by Safari Spell
“I’m tired of being flattered by a frat boy. I want a mature man at this point.”
She released another curl.
“A mature man? You mean a certain front desk worker who won’t ask you out? The one who won’t even talk to you?”
I knew she was right. Sage wasn’t making any moves and Spencer was making enough for the both of them. I shrugged, tucking my chin a little as I did.
“God, I hate dating. Men are so weird.”
“Oh honey, you have no idea. Count your blessings that Spencer is the worst one in your life. Serious question, though: if he treated your friend so bad, why are you going with him tonight?”
“I’m too nice. I’m terrible at saying no. I’m a bad friend. You pick.”
Larissa gave a sharp exhale.
“Or you’re trying to make Sage jealous. You can admit it. You know you can ask him out now? Some women’s rights thing.”
She was trying to be encouraging, but I was getting aggravated. I wanted to be patient and wait for Sage to make his move. Why didn’t anyone understand? I was being a lady. He was being a gentleman. It was that simple. No future grandmother wants to tell her future grandchildren she wore their grandfather down.
“Larissa, not everyone moves as fast as Spencer does – and in so many different directions. Attraction takes time. Besides, I didn’t know Sage was single until Tuesday when Kati told me! He acts like he’s devoted heart and soul to someone else.”
Larissa muttered something under her breath. Her voice kept rising and falling in intervals like she was trying to figure out a problem in her head. I finally got tired of the babbling.
“What, Larissa? What?”
“Y’all are just so funny. All you do is stare at each other when your backs are turned, but you never talk. Spencer’ll get married before y’all go on a first date. All I know? You better go get your man before someone else does! I saw that cute little ballet teacher chattin’ him up the other day. He looked interested.”
What she was saying was true. Sage and I were doing a strange sort of mating dance and I was tired of it. For a second, I thought deep down that’s why I said yes to Spencer.
“What do you want? Me to throw him in a janitor’s closet for seven minutes in heaven? This isn’t middle school. We’re all adults here. Wait. What ballet teacher? Sage doesn’t chat. Does he?”
Another girl was after him? I narrowed my eyes at nothing. Larissa rolled hers.
“Just sayin’! Like he’d complain, anyway. Don’t even act like you didn’t talk about seriously doing that. What was it, just last week? Or was it yesterday? You said, ‘Oooo, girl, the things I’d do to Sage in a dark room –’”
Larissa was interrupted by a familiar male voice breaking in the conversation. Sage.
“Hello?”
My heart started racing. I held my breath thinking that maybe he wouldn’t see me if I didn’t breathe. Had he heard our whole conversation? If so, I would have to quit. Larissa smiled as he popped his head in the bathroom.
As fate would have it, I was sitting on the toilet so Larissa could do my hair. I wasn’t using it, but I didn’t exactly want him to have a vision of me sitting on a toilet. Awkwardness hung thick in the air as we all exchanged weird facial expressions. Larissa offered damage control.
“Oh, hi, Saaaaaaage. We were just talking about you!”
I began to melt in my seat when I saw that Sage was holding my missing heel in his hand. Was this real life?
“I saw this on the floor out there. I figured since you were the only one dressing up it was yours,” he said.
I flashed an embarrassed smile and took the shoe from him.
“Actually, can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?” he asked, clearing his throat.
My heartbeat took a stumble.
“Sure. I think we’re done here, right, Larissa?”
Larissa gave an erratic nod as she released the final curl. In a spastic fit to get out of the room as quickly as possible, she jerked the curling iron out of the wall by its cord. As it whipped out, it popped me in the eye. Larissa loosened her grip on the hot iron as she tried to catch the flying cord, but the curling iron slipped and scorched the left side of my neck. I jumped up and let out some primal animal noise resembling a squawk. I felt the burned skin bubble and tighten, but I tried not to cry. Larissa dropped the iron on the floor.
“Uhhhhh, I’ll go get some ice. Sorry!” she said, stuttering as she hurried out the door.
Sage took hold of my shoulder and led me from the bathroom to a rocking chair nearby. When my nose started running, I was forced to wipe it with the back of my hand since I couldn’t see to grab a tissue. I was sniveling like a kid who just got bullied on the playground. Every time I tried to open my eyes, I had to shut them with twice as much force to make the rapid succession of pain subside. I bent forward and groaned.
“Are you ok?” Sage asked.
I could tell he was kneeling in front of me, so I scooted back in the seat. I didn’t want snot on him.
“I’m not crying it’s just…I can’t see. Can you hand me a tissue please?”
It was important for him to know that I wasn’t crying. I tried to look at him through my watery squint. It’s terrifying to think what I actually looked like. There’s nothing sexy about cliffhangers in the nose and bloodshot eyes. Sage’s deep voice traveled through my ear all warm and ticklish. He placed a box of tissues in my hand and pulled a few out, wiping my face softly. We didn’t speak, but I felt myself smile as he wiped the tears.
I felt something cool against my neck. I hadn’t heard Larissa come back, but I assumed she’d brought an icepack. I reached up to take the ice pack from him, but it was just his hand. Stunned, I wasn’t sure whether I should jerk my hand away or not, so it lingered there. The coolness of his hand soothed the pain but set me on fire inside. I hoped he couldn’t feel my skin boiling to a blush under his touch.
“Does that help?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Talor, do you mind? Your eye – can I see?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see. Can you?”
I heard a soft chuckle.
“Good one. May I then?”
I nodded. His hand went over my eye and started to warm against my skin. I leaned into it and the throbbing pain quickly receded. I began to feel groggy, like I’d been drugged. I was in a dreamy and relaxed state when he came into focus in front of me. His eyes didn’t seem the same; they were intense and dark. I thought it was strange, but I was quickly distracted by his sweet smile. My make-up was running down my cheeks so I knew I wasn’t a pretty sight, but he didn’t seem to mind. I was finally in his full attention, and we both wanted me there this time.
“How’s that?”
“So good,” I said, sighing softly like he was some swoony movie star.
“Here – I’ll help you stand.”
He took my hands in his and lifted me out of the chair. I was still a little woozy, but it was okay. We just stared at each other while he held me. After a moment, he brushed his finger across my upper cheek.
“I’ve been wondering about this scar. What happened?”
I couldn’t see what he was referring to, but I knew what it was. It was a small strawberry-colored scar at the corner of my left eye. I became very self-conscious knowing how close he was and how hard he was studying my face. How long had he been wondering about an imperfection on my face? I turned my chin down to hide it.
“Oh, that? A rooster attacked me when I was a toddler. My dad kinda kicked it across the yard. I think he killed it, actually.”
He turned his head towards the door, but his eyes stayed on me.
“Yikes. Left its mark on you, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess so. My dad hated all chicken after that. It’s all he eats now.”
Sage cracked the cutest smile at me, revealing a dimple in his left cheek. Before I could swoon over
it, Larissa raced back in with the ice, causing Sage to clear his throat and step back. Larissa held up the Ziploc bag of ice cubes.
“Do you – still need this?”
Sage scratched his jaw.
“Well, I think I’ll go. You have somewhere to be…unfortunately.”
He shot me a lingering glance as he walked out past Larissa, whose jaw was hinged open. When the door shut behind him, she dropped the ice and bolted over. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.
“What did I miss? Did something just happen? I saw that look! Oooooo, that was something! Did he just kiss you? Oh my God, I can’t believe I missed it!”
“No, he didn’t kiss me.”
Larissa furrowed her brow.
“Wait a minute! You aren’t blind? Why did I go running up there to get ice? You know I don’t do running.”
I went and checked myself out in the bathroom mirror. It was like nothing ever happened. My eye was fine. My neck was fine. There wasn’t even a scratch on me. I thought I’d imagined the whole thing, but I remembered feeling the bubbling of the burn on my neck. Odd. I winked at Larissa.
“Thank you. You know, for burning me and trying to gouge my eye out, not for going to get the ice I didn’t need.”
“Oh hush! What did I tell you? He was just looking for an excuse to get his hands on you, too! Now you know he feels the same way. And you let him just walk away. I’m gonna tell you, girl – we don’t get looks like that in real life. Go throw him in a closet or I will!”
As I gazed at my reflection, I looked past the runny mascara and red nose. I had a renewed sense of purpose in that moment. That look. Those hands. There were several custodial closets along the way. I felt a surge of adrenaline flood my steps as I raced out to catch him before he left.
I got to the hallway as he was making his way through the double doors. Momentum betrayed me and I failed to pull off a successful full stop in a bustle and heels. My shoulder rammed into the wall just in time for him to turn around and see it. To make matters worse, I hadn’t run far, but I sounded really out of shape because of how nervous I was.
“Sage, wait!”
I hadn’t really thought about what I wanted to say, just that I didn’t want him to leave. I couldn’t tell him that. A smile crept up on his lips as he released the door. It closed quietly. I beat my brain while we shuffled our feet.
“What did you to me about?”
“Oh, what was that?”
My whole body went cold. I was horrified. In my hurry to get out the perfect words in my head, I missed a few. I wished the curling iron had marred my face so my horrific expression would have been excusable. There was no coming back from the missing verbs. I steadied myself against the wall, trying to pretend I wasn’t nervous or breathless from running a few steps – or that I hadn’t literally run into a wall trying to catch him.
“I wanted to thank you for my shoe, but I – uh – think I interrupted you. What were you saying?”
“I did want to ask you something. I was wondering if you would like –”
All of a sudden, Spencer came through the door behind him and passed him like he wasn’t even there. Without a word, Sage slipped away. The magical moment was gone, and I felt cheated. I stiffened as Spencer filled my vision. Any other girl would have fainted at such a sight, but I could have knocked the fake mustache right off his smug upper lip.
For once in his life, he could have passed for a true gentleman. Head to toe, he looked like a different person. He was clean-shaven with his hair carefully brushed to the side away from his face.
He was wearing a black tailcoat and even a silk top hat. That tux was probably worth more than my car. But then again, my car wasn’t worth much. His eyes snaked down my frame and came back up to rest on my chest.
“Yowsa, you look good enough to eat. Ready to go?”
Ugh.
7
I could still feel Sage’s hand on my face. There was a subtle tremor in his fingers, like they were used to the weight of the world in them. Of course, he could have just been nervous. But he was the one who’d been playing hard to get all along, not me. I was the awkward one running into walls and creeping around corners.
“Hey, let’s talk about that drug test I had to take,” Spencer said, interrupting my thoughts.
“What?”
He eyed me sideways as he shifted gears.
“You are being so bad lately. I’m impressed.”
I watched his other hand slide along the wheel. The leather purred beneath his caress.
“So I guess you passed?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Cotton Candy. You were seeing things that night. I just hope you don’t have to take a drug test.”
He winked as he changed lanes, speeding around everyone on the road like they were driving pool floats.
“Spencer, are you even going the speed limit?”
“Calm down. It feels faster than it is. It’s the car.”
Of course I didn’t believe him, so I leaned over to check the speedometer. He was definitely speeding. His hand scampered down my bare shoulders and latched around my waist.
“I can do a couple things at once.”
I pulled away and leaned against the passenger door.
“Why can’t you act normal? You’re in costume. Play a part!”
I wanted as much distance as possible from him, but it was hard to find distance in a dress that size in a car that size. I groaned as I tried to keep my skirts down and behaved.
“This car is too small, Spencer! You knew what I was wearing tonight.”
He smirked.
“Just take it off then.”
“I mean, why do you even have a car like this? You’re a college student.”
“Uh-oh. You don’t like my car?” he asked, the inflection in his voice going up with the corners of his mouth.
All of a sudden, he shifted gears and floored it, the seat beneath me kicking back like I was taking off in flight. It felt like the first big drop on a roller coaster, and my stomach got left a few miles back. I held onto the armrest like I would fly out of the car at any moment.
As we went down the winding street, the tires gripped the road so tightly that it felt like we were riding the ledge of some towering mountain. I turned my smile towards the window because I didn’t want him to see it. I’d never been in a car so fast, and it was fun. He watched me in the reflection and chuckled to himself before slowing down.
“What did you see in Rose?”
He cleared his throat and leaned back in his seat.
“She’s…nice.”
“She held out on you. That was it, wasn’t it? The challenge. You like that. You need the chase. This car proves it.”
“I can’t catch you though, can I? Even in this car,” he mused.
“You do that, don’t you? Treat everything and everyone like a new car. As soon as something new comes out, you have to have it.”
He looked at me.
“You know that’s not true. I’ve known you for over a year.”
I smirked.
“So why did you start acting like this when Sage showed up? Don’t want anyone else to play with your toy?”
“You’re so perfect, aren’t you, Talor? You barely know him and you keep holding out. We could make this work, you know? You just don’t want to.”
“You don’t know how to be a one-girl kind of guy, and that’s what I want.”
“I would be with you.”
I turned to face him.
“Really? Then keep your eyes on just me tonight. Prove me wrong. Maybe then I won’t hate your stupid car.”
His eyes sparkled with the challenge.
“You don’t want me to watch the road? Ok.”
I rolled my eyes. I thought he was kidding until he stared at me for a few moments too long.
“Spencer, watch the road!”
He gave a wink.
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“Imagine that Sage wasn’t perfect. What if he was just a deviant like me? Would this even be a competition?”
I batted my eyes and gave a strained smile.
“You can’t compete with Sage, darling.”
Spencer narrowed his eyes into the rearview.
“He’s not good for you, Talor.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”
“Look, I’m serious. I’ve known him a while. You don’t want to get mixed up with him. I mean it.”
“Oh, wait. I’m sorry – are you saying I should get mixed up with you then?”
He half-smiled.
“Now you’re catching on.”
I tried to brush him off, but I couldn’t.
“And by the way, what are you talking about ‘you’ve known him for a while’? How? You’re not even from here! Neither is he. Did you guys go to the same prep school in California or something?”
Spencer cast a knowing look my way and shrugged.
“I guess it’s something like that.”
“Oh my God. Ok. Yeah, that’s for sure. He’s not even from California, Spencer! You’re such a liar.”
“I’m glad you brought that up. Ask yourself where he’s from. Has he even bothered to tell you?”
“He’s from Colorado,” I beamed. I was so glad I knew that so I could rub it in his face.
Spencer gave a short laugh.
“Is that what he told you? Creative. Ok. I could tell you some things about him, too. Things actually true and less easy to believe.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. Do men actually think jealous lies about the competition works?
“Have you ever heard his band play?”
He sobered his tone. It softened as he tried to coax me into his lie. There was a hint of jealousy in there, too.
“See, that’s what I mean. Stay away from them. They close places down, and I mean that literally.”
“Ok, so that means they’re awesome and now I have to see a show. I didn’t know you were such a good wingman, Spencer.”
Hands heavy on the steering wheel, he stared at the road ahead with a tense brow. His mouth was twisting as he tried to wrestle rude words into submission.
“I’m not kidding, Talor. It’s – they’re – he’s unsafe for you, I’m serious.”