My Paper Heart

by Vernon, Magan

  "I can do Friday." I bit my lower lip teasingly and looked up at him.

  "Finally." He sighed. "I'll pick you up at six on Friday then?"

  "Sounds good." I beamed. We were practically close enough to be kissing, but then he looked over and saw the two ladies pretending not to stare.

  He coughed, covering his mouth with his hand as he straightened himself. "Well I guess I should be getting back to work."

  "Oh yeah, definitely, someone has to work on those roads." I nodded and realized I sounded like an idiot.

  "Alright Libby. I'll see you Friday." He smiled and nodded to the two ladies in front as he walked out the front door.

  No sooner had he left, he wasn't even out of sight of the front windows yet, when Dina and Marion came running over to my desk.

  "Looks like someone is getting some on Friday!" Marion giggled shaking her enormous saggy breasts in front of my desk.

  "With Blaine?" I furrowed my brow. "No, it's not like that." The truth was, Beau was the only guy I had ever slept with, and I definitely was not going to give it up that easy again.

  "Well Blaine IS like that." Dina smirked.

  "What do you mean?" I cocked my head. For the guy that was concerned about me running in a sports bra, he didn't seem like the screw-on-the-first-date type.

  "Well." Marion chimed. "He has kind of always been the playboy type. I think every woman under the age of thirty has crossed his path at least once."

  "Including me." Dina beamed. "But that was like six months ago. If you want him you can have him." She aimlessly tossed a pale hand in the air like she was swatting a fly.

  Ew. Blaine and Dina with the Lee Press-on Nails and orthopedic shoes, gross. And who was Blaine to tell me that I was acting like a skank when he was banging half the town? Well, our Friday night was sure going to be interesting.

  Chapter 9

  "Are these jeans too tight?"

  I faced my butt in the direction of Britt, who was sitting Indian style on my bed. She wasn't happy about Blaine taking me out, but changed her spirits as soon as she found out that I was not into it.

  "I don't know. I really don't want to look at your butt." Britt laughed.

  "Well, I've been eating too much of Aunt Dee's cooking and I’m afraid all my clothes are looking tight and not in the good way." It was true. My clothes were getting a lot tighter, and I didn't want Blaine to think I was wearing tight pants just for his attention.

  "Okay then." I lifted up a t-shirt to my chest.

  "How about this?"

  "Peace, Love, Kappa?" Britt raised an eyebrow at the faded green ringer tee.

  "Yeah, it was given to me by an alum. I think the old and wornness of it definitely says: Blaine I am not doing you." I nodded.

  "So why are you even going on a date with him if you don't have any interest in him? I mean, if you really didn't want to go out with him you could have thrown him my way." Britt pointed two chubby thumbs at herself.

  "Ugh, I wish I would have." I slid the ringer tee over my head. "But you damn southerners and your charm, it gets me every time!"

  Britt laughed. I knew she wasn't thrilled about this situation at all, with her crush on Blaine and all, but she actually seemed to enjoy my new found hatred for him.

  ∞

  On my first date with Beau he was almost an hour late, my stomach was grumbling so badly, I was afraid that he would notice. I thought that my stomach would vibrate on the leather seats of his beamer and then he would never want to talk to me again. Imagine, I thought I was the one making a bad impression and he was the one who was late.

  Blaine wasn't late, in fact, he actually was early. At 5:45 the doorbell rang and Britt sprang up from my bed faster than I had ever seen that girl move. I groaned as I finished putting a rubber band in my braided pigtails. I figured low braided pigtails said school marm more than school girl.

  "Libby, Blaine's here!" Britt bellowed from the living room.

  "Oh, Blaine how are you?" Aunt Dee practically floated over to the door. It looked like I was the only one moving slowly.

  My flip flops plopped, making that annoying 'flop flop' noise, as I slowly crept out of the bedroom and into the living room. It looked like someone was actually looking forward to this date, or was just hoping to get some.

  "Hey Libby." Blaine flashed a toothy grin.

  It looked like he had spent all day getting ready and not just throwing on the worst clothes he could find around the room. The first thing I noticed, which I think most girls do, was his shoes. I'd only ever seen him in very dirty work boots, but it looked like he brought out the only pair of dress shoes he had. He topped that off with khakis and an actual black button-down shirt, with the sleeves rolled up since of course since Louisiana was about a million degrees at any given time of day. You could actually see the sweat start to glisten on his arms, or maybe that was just from nervousness.

  One of us was not dressed appropriately.

  "Hey Blaine." I muttered, slowly making my way over to the door.

  "My, Mr. Crabtree, you look so handsome! My niece is so lucky to have a guy like you taking her out!" Aunt Dee was practically drooling as she patted his shoulder, not in the drooling way like Britt, but in the 'I'm so proud this young man is taking my niece out' way. Little did she know this was the same guy that screwed half the town.

  "Yeah Blaine." I looked up and met his eyes. "You clean up well." I really should stop meeting his eyes, they were bluer than the Mediterranean Sea and I couldn't stop from getting lost in them. It almost made me forget that I hated him.

  "Uh, yeah." I think Blaine actually got a little red as he looked down and absently ran a hand through his hair. "You look good too Libby. But I think you can wear anything and still look amazing."

  Our eyes met again, we were behaving like twelve year olds.

  Britt rolled her eyes. "Are y'all just going to stand in the doorway all night or what?"

  "Uh, no." I glanced over at Brittany. "Mr. Blaine here owes me dinner."

  "You are letting him take you out in that?" Aunt Dee looked me up and down with furrowed brows.

  "It's comfortable. And I'm so hot and worn out from work that I didn't have the energy to change." I smiled at Aunt Dee.

  "Oh, yeah, it takes a lot of energy to sit on your butt at the shop," Britt mocked. I shot her an evil glare.

  "And on that note." Blaine looked back at me. "You ready?"

  "Ready." I smirked at Brittany. "Bye Britt."

  Then I kissed Aunt Dee on the cheek. "I shouldn't be too late."

  "Oh, don't worry about it." Aunt Dee called as we headed out the door. Britt mumbled something but I couldn't understand it, probably something rude.

  Blaine opened the passenger side door of his truck for me. I guess he was trying that whole southern gentleman thing.

  "You know I can open my own car door," I quipped.

  "Yeah, but so can I."

  He hopped over on the driver's side and started the truck up as I closed the big red door behind me.

  "So where did you want to go? I was thinking New Orleans is only about 45 minutes away. I could take you down to the French Quarter. Maybe stop at Café Du Monde for coffee afterwards."

  It looked like Blaine was either actually trying to impress me, or he did a lot of work to get what he wanted.

  "You guys have one of those drive-in restaurants like in the movies right?"

  Blaine cocked an eyebrow and glanced at me as he turned out of the driveway.

  "Sam's? The drive-in?"

  "Yeah." I nodded. "My sorority sisters used to love to go to the drive-ins, but the closest one was like an hour away so we would sometimes take late night road trips there. But I haven't had it in like forever, and I really could use a root beer float, served courtesy of a girl on roller skates."

  Blaine laughed a deep belly laugh. "I offer to take you to the French Quarter and you would rather have Sam's?"

  "Yes." I folded my arms across my chest and jutted out
my bottom lip into a pout. "And you don't need to laugh at me about it."

  He stopped laughing and let out a deep breath, the kind that someone takes after a long laugh. "I'm sorry Libby." He put his hand on my knee. "It's just funny that I got all dressed up, trying to impress you, and you walk out wearing flip flops and ask me to take you to Sam's." He moved one of his hands from the steering wheel and placed it on my knee.

  His touch sent an immediate tingle from my legs and straight up to the area that would definitely be off limits for the night. I hated that his hand did that to me, but at the same time I almost wanted to keep it there.

  "I just kind of feel like a jackass now."

  I pushed his hand off my knee. It's not that I didn't like it, I did. A lot, but I wasn't going to let him just hump and dump.

  "Well you kind of are a jackass aren't you?"

  "Huh?" Blaine glanced over at me as we headed down the road toward the main drag. His lower jaw actually dropped before he started talking again. "I apologized for that Libby, and you know I'm genuinely sorry. I even brought you flowers."

  "I'm not talking about that. I'm over that now."

  "Well then what is it?"

  "Well." I bit my bottom lip and looked out the window.

  "Oh come on Libby. Just tell me what's bothering you."

  "Okay." I took a deep breath and looked straight out the window ahead. I didn't want to look at him as I spilled everything Dina had told me at work, and from what I had gotten out of Britt. Everything from hooking up with snaggletooth from work, to his rumored affairs with married woman, and the head count that Britt told me would rival Hugh Hefner.

  We were silent for a moment, and it happened to be the moment we were pulling into Sam's. He put the car into park. He turned and just stared at me, not saying anything just staring.

  I shrugged my shoulders. "Well, say something!" I put my hands out toward him like I was expecting him to hand me something.

  He sighed. "I'm not going to lie to you Libby." He looked down and fiddled with his keys. "Most of that stuff people were saying is true, maybe some of it a little over-exaggerated, but true."

  My nimble fingers twirled the end of one of my braids and I bit down on my bottom lip. "Really?"

  Great, I really was sitting next to Hugh Hefner.

  "But." He looked back up at me and put his hand on my knee again.

  "I meant it when I say that I actually do want to get to know you. I didn't take you out tonight just to sleep with you."

  I looked up and met his gaze again.

  "I feel really bad about your first impression of me, and I really like the fact that you aren't afraid to tell me what you think and seem to enjoy defying everything anyone else says. It's why I know, even if I tried, you probably would rather punch me than screw me."

  I giggled. "It's true."

  "Now let me order you your damn root beer float so I can make more of a fool of myself."

  We ordered our food and instead of sitting in the truck, Blaine suggested we go to a small little grassy area a little ways away.

  "You aren't taking me out to the swamp to have your way with me are you?"

  Blaine cocked an eyebrow, glancing back at me, as we made our way through a few trees. "It's just a little grassy knoll. It's more comfortable to sit on than in my truck all night."

  "Grassy knoll? Are we going to be shooting the president too?" I laughed, thinking that my own cleverness was rather funny.

  "No Libby, we won't be shooting the president." He rolled his eyes and went back walking up what looked like just a small grass mound. "We don't really have much for hills in Louisiana, so this is what we get, knolls."

  "Fine, but you will not brainwash me into shooting any presidents." I plopped down on the ground with a brown bag in one hand and my root beer float in the other.

  "You are something else you know that, Libby?" He sat down beside me, resting his elbows on his knees.

  "I think the term you are looking for is natural blonde." I took a sip of my root beer float and then rustled my hand through his bleach blonde hair.

  It wasn’t the mess of straw that it looked like and felt like a new coat sliding through my fingers. I could have kept my hand there all day, but I quickly moved them back to my lap.

  "Hey my mom's a hairdresser, so she does this for me. You can blame her." He actually cracked a smile.

  "Well my mom's a lawyer so you can blame her for my wit and political references." I took another long slurp.

  "That explains it." Blaine unwrapped his burger and took a big bite.

  "Explains what?" I stopped slurping to meet his eyes.

  "I actually got nothing. I think I just like to get a rise out of you." He laughed and I shoved him a little.

  The shove honestly didn't do much. Trying to move him was like trying to push a house. Part of me just wanted to actually see his biceps and feel his muscles, but I think that would have been really creepy. For a second I actually wondered what it would be like to see him completely naked, but quickly shook that off. There would be no sexing for Blaine and Libby, not that night anyways.

  "So what is with you and trying to get me all crazy anyways?" I quickly changed the subject and popped a curly fry in my mouth.

  "What do you mean?" Blaine managed to get out between mouthfuls.

  "I mean, you have this genuine concern for my well-being and you don't like it at all when I do anything, like, sexy and I don't understand why. I mean you don't know me, but you act like you need to protect me."

  Blaine put his burger down on the bag and looked down, a somber expression on his face. "You don't know too much about your Aunt Dee's family do you?"

  "No, not really. Last time Aunt Dee came up I was like in elementary school, and that was when my grandma died. So we really didn't talk about her otherwise." I actually felt kind of bad, my dad's entire heritage was in Louisiana and our family seemed to avoid it like the plague.

  "Like I've always told you, your aunt is a great lady and I’m sure you know that now." I nodded as our eyes met. "I don't know what she told you about Brittany's mom."

  "Not much…" I shrugged. "I know she didn't seem like a very good person and only met up with Britt to get money."

  "That’s not even the half of it." Blaine took a long drink out of the unmarked Styrofoam cup. "My sisters were just a few years younger than Joni and I was of course a lot younger, but I can still remember what she used to be like. I remember my sisters just admiring her. They would come home from school and talk about how Joni's hair looked that day, or ask my mom if she could do their makeup like Joni's."

  After seeing Britt and Aunt Dee, I really couldn't imagine this beauty queen image that he was talking about. But I knew my father was an attractive guy, and I’m sure Aunt Dee and Britt had potential.

  "Every year on the Fourth of July we have a big parade and fair. When I was about four Joni was the fair queen. Everyone watched her as she rode in the back of the mayor's convertible, at that moment I honestly thought she was the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen."

  He looked ahead with an almost distant and reminiscent look in his eyes. "I still remember she had long red hair and the whitest smile I think there ever was, but…" He looked down for what seemed like an entire minute then back up at me. "I think that was the last time she ever smiled."

  "What do you mean?" I hadn't realized until that moment that I was so enthralled with what he was saying, that I was so close to him that our sides were touching, and that he had leaned his body into me. But at that point I actually found comfort in it. This wasn't the Blaine that I saw that night at the party, or Blaine the playboy, this was Blaine the new closest thing I had to a confidante in Louisiana.

  He put his hand on my knee. "That night there was a big party, my sisters were too young to go and I thank God every day that they didn't go." He began rubbing my knee. "Well, at that party it seemed like a lot of guys thought Joni was the prettiest girl they had ever seen too."
His voice got quite, almost angry. "They found her the next morning in a ditch, passed out, a few miles from town. The man that found her thought she just had gotten drunk and stumbled there, but then he saw what really had happened. "

  Blaine's grip tightened on my knee. "She was so beaten up and bloody, and she was completely lucid; not drunk or even drugged. That man that found her rushed her to the hospital. Two months later they found out she was pregnant, and she had no idea who the father was."

  He looked back at me. "I didn't want that to happen to you. All I could think about was how good you looked at that party. Then when I saw every other guy looking at you there, I didn't want what happened to Joni to happen to you. I couldn't bear to see Dee suffer again."

  He put his arm around me. "And I would never let anything like that happen to you." He leaned in, never taking his gaze off of me until his lips met mine.

  Chapter 10

  After just one date, Blaine and I had become the talk of the town. I guess it had something to do with the fact that we became inseparable.

  After only a week we had seen each other just about every moment of every day that we could. He would show up at work, on my lunch break, to bring me curly fries and a root beer float from Sam's. At night he would stay at Aunt Dee's from dinner time until he couldn't take Britt glaring at us any longer and it would be way past time Aunt Dee slipped off to bed.

  We would hold hands walking down the street and my phone was overloaded with pictures of the two of us. Needless to say, it was obvious that I was falling for a Louisiana boy.

  "Are you going out with Blaine again tonight?" Aunt Dee asked between mouthfuls of chicken fried steak.

  "I don't think they could breathe too long without each other," Britt quipped, swirling the green beans around on her plate.

  I shot a glare over at Britt and then smiled back at Aunt Dee. "He's supposed to come by after dinner. I didn't want to come between a southern boy and his momma's cooking. Though he swears yours is better." I picked up a piece of steak with my fork. "But don't tell his mom that!" I laughed.