Chapter Eighteen
Asher
When we get back to the cabin, I head in through the door downstairs, while Becca walks up the steps to go into the kitchen. We decided on the way home that we shouldn’t see what we each bought, thus the separate entries. I’m going to prep everything I need for our pontoon picnic down here, at the wet bar, and I promised I wouldn’t head upstairs until after we come back from my ‘surprise’ for Becca this afternoon.
I’m really excited for this afternoon, but I’m also nervous. I want Becca to enjoy herself, to feel free to just be. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, or to wish that she were just back at the cabin by herself or something. And I’m definitely feeling the pressure. But I’m hoping with all of the planning I’ve done, and all of her favorite things I could get my hands on for this, that I’ll be one step closer to making her mine.
I open up my grocery bags, and start pulling out the fruit, cheese, bread and maple glazed turkey (Becca’s favorite lunch meat) to start getting our picnic lunch together. I open up the cupboards and drawers of the wet bar, in search of a knife to cut up my fruit. But all I can find is a 4-place setting of regular silverware.
Trying to keep my promise to stay downstairs, I holler up the stairs, “Hey Becca? I need a paring knife. Do you think you could meet me half-way up the stairs with one? I promise not to even try to look at what you’re doing up there.”
I can hear her footsteps moving closer to the stairway door. “I’ll bring you a knife if you promise to plug your nose too.”
Huh? I guess whatever she’s working on must be identifiable by scent. Whatever, as long as I get my knife, and she doesn’t see what I’m working on, we’re golden. “I promise I will not try to smell whatever you are working on up there. Scout’s honor.”
“Alright. Just give me a sec to grab you the knife.”
As I listen to her tread get quieter as she walks further away, I can’t help but wonder what she’s working on up there. Obviously it’s food, since she got it at the grocery store, and I’d be able to figure out what it is if I smelled it. I wonder if it’s dessert, or supper.
“Okay, I’m coming down.”
I quickly climb the steps, holding my nose as I go, making sure she doesn’t come down any further than necessary. As I reach for the knife, I say, “Thank you, ma’am. Now get back up them there stairs and finish whatever it is you’re working on. We leave in fifteen minutes. Is that enough time for you to be ready?”
She smiles, but has a curious look on her face. “Give me twenty, and I’ll be ready, no problem. Do I need to change clothes, or shoes? Or will I need my purse or anything else?”
I grin, knowing she’s trying to get information out of me. “Ah, ah, ah! I’m not falling for that. You can wear whatever you’re comfortable in. But I’ll be changing into my swim trunks and a tank top, since that’s what I’m comfortable in. If you decide you’d rather change your clothes, I’ll make sure to have all of my stuff out of here before you come down.”
Becca takes a deep breath, then sighs. “Alright. I guess I will change. Let me know when you’re ready for me to come down.”
She starts to turn around to head back upstairs, but I grab her wrist, pulling her back around to face me. A shock of electricity runs from my fingers that are touching her, all the way up my arm. Dang, if this girl isn’t making me feel like a twelve-year-old with a crush. She raises her left eyebrow at me, in her signature, what-are-you-doing? look.
I breathe deep and close my eyes, trying to calm my nerves. When I look back up at her, she has a look of concern on her face. I move my hand from her wrist down to hold her hand. Squeezing her fingers lightly I say, “Thank you for coming with me today, without asking questions.”
Becca bursts out laughing, but doesn’t let go of my hand. “Without asking questions?! I’ve been asking you questions all morning about what you have planned!”
I can’t help but chuckle along with her. “You know what I mean. You’re asking questions to be nosy, not because you don’t trust me. I mean, I hope you trust me.”
The most beautiful smile creeps onto her face, and she blushes a little. “Of course I trust you.” She squeezes my fingers back. “Now let me get back up to what I’m working on so we can get going.” She lets go of my hand, turning away again, and I suddenly feel bereft, like a part of me is missing.
I head back down the stairs with the knife, and quickly get to work cutting up the strawberries and cantaloupe at the sink of the wet bar. After throwing the remains of the fruit in the trash, and making us some sandwiches, I drop everything we’re going to eat into the picnic basket my parents brought, along with the chess board, sling my guitar behind my back, and carry it all out to the pontoon. I run back into the cabin, and I’m about to call upstairs that the coast is clear for Becca to come down, when I remember one more thing I need to grab out of the bunk room. I grab it out of the nightstand, where I stuck it earlier, and call up the stairs, “You’re free to come down and get ready whenever you want! I’ll be outside waiting.”
“Sounds good! I’ll be out in a couple minutes.”
I walk back out to the pontoon, with the last of my surprises in hand, and tuck it away under one of the seats on the boat.
Here’s to hoping Becca will give me a chance to prove I will take care of her.
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Becca
When I get downstairs, Asher is already outside. I go into the bunk room, and pull my beach bag out from under my bed, searching for my swimsuits and cover up. When I find the suits my mom packed for me, I get a little nervous. Apparently I should have packed my own beach bag, not that I had the time…Mom packed three different swimsuits for me, and they are all bikinis! No one-piece, not even a tankini. I guess I should consider it a godsend that she remembered my cover up, because there is NO WAY I am about to parade myself in front of Asher in just a bikini. I grab the most modest one, a turquoise halter with boy short bottoms, and run to the bathroom.
After changing into my swimsuit and cover up, I look up into the mirror. A very nervous girl is staring back at me. Why am I freaking out about this? It’s not like Asher has never seen me in a bathing suit before, or like we’ve never spent a day just the two of us. Although, it’s been over a year since we’ve done anything alone like this.
I guess I’ll just have to put on my big-girl panties (or in this case, bikini) and go find out what exactly Asher has planned for us.
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Asher
I have been pacing up and down the dock, waiting for what feels like forever for Becca to come out. Twenty-one.
I can’t believe I’m about to put myself out there this way, but she needs to how I feel about her. Honestly, I’ve loved her from the moment I met her, all the way back in the third grade. Being a boy, I was just too stupid to admit it. Twenty-two.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week, and what nobody else actually realizes is that I’ve been courting Becca for years, getting to know all of her inner workings, her quirks, what her favorite things are, what she can’t stand, her annoying habits… I think that’s what has hurt me the most this last year. When Becca started dating Trip, or at least once he apparently put out his edict about not hanging out with male friends, she stopped letting me in, and seeing all those things. I could only assume she had found someone that was doing a better job of knowing her, taking care of her, than I had been. Twenty-three. I tried going on dates with a few other girls who showed interest in me, but none of them measured up to Becca. None of them were Becca. So, I stopped trying to find another Becca, and I watched from the sidelines as her heart was mistreated by Trip. Twenty-four.
I thought things were turning a corner, at least in the friendship department, when Mr. West assigned us that duet for solo/ensemble contest. But like I told Becca, she was pouring herself into the song, but not into singing it with me. And I didn’t know how to fix it. But I think I’m starting to figure it out. Twenty-Five.<
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At the campfire the other night, she and I were totally in sync with one another. And the kiss we shared last night was amazing. If I can just get her to see that we are in sync in a lot of areas of our lives, maybe I can convince her that we can get past all of these hurdles, together. Twenty-Six.
As I’m about to turn around and head back down the dock for the twenty-seventh time, I hear the screen door squeak shut on the cabin. I look up—and I can’t catch my breath. Becca is walking down the lawn toward the beach, wearing a white swimsuit cover up, which I can clearly see her bikini through, and her wavy brown hair is blowing loose in the breeze. I can’t believe how absolutely breathtaking she is. And she doesn’t even know it. I can tell by the way she is trying to cover up her midriff with her arms, despite the fact that she’s already wearing something over it. She has no need to be self-conscious.
After I wipe the metaphorical drool from my mouth, I take a deep breath and wait for Becca to reach the dock. When she reaches me, I smile and take her hand, walking toward the pontoon. “Are you ready for your surprise?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she answers, her cheeks turning rosy as she looks away from me. I wonder if she’s as nervous about this as I am?
When we get to the end of the dock, I let go of Becca’s hand so I can pick her up by the waist. “Ladies first,” I say, trying not to laugh as she squeals out my name. But when I set her down on the pontoon, she’s smiling, although her cheeks are now tomato red.
I want to see those smiling, red cheeks for the rest of my life. And I will take them any way I can get them. Even if it means being just friends.
But I really hope she’ll want to be much more than that.
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Becca
Asher is being ridiculously sweet today. He has been all week, if I’m being honest with myself. Even though I have mostly been trying to brush it off as me being overly attentive to his every word and muscle movement the last few days.
The longer I am out here on the boat, thinking about everything as Asher navigates us across the lake, the more I remember that he’s always been like this. How could I have forgotten? I guess I just took it for granted; he’s always made me feel like someone special, even when we were eight years old, and boys had cooties. Then when you add the fact that I kind of pushed him away when Trip asked me to stop hanging out with other guys…
As Asher turns the pontoon off, letting us float and drift in the middle of the lake, I take a deep breath, and try to mentally prepare myself for whatever Asher’s surprise is. Without the noise of the motor to keep us from talking, I’m going to have to be able to form actual words, and speak them out loud.
“Alright. I’m going to need you to close your eyes, Frodo,” Asher says, with a Cheshire’s grin on his face. What on earth made him bring that old nickname up?
“Excuse me? My name is not, nor has it ever been, Frodo. Just for that, I am not going to close my eyes.” I bite my lip hoping I can hold in the laugh that’s trying to burst out of my lungs.
“Sure it wasn’t. You never had a boyish short haircut in the sixth grade, when you were, oh, about four foot eleven, that was kind of wavy on top, making you look almost exactly like Elijah Wood in the Lord of the Rings movies. Nope. That never happened.” He’s shaking his head, with a look of pure innocence on his face. That laugh I was trying to hold in finally pushes its way to the surface, and Asher’s deep chuckle joins mine.
It takes us a few minutes to calm down enough to be able to breathe again. “Okay, okay. So that epic fail did happen. But that doesn’t mean I ever want to relive those six weeks of torture. That was the worst haircut in the history of haircuts!”
“Ah, but do you remember what I did to cheer you up the day after Frodo happened?”
I can’t help but slowly let my smile make its way onto my face. “You convinced your dad to drive you forty-five minutes to the closest mall with a candy store, and bought me a whole bag of purple rock candy.” Before the last words are finished coming out of my mouth, Asher reaches into the bench seat that runs along the side of the pontoon and pulls out a huge bag of purple rock candy, and sets it on my lap.
I quickly wipe away the tear that comes to my eye, rubbing and pulling at my eyelid like something was stuck in it. This is not the time to cry. I’ve done enough of that this week. “How in the world? Seriously, how did you get out of Rush without me seeing this?”
He smiles sheepishly down at the floor of the pontoon. “When you were busy looking over the fudge, I asked the girl at the register if she could go behind the other candy counter and get me a bag of all purple rock candy. I explained that it was for you, and I didn’t want you to see it, because it was a surprise.” He looks up, and his eyebrows squish toward each other, his lips pursing. “That’s why I was so angry at the way she spoke to us when I paid for your things.”
“You were angry? If you hadn’t grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the store, I would have punched that girl in the jaw!”
A huge grin spreads across Asher’s face. “Dang. I should have waited a minute longer—I would have loved to see you knock that look off of her face!” I shove him in the shoulder, and he starts to laugh. “What? You totally could have taken her.”
This is why Asher is my best friend. Or at least, he was my best friend, before I went and screwed things up so royally because of Trip that I was pretty much left with no best friends.
All week, Asher has been the one to reach out to me, helping me, comforting me…so I decide, with my big girl bikini on, to reach out to him. I place my hand on top of his, wrapping my fingers around the side of his palm. He quickly inhales, looking a little surprised, but not unhappy. “Thank you, Asher, for doing everything you’ve done for me this week. It really means a lot to me.”
He squeezes my fingers with his hand, putting that Cheshire’s grin back on his face. “Oh, I’m not done doing things for you. Not by a long shot.”
***
I can’t believe that Asher remembered all these things about me! He even remembered that my favorite lunch meat was honey glazed turkey. Who knows that kind of thing about somebody else? Apparently Asher, because it didn’t stop there. He had all sorts of goodness buried in that picnic basket: my favorite fruits, fantastic bread and cheese to make sandwiches with my turkey, a chess board…he is amazing.
As we start setting up the chess board on the floor of the boat, I ask, “So what are you playing for this time?”
“Hmm…” He ponders this for a while, tapping his index fingers against his closed lips, reminding me how much I enjoyed having his lips on mine yesterday. “You know what? I don’t think we should make any bets on this game.”
“Really? There’s nothing you want? Or is it that you are scared you won’t win?”
He smirks at me. “Oh, I’m not worried about losing, and there are definitely a few things I want. But I think we should just play this game for the sake of enjoying it. No strings attached to winning or losing.” I wonder what those few things are…
Chapter Nineteen
Becca
“Alrighty then. This isn’t exactly the Mr. Competitive I’m used to, but I’ll go with it. And you should absolutely be worried about not winning.”
Since I am white, I make the first move, sending one of my pawns forward two spaces, starting to draw my line of defense. Asher’s move is a mirror reflection of mine. The same with our second moves. Is he just copying my moves? Or is he already working on a defense of his own?
The further into the game we get, the longer each of us seems to think before making our next move. While waiting during one of those long moments, Asher grabs his guitar from next to the captain’s chair, and starts fiddling around with the strings. Picking out a few bars of a melody here, strumming a few chords there, as he waits for me to take each of my turns.
During one of my epically long decision-making moments, Asher starts to play a song that I recognize. It’s from one of my favorite alb
ums, but I’m kind of shocked that he’s ever even heard it. I stop thinking about whether I should move my knight or my queen, and look up at him. He stops playing. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Asher, how do you know that song?”
“Oh. That? Umm…” He puts his guitar pick in between his lips, and starts rubbing the back of his neck, looking away from me. I can tell he’s trying to find a way to get out of answering this question, but I am so not letting him off the hook.
“Asher. Look at me.” When his eyes meet mine again, I repeat my question: “How do you know that song? It’s from an album based on a book. A book that I love, don’t get me wrong, but a book that most dudes wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.”
He pulls the pick from between his lips, and starts scratching his arm with it. He lets out a long sigh before finally answering me. “Well, it all sort of started by accident. Do you remember, umm, almost a year ago I think, when you left your paperback copy of Maybe Someday in my car after I drove you home from that church lock-in?” I had forgotten all about it, but thinking back, I begin to recall what happened.
“Oh yeah. It must have been in your car for months before you gave it back to me.” In fact, I’m pretty sure Asher returning that book was the thing that had triggered Trip’s request (more like demand) that I stop hanging out with other guys. I’m not really sure where this is going, but I am officially intrigued.
“Like two months after you left it in my car, I had to bring said car into the shop to have it worked on. I found it when I was trying to clear off my seats before the mechanic got into my car to pull it into the garage. You had been gushing about how much you had loved the book the day you left it in my car, and since I had at least an hour to wait while my car was worked on, I brought it in with me to take a peek, and figure out what it was you enjoyed so much about it.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and then blurts, “Except I didn’t just take a peek at it.”
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