by Tijan
Someone ran into Angie, who glared. “Excuse you.”
The person flipped her black hair over her shoulder and revealed her face. I didn’t need to see who it was. I already knew it was Marissa. Only she could wear a brown tank top with black cropped pants and look hot in it.
She’d been laughing, but that vanished immediately. Her eyes went dead and she straightened. “Excuse you.”
“No.” Angie blocked her as she started to go around. “Excuse you, bitch.”
Marissa drew back. Her jaw stiffened, her mouth flattened, and she tightened her grip on her cup. When she started to move her arm back, I hurried and got between them. I knew Marissa’s signs too; she’d been about to throw her beer on Angie. That would not have been good.
“Hi, Marissa,” I rushed out with a fake smile. “How are you?”
She paused, confused, but her arm went back to normal.
“Oh. Hey, Alex.” She was wary now, but she sipped from her cup.
I relaxed and shooed Angie away before I turned back to her. “So are you dating anyone?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
I could hear Angie and Ben bickering behind me, but then Angie huffed out, “Fine!” She stormed off. Ben gave me a small smile before he bounded after her.
“Look.” I dropped the façade. “I didn’t want you and Angie to have another round.”
Her smile was bitter now. “Oh, you mean like that last eight times since Las Vegas.”
“Eight?”
Marissa snorted. “Where’ve you been, Alex? It’s a normal thing for her and me to get into it. It wouldn’t be a party if Angie and I weren’t screaming at each other. There was hair pulling at the last one.”
“Really?”
She rolled her eyes. “I thought you were getting better. What happened to you? You slipped back into the land of the dead. Are you able to graduate? Did you get all your studies done?”
“I got a full scholarship to Grant West.”
It took a second before I realized what I said. Then I gasped and my mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe that had slipped out. I hadn’t told anyone, well, I hadn’t told Angie yet.
Marissa’s eyes bulged out and she was quiet for a second. Then she whispered, “Holy shit, Alex. Really?”
I nodded, still in shock.
“Wow, that’s, wow. That’s great. Congratulations.”
I nodded again. Everything started reeling around me.
“So, you’ll be with Jesse then? Like, for real? You guys can be a couple.”
Everything fell flat again. I shrugged as I responded in a monotone, “We ended things in Las Vegas.”
“What?” she squeaked. Her hand clamped onto my arm. “Are you serious? The two of you are done?”
“Have been for awhile,” I said through gritted teeth. “You and Cord?”
“Oh.” She waved a dismissing hand in the air. “He’s been back twice. We hook up, but that’s it. I’m not stupid. Cord’s like Jesse, they’re not relationship guys. He’s told me about all the girls at their college. They have groupies there. Can you believe that?”
I nodded. I really could.
“Yeah, I guess you’d know, huh?” She sipped her beer and gave me a shy smile. “I got into Hurley College.”
“Oh. Congratulations.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Yeah, me and Sarah. We’re going to be roommates.”
“Oh.” Pain speared through me. She had replaced Angie and me so quickly. “That’s good for you then.”
She nodded, biting her lip now.
“Isn’t it?”
All the happiness, all the excitement left her. Sadness flooded her next and she heaved a deep sigh. “Are you okay, Alex?” She edged closer to me and gripped her cup tighter. “I know things didn’t go right between me and Angie, but I never stopped caring about you as a friend. I know Angie’s your best friend. She’s always been closer to you than me, but I’m just worried. Are you okay?”
Oh no. We’d taken a nosedive into the emotional and not-things-I-talked-about. I shook my head and started to back away.
“Alex.” She hurried after me.
“No, stop.” My insides twisted around each other. I needed to get away from her. I couldn’t hear anything more from her. She’d left me. I couldn’t handle taking her back.
“Alex.”
“Stop.” I turned and darted through the crowd. Angie and Ben were in the kitchen. I knew they’d be getting drinks, so I turned down a far hallway and ran into someone. A hard chest hit me and I stumbled back, but before I hit the wall, an arm snaked around my waist holding me in place.
“Hey, Alex.” Eric set me on my feet and bent so he was eye level with me. He gentled his voice. “You okay? You look upset.”
“Everyone is so damn worried about me,” I snapped out.
He straightened abruptly. His blonde hair was gelled at the tips; it gave him a wet/bedroom look. It seemed to make his blue eyes all the more smoldering and I could see why so many girls fancied him. With a loose white tee shirt over ripped jeans, Eric could’ve been a model.
And holy hell. When did I start noticing him in that way?
I cursed under my breath before I squared my shoulders back. “I’m sorry, Eric.”
“Hey, no problem.” He lifted his cup in front of him and raised his eyebrows. “I’m just here, drinking, hanging out at my place. Have you been here before? Wait, you must’ve.”
“Your seventh grade birthday party.”
His cheeks reddened and he made a point to drink from his cup. Then he coughed. “Yeah, that’s not embarrassing. We did our ‘seven minutes in heaven’ thing, didn’t we?”
I couldn’t stop a chuckle at that memory. We had been shoved inside, but it’d been the longest and shortest seven minutes of heaven in my life. “You kissed me on the cheek.”
“I did?” A wide smile appeared. “I was aiming for your lips. I was trying to be aloof and mysterious. Did it work?”
I shrugged, but my stomach fluttered as I remembered the feel of his cool lips. I’d been so excited. I had pulled Angie into the closest bathroom and squealed about my first kiss on the cheek. “I had a crush on you back then.”
His eyebrows shot up again. “You did?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I did. You were a big deal.”
Then he chuckled as he had more of his beer. “I can’t imagine I was that big of a deal.”
“You were the most popular guy in our grade.” Still was.
“Yeah.” He quieted, gave me an awkward look, and reached up to scratch the back of his head. “Maybe. No one could compete with your brother and Jesse.”
“They were a grade older.”
“I know, but I knew that all the girls liked those two. You included.”
A rush of heat went to my cheeks and I knew I was blushing too. Then I admitted, “I had the biggest crush on Jesse, all my life.”
“Yeah, you guys were close.” He frowned. “Didn’t he live with you guys at one point?”
I nodded. “Yeah, from eighth grade to the end of his junior year. His mom died and he moved in. His dad was always away.”
“I remember seeing him at your place all the time.”
My eyebrows lifted.
He hung his head slightly. He confessed, “Justin, me, and Troy rode our bikes past your house all the time. Troy and me had big crushes on you. Justin always wanted to see if Angie was over at your place.”
Warmth flared inside of me again. It was the good kind; it’d been too long since I remembered my past like this. It felt right. “Yeah, that’s right. Those two were always fighting and picking on each other.”
“Now look at them.”
“Yeah, I know. The first couple to get married, I bet.”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “Probably.” And then the mood shifted.
I grew tense, but the ends of his mouth dipped down. He looked tired all the sudden and he let out a breath of air. “Have you been okay,
Alex? I know it might not be my place, you know, since the last time we really talked I ripped into you, but I still care about you. Are you okay?”
I held my breath and nodded. My throat had gone dry and there were butterflies in my stomach. I hadn’t felt like this since, well, since Jesse. Then I gulped again. My throat was so dry. I needed something to drink. I grabbed his cup from him and finished the rest of it. Then I shoved it back into his hand. He hadn’t moved.
“Oookay.”
I flushed. “I was thirsty.”
“Oh. Well, stay here. I’ll get some more beer for us.”
Panic took over and I grabbed his arm when he started to go. “Don’t leave.” I stopped, surprised at the fear in my voice. My hand fell away, but I couldn’t keep quiet. “Don’t leave. You’ll go. Someone else will come. I’ll feel weird. This is nice, right now. You and me. This is nice.”
“Okay.” He said it gently as he touched the back of my elbow. “We can go to my parents’ back patio and talk. No one should be out there. I’ll have someone get us something to drink. Actually, I think my dad has a liquor cabinet in his closet.” He gave me a sheepish look. “We’re not supposed to know about it since they don’t want us to drink, but we always did.”
“Of course.” I relaxed then and my knees were weak from the relief.
“Okay. Through here.” He guided me into a back master bedroom. “Hold on.”
I waited in the darkness as he moved away. Clothes hangers were pushed aside, he cursed, and then there was a loud thud on the floor.
“Eric?”
“I’m okay,” his voice came out muffled. “My mom’s got so many damn clothes. I can’t find the light switch in this stupid closet. Oh, here it is.”
Light flooded the room then and I blinked from the sudden brightness. But then as my eyes adjusted, I saw a king-sized bed with cream bedcovers. There was a desk area with a coach behind it and three shelves from floor to ceiling filled with books. A bathroom was in the corner and I could see marble on the counter top. The floor was made of cream mosaic tiles. When Eric emerged from another doorway, he lifted his hands as he wiggled his eyebrows. He had two bottles of Boones Farm.
“Huh? This is the good stuff.”
I burst out laughing.
“Or I could mix us some drinks. My dad’s got everything back here.”
I struggled to stop laughing as I asked, “Why does your dad have a liquor cabinet in the closet?”
“Oh.” His grin turned into a fond one and he shrugged. “My folks don’t drink, but my dad likes to have one every now and then. My mom would only allow it back here. She’s pretty strict with her religion. Sounds stupid, I guess, but that’s my folks. Sometimes I think this is their little haven away from us kids.”
“Yeah, it could be a little studio apartment.”
He gestured towards the desk area where a laptop was placed and a flat screen television was hanging on the wall behind it. “She likes to do her work over there. Dad will kick his feet up and watch television some nights when he wants to be around here.”
“Your parents sound like they have a good marriage.”
“They do.” Then he nodded towards a back door. As he held it open and I slipped past him, he added, “I think they designed their room like this on purpose. All of us kids get free reign of the house then, on most nights.”
“You have two little sisters?” I frowned as we sat on padded lounge chairs. I should’ve known how many siblings he had. I’d grown up with him.
Eric placed the two bottles on the glass table in front of us and stood back up. “Yeah, two little dorks and I have two more brothers. Isaiah is two years younger than me and Noah is four. I think he was an ‘oops,’ but he’s so darn cute. No one can resist him. He’s going to get the ladies when he’s older.”
I shot forward when he reached for the door again. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to mix us a few drinks. These things were a joke, but feel free to open one up if you’d like. Be right back.”
When he came back, he slid a glass towards me and I took it for a sniff. I couldn’t get a whiff of any liquor so I took a sip of it. It was mostly soda, but he had put a small amount of alcohol in there. “Thanks.”
And I felt grateful to him for another reason, a deeper reason, but one that I couldn’t explain. The ball of tension that was always in my stomach unraveled a little bit. It loosened up, and as it did, the rest of me started to relax more and more. Before I took another sip, I knew I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else at that moment. This was just fine with me.
He tried to look casual, but I saw the delight on his face. He lounged back, kicked up his feet on the table, and threw an arm on the back of my chair. He raised his glass to me in a salute. “Here’s to us being friends again.”
“I’ll cheer to that.”
As our glasses clinked and our gazes locked, a tingle went through me. It’d been a long time since I had felt one of those, since my Thanksgiving break.
“Are you and Eric going to prom together?” Angie flopped on her bed and lifted the remote control to silence her television.
I had come over for their Thursday Family Night dinner. Karen made enough to feed sixty people and Angie made me come over every Thursday night since Thanksgiving. Their home had become a second home to me, and in some ways, as I recalled the emptiness at my house, I preferred their home to mine.
I plopped on the small couch she kept in the corner and pulled a blanket over my lap. I shrugged. “I think so, but I’m not sure.”
She sat up straight, giving me a meaningful look. “Are you serious? You two have been attached at the hip since last Friday. Everyone’s saying you two are dating. I know you’re not, not yet, but really, Alex. Call him right now and ask him.”
“No,” I squealed. Then I started laughing at that. I couldn’t believe I had squealed. “Oh, my gosh. I haven’t done that in forever.”
Angie smirked. “About damn time too.”
I giggled into the blanket and fell over. More laughter came from me. Oh god. It felt good to laugh.
“Come on, you nut.” But Angie couldn’t hold back a grin. “Call him.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.” I shook my head. I was stubborn.
She groaned and fell back on her bed. “You drive me crazy. Can I call him, at least?”
“No.”
At her glare, my shoulders shook some more in silent laughter. But then I changed the topic. I wasn’t ready to deal with the possibility if Eric was taking me to prom or not. It felt surreal to me, for some reason. What she said had been true. We had spent time together every day since Friday night, and that night we sat up and talked until morning. At six, we went to the diner with a few others for breakfast and he took me for coffee when everyone went to their own homes. When I had gone home, there was a text from him after I woke up. He wanted to take me to dinner and we went to the movies afterwards. Every day was something new. Sunday had been a walk in the park. He picked me up for school on Monday and drove me home after his baseball practice. I cooked dinner Tuesday night for him. Wednesday night had been movies at my place. It was Thursday now and I was excited for the taco place he promised was the best in town. I had never heard of it, but I wasn’t the best source for anything.
As a dramatic sigh left her, Karen hollered for us to come down for dinner.
Angie muttered as we went downstairs, “I can’t believe you’re not staying. You always have dinner with us these nights.”
“I know.” I hopped off the bottom step and grabbed my purse by the doorway. I poked my head in the kitchen. “I’m off, Karen. I’ll see you next week!”
“What? You’re not staying?”
Angie’s mom was tall and willowy like her daughter. She had the same blonde hair, almost white, that ended in the middle of her back. While Angie’s eyes were a smoky blue color, her mother’s was a bright sea blue. She was golden tan and the wri
nkles around her eyes were the only indication of her older age. Then she gave me a radiant and loving smile.
“I already told you, Mom. She’s got a date. She stopped by to say hello because she feels guilty if she doesn’t come over now.”
“Oh, come now.” Angie’s mom waved at me and winked. “I’ll package some food up and you can take it with you on your date. I’m sure whoever he is will be hungry too.”
“They’re going out for food, Mom.”
“Oh, well—” But her words were cut off short as Angie’s little brothers and little sister raced into the kitchen at the same time. Soon chaos ensued. Plates were dropped on the floor, spoons were flung across the room, and someone started crying. Angie collapsed on one of the chairs and lifted pleading eyes to me. “Can I come with?”
I gave her a farewell wave and left before Karen had time to bag up any food for me. I still had the leftovers from last week in the refrigerator. But when I got to my car, Angie yelled at me from the door. She had a bag in hand and was rolling her eyes as she hurried towards me. “My mom made me do this. Sorry. Have fun on your date. Ask him to prom.” Then she turned and darted back inside.
I groaned. It wasn’t that easy. A person didn’t open their mouth and ask someone to prom, even if you had been spending every day together for a week. A week. That wasn’t very long. Not at all. Oh, who was I kidding? I was terrified when it came to my love life. No, I was petrified. That was more accurate, but when Eric picked me up, there was a whole host of butterflies in my stomach and I didn’t think that was a bad thing.
“Hey.” He smiled warmly at me.
“Was I supposed to dress up?” His crisp buttoned-down blue shirt was tucked inside black jeans that looked more like dress pants. Glancing at my shirt and jeans, I felt dowdy.
“No, no. I had a thing today. I came straight from that, but you’re good. You look gorgeous, like always.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He pressed a kiss to my cheek and urged me towards his truck. “You ready?”