to do the exam in two and a half hours. That way I could freshen up before Johnny showed up.
“Settle down, everyone,” the professor said, capturing everyone’s attention.
I looked at Whitney across the room. She smiled. I smiled back.
“Before I hand out the exams, I want to announce something important. The Dean reviewed the exam and dictated that it would take at least three hours to complete.” The classroom groaned. “Therefore, due to the University law, we must extend the length of the exam to four hours to allow enough time for proper review.” The class groaned even louder.
What!? Four hours with review?
Even if I didn’t do the review, I still might need that extra time for the exam. This meant I might miss my date with Johnny! And with his phone dead, I had no way of telling him. I exchanged a panicked look with Whitney, who looked pale white. Sorry, she mouthed.
In my head, I swore a long chain of swear words.
What was I going to do?
“You may now turn over your exams and begin,” the professor announced. The sound of a hundred exams being turned over drowned out the incessant questions in my head. Refusing to waste even one second, I turned over my exam and began reading the questions.
Flying through the multiple choice section, I reached the short answer section. I had to pick eight of the ten questions and answer them in a few short paragraphs.
My mind clicked into autopilot as my hand flew across the page, transcribing the answers I prepared during the previous study week.
Breaking me from my deep though, the assistant professor wrote a large ‘3’ on the board.
“Three hours left,” he announced.
Three hours left? That meant an hour had already gone by!
Shit!
I leafed through the rest of the exam. I still had half the short answer questions and all the long essay questions left! If I completed all these questions in the next hour I’d be able to make it home in time for my date with Johnny.
Kicking it up a notch, I started writing faster, finishing off the short answer section. Now it was time for the long essay questions. There were five topics and I had to write a long essay on three of them.
I chose my topics and began writing.
At some point during an exam, I entered a state of flow, where my thoughts flowed freely and my hand danced across the page.
“One hour left,” the professor said, drawing a big ‘1’ on the board.
One hour? ONE HOUR?!
What happened to the two hour warning? I looked at the professor who was erasing the large ‘2’ off the board and replacing it with a ‘1’. I was so in my head that I didn’t even hear the professor announce the two hour mark.
The realization of what that meant hit me.
Fuck!
Johnny was at my apartment right now, waiting for me. And where was I? Stuck at an exam without my phone.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
I looked across the room at Whitney, but she was already gone. I hurried through my essay questions, writing so fast that my hand cramped and I was sure it would fall off.
“Alright everyone, hand in your exams.”
I whipped my head up. It was nine o’clock. The time flew by.
Damn. I was an hour late for my date. There went my chance at a date with Johnny Logan.
I got up and walked my exam to the professor. My heart beat hard and fast in my chest, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I was handing in an important exam or because I might have lost the chance of seeing Johnny Logan again.
After handing the exam to the professor, I exited the room. Before I had time to think, Whitney jumped on me and began pushing me down the hallway.
“Okay, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to my van and we’ll rush to your place.”
“I’m an hour late! Why would he still be there?”
Whitney shrugged. “You never know.”
“And what if he’s not?”
“We find him anyway we can. We’ll call his agent, spam Johnny’s Twitter, anything we can think of.”
Whitney’s plan sounded crazy, but I didn’t know what other options I had.
I ran alongside Whitney towards the parking lot. Whitney’s father was in a metal band in the ‘80s and Whitney inherited their tour van on her sixteenth birthday. Her father didn’t think twice about the van featuring artwork of a topless woman riding a mechanical eagle. She re-painted the van dark purple but, in the right light, the topless woman’s rippling muscles and the majestic eagle’s mechanical wings could still be seen.
Whitney turned her key in the ignition. The engine coughed to life and the van shook beneath us. “That’s right. Don’t fail me now, baby.” Whitney rubbed a hand on the dashboard. She stepped on the gas and the van jolted forward.
A sinking feeling in my stomach told me that I ruined my one and only chance of being with Johnny Logan.
“I screwed this whole thing up.” I shook my head. “Why didn’t I tell him to meet me later?”
“Because you’re a nerd and you like to go to bed early?”
“Hey!”
Whitney chuckled as she raced across campus. “Don’t worry. You didn’t screw it up. Him leaving his phone behind was a mistake. The exam running long wasn’t your fault either.”
“You’re right.” I let out a sigh, hoping to deflate the pent up stress in my chest.
Pulling up to my street, Whitney parked the car. “Madi, look.”
A silver sports car sat in the back of the parking lot. Someone was leaning back on the passenger door.
“It’s Johnny!”
My heart-rate quickened. He was waiting for me.
“I knew he liked you.” Whitney smirked. “Britt always knows a match. Here.” She stuffed a handful of condoms into my purse.
“Whitney!”
“What? You’ll need them! It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
I knew she was right, it was just weird to think about. I wasn’t used to needing condoms.
She looked at me. “Are you ready?”
I looked out the front windshield at Johnny. He was dressed in black slacks and a white button-down shirt with the cuffs rolled up, showing off his forearms. A teenage dream, waiting for me.
All my fear from yesterday came back to me with full force. I swallowed back my trepidation.
“What’s wrong?” Whitney furrowed her brow. “You�
��re not afraid he’ll be upset, are you?”
I shook my head.
Whitney sighed. “I know what this is about.” She leaned over and looked at me. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but you can’t stay scared forever. The best way to put that fear behind you is to get over it.”
Whoa. Whitney could read me as well as Johnny did. Reading emotions must have been an actor thing.
She was right. I wasn’t scared to be intimate with someone, I was excited. And anxious.
“So,” she said. “You ready?”
Letting out a deep breath, I nodded. “I’m ready.” And I was.
“Johnny!” Madison got out of the monstrous van and ran up to me. “Have you been here this whole time?” Before giving me a chance to answer, she shook her head. “Never-mind that. I’m sorry for being late. My exam got delayed—”
I put up my hand. “I know.” I looked behind her at the beat-up, purple van. “Did you get kidnapped?”
She laughed. “That’s my friend, Whitney.” She looked back at the van where a blond woman waved frantically from the driver’s seat. An actress, I thought. I could tell from the smile. We both waved back.
As the van turned away, the image of an eagle and a glorious pair of breasts caught in the light. I chuckled. It was the kind of van I could see myself driving.
Madison looked back at me. “Johnny,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I had no way to contact you. If you want to go on our date now, or even reschedule the date so we can get back the hour we missed—”
I couldn’t help but laugh at how efficient she was. “Slow down. You don’t have to apologize.” She gave me a sorry smile. “You look gorgeous.”
She truly did. She looked like a refreshing breath of air. Her bashfulness was endearing. “Thank you,” she said. “I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”
“I didn’t. I knew your exam would run long.”
She stopped. “Wait, you did? How?”
“After ten minutes of waiting, I called the school and they told me. I figured you’d take the whole four hours, so I left for a bit, got dinner, and came back.”
“Dinner?” She asked.
I laughed. “Are you hungry?”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
“Good, because I got enough for both of us. Let’s go.” I opened the passenger door for her and watched her get in. I couldn’t help but notice how different she was now compared to yesterday. She was mature and confident. She was sexy.
I wasn’t sure if it was the high from finishing the exam, the new car smell mixing with the aroma of piping hot fries, or the adrenaline rush I got from seeing Johnny, but I felt ready to take on the world.
Johnny got into the driver’s seat and turned the engine on. The car hummed beneath us, silence compared to Whitney’s snoring monster. The sun hung low in the sky, casting a bronze glow on everything, including Johnny. He slipped his sunglasses on and looked at me, smiling that devilish smirk.
He looked delicious.
“Did I tell you that you look beautiful tonight?”
My cheeks burned. “Yes, you did.”
He smirked before looking forward and kicking the car into motion. The car zoomed down the street and onto the highway. The half-opened windows blew in a wonderful breeze.
“Having fun?” Johnny asked. The timbre of his voice vibrated deep in my belly.
“This is great! Much smoother than Whitney’s van.”
“I hope so.” Johnny chuckled. “This is a Bugatti Veyron 16.4. One of the fastest, smoothest cars in the world.”
I didn’t know what any of that meant, nor did I care.
“How was the exam?” He asked, changing the subject after noting my disinterest.
“It went well.”
“That’s it? Well?”
“Well,” I started. He shot me a smirk. Butterflies swarmed in my belly. “I was worried you’d think I stood you up. I was worried you wouldn’t want to talk to me again.”
He let out a laugh. “You didn’t have to worry about that.” The setting sun reflected in his glasses when he looked over at me. “Now that I’ve found you, I’m not going to let you go that easily.”
Oh my. Did Johnny Logan really just say that to me? I didn’t do drugs, but I imagined this was what they felt like.
“It’s funny, I wanted to call you earlier today to confirm the date with you, but I couldn’t find my phone. It was the weirdest thing.”
I reached into my backpack and pulled out his phone, holding it up. We both started laughing.
“So that’s where it went!”
“I found it in my couch.”
“It must have slipped out of my pocket when we were making out.”
He was refreshingly blunt. Heat rushed through me.
“Just put it down there.” He gestured towards a futuristic looking charging dock. There was already a new phone in the dock. Taking it out, I connected Johnny’s old phone which blinked to life. “So are you sure you took enough time on that exam?”
I answered even though he was teasing me. “An exam is a challenge. I like challenges.”
“Did you encounter any?”
“Besides thinking of meeting you the whole time?”
“Yeah.” His lips curved into a smirk.
“Well, there was one question that I just couldn’t… you know what? Never-mind.”
“You just couldn’t what?”
“No, it’s silly.”
He laughed. “You don’t have to be shy around me. I’m your friend, remember?”
“Well, I had to write down a number of different ways nuclear physics could destroy certain things. And the only way I remembered the answer was thinking back to your character in The President’s Secret.”
“The evil and conniving Dr. Bane,” he interjected. “That was one of my favorite characters to bring to life.”
“The science in that film was surprisingly accurate.”
“I took a semester’s worth of classes in preparation for that role.”
“And you… attended all those classes?”
Johnny nodded, and I was amused (but not surprised) that Johnny had attended more science classes than Whitney.
“So this means you possess pretty dangerous knowledge,” he said.
“So do you, if you remember all the science.”
“Oh, I remember it.” He pulled off one highway and onto another. “Hey, considering how much knowledge you hold, I think you have the capacity to be as evil as Dr. Bane. I’m not going to have to report you, am I?”
I laughed. “If only for movie magic purposes. I’ll only use my knowledge for good. You can trust me.”
He glanced at me. “I can do that.”
Warmth rushed through my body. I couldn’t stop smiling.
Johnny crept the car up the Hollywood hills and parked in a spot which overlooked the entire valley. I looked out at the faraway sunset — the last sliver of orange sun dipped below the burning horizon. The city sparkled under the darkening sky.
“Wow, it’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she is.”
My eyes locked with Johnny’s. Not knowing what to say, I smiled instead.
“Come on, let’s eat before it gets cold.” Johnny grabbed the food and we got out and sat on the hood of the fancy car, looking out at the magnificent view of the city.
Johnny pulled two burgers out of the brown bag.
“This is yours.” He handed me a milkshake.
“Is this…?” I took a sip. It was! A strawberry shake. “You remembered!”
“You said it was your favorite after a long day of studying.”
I took a deep sip of the refreshingly cold milkshake.
“Johnny, you are truly my hero right now.”
He smiled and it was in that moment that I looked at him as someone other than Johnny Logan. I saw him as a friend.
“Go on! Eat!”
I finished off the burger in three big bites.
/> “You must have been hungry.” Johnny chuckled.
“The human brain takes up a third of the body’s calories,” I said, eating fries now. “And I’ve been using my brain a lot lately.”
Johnny laughed. “You sure love your science.”
“You’re finally starting to figure out who I am.”
“It’s not fair. You had a head start.” He was referring to the fact that I had been watching his movies for the past ten years.
I smiled hopelessly at him. “I don’t think that’s true.”
He smiled back at me.
The energy from the food was already coursing through my veins, waking me back up.
He smirked at me. I couldn’t get over how hot he was!
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why do you like me?”
He looked taken aback by my question. “Why do I like you? Why don’t I like you? You’re funny and interesting. And I know you like me. I see it in your eyes, and your smile.”
I didn’t even realize I was smiling until he said the word.
Why were we even talking anymore? I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to invite him to my place again, I wanted to ask him to do a thousand things with me.
I was ready. I was ready, and I wanted him to know it.
Looking at his scarred lips, I leaned in to kiss him. His eyes caught mine and he leaned in too. Our lips touched and my body pressed against his. Something cold and wet pressed against my chest and dripped into my lap.
Surprised, I pulled back and saw that my strawberry milkshake spilled all over my blouse and lap.
“Oh no!” I scrambled off the hood and away from Johnny, but he was right up there with me, pressing a handful of napkins against my blouse, wiping away the mess. The sticky milkshake was dripping down my legs and onto the ground. “Did I get any on you?” I asked.
Johnny stopped to inspect himself. “I don’t think so.”
Great. Of course I was the only one covered in strawberry milkshake.
“Are you alright?” Johnny asked. His lips were inches from mine.
“This was supposed to be a romantic date but now it’s ruined. Look! I’m all wet and sticky.”
The Blind Date Series (Three Romance Stories: Blind Date, Role Play, Pure Fate) Page 5