~Blake~
Just a few months into knowing Christ, Blake found himself trying to make a deal with God.
Did God make deals with people? Blake didn’t know much about theology or eschatology either one, but he was trying his best at growing into his newfound faith, reading the Bible he’d been given and figuring out the great I AM.
God had made a deal with Abraham. He’d agreed to spare the city for the sake of just a few righteous. But that ended up not being a deal at all, because there were none righteous. So, had God really made a deal? (And there were none righteous. Blake could amen that every time he looked in the mirror, knowing that even his redeemed heart was still prone to sin, prone to wander, and prone to stray from Christ’s side.)
But he was steadfast. Church became more than an event he was expected to attend because Pastor John was looking for him. It became a place where he could ask all the questions he’d been wondering about as he’d read through the Bible. It was the sanctuary, literally, from home, where his dad was just as bad as he’d ever been. It was a place where he could bow his head and find that the same Christ who had stolen into his heart was here, was in the hearts of others, and united people.
And that… well, that was how Blake ended up trying to make a deal with God.
Lord, I will go anywhere and do anything for You if You’ll only give me a chance with Leslie Collins.
“Earth to Blake…”
He looked up from the paper on the desk in front of him, straight into Leslie’s eyes.
She was smiling at him, just like she did most Sunday mornings at church when they’d find themselves in the same class, discussing the same text. He’d usually ask some stupid question that everyone else probably already knew the answer to because they’d spent most of their lives in church. He always steeled himself for ridicule, but it never came. Maybe everyone else was learning the same stuff as he was.
Ridicule certainly never came from Leslie Collins. More than once she’d told him, as class had let out, “You know, Blake, I’ve wondered that same thing before. Why would Jesus tell people not to tell anyone about who He really was, when we both know that He wants you and me to tell everyone about Him?”
It was a mystery. As was the way his heart pounded at the sight of her these days. When had it changed? He’d certainly been attracted to her, way back at the end of the summer when he’d watched her take those cupcakes into the high school, but it had only been a physical thing then. In the weeks since, though, in getting to know her at school and at church, it had changed into something deeper.
Attraction still but an entirely different kind.
She was still smiling at him as he looked at her. And then, before he could manage a word, she tapped her pencil on his forehead. That likely had everything to do with how he watched her, staring at her like he was.
He could hear his boys laughing from a couple rows back as they watched.
His boys. He hadn’t been out with his boys in days, in weeks. They knew something was different with him, but Blake wasn’t sure how to tell them what had changed. “Hey, I’m living for Jesus now.” That would have worked, sure, but it would have freaked them out. Or worse yet, they would have asked a lot of questions about how someone like him could be “into Jesus” after living the way he had for so long.
They likely thought that even this friendship with Leslie was nothing more than his attempt to make good on his boasts from that day in the parking lot. Leslie glanced back at them with a curious look, likely wondering at their laughter.
“Hey,” Blake said, drawing her attention back to him, praying that she’d ignore those goons. “What’s up with you hitting me?”
“I wasn’t hitting you,” she said, tapping his head with her pencil again. “I was trying to bring you back to earth with the rest of us. You’ve got the second half of the periodic table there, and I needed to see the number.”
He looked back down at the oversized table of periodic elements that they’d spent the past two days drawing out and labeling. Blake had hoped that the project would require them to work together outside of class because he wanted to spend more time with her.
That sounded creepy, probably.
It’s not like he’d been watching her at school or memorizing her schedule or anything. He hadn’t been keeping track of her and thinking through the best strategy to get her alone so that he could talk to her.
Except… well, he had. He’d noted that with some horror and no small amount of embarrassment when he’d finally realized what he’d been doing. He wasn’t like this with girls normally, but he was different now, knowing that part of dying to self and living for Christ meant dying to the ways he’d lived before, back when he’d treated girls without respect.
He’d do this thing right with Leslie.
“Here,” he said, moving his arms off the page. “Can you see it now?”
She could. She had to lean over him to see it, and Blake certainly wasn’t sad about her hair brushing his shoulder or catching the scent of her perfume. He heard more whispering behind them, could almost make out the words that his boys were saying, and straightened up.
Nope. He wasn’t going to be that guy.
“I can read it to you if that would be easier,” he said with some effort, but Leslie was already backing away, writing the number down.
“Got it already, but thank you,” she said. “You’re kind of out of it today.”
She looked over at him expectantly as if waiting for him to give a reason for it. Truth be told, he’d been acting this way for a while. It was a diversion from his regular confidence, but maybe that had been pride that was whittling away to nothing.
Who was he now, now that he belonged to Jesus?
Leslie nodded and gestured at him, as if his slack-jawed silence proved her point.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m kinda… trying to figure out some things, you know? With the change in going to church, becoming a believer…”
She knew about it. Apart from his presence in Sunday school, at church, and at Wednesday night Bible study, she’d been there when he’d come down the aisle at church to tell everyone that he’d become a believer. She’d been there the Sunday morning when he’d gotten baptized. She’d even hugged him as he’d stood at the front, greeting everyone as he’d been introduced as the newest member of their church.
Maybe that’s when things had changed for him. That and when he’d seen a different side to her at church, where she smiled, where she was at home, and where she seemed to really believe every word said from the pulpit.
Did she get what he was going through even as he struggled to explain it in a coherent way?
It seemed like she did.
“It’s a big change,” she said. “I remember when I first started going to church and became a believer.”
“Do you?” he asked, surprised to hear that she hadn’t been going there her whole life.
“It was after my parents died,” she said. “Travis had no clue what he was doing, of course. He became our legal guardian when he was just a teenager himself, and I’m not sure he knew… well, anything, quite frankly. But he knew that he could get some help from church people. And so there we were, the very first Sunday after the funeral, with Brooke squeezing him so tight, like some tiny octopus who wouldn’t let him go. Or maybe he was squeezing her, because I think church freaked him out there at first.”
Blake smiled briefly at this, trying to imagine the confident man he’d observed at the church being a scared teenager. He couldn’t.
“Travis was the first one to come to Christ,” she said. “It happened so quickly. I remember him going up to the front of the church, with Brooke hanging off of him, like she did every week for the first few months. He went up there and prayed with Pastor John, and it was like he was new.” She smiled at Blake. “Still our stodgy brother, of course, but he had hope. And peace, even with how awful things had been going for us with our parents and the car wreck.”
Blake watched as she bit her lip thoughtfully.
“It was a great witness to all three of us,” she said. “And Holly and I followed him right down the aisle and through the baptistry a few months later. Because he loved Jesus – loved Him in word and action, out loud and with such genuineness – and we knew it was the real deal.”
The real deal. Blake could affirm the truth of this.
“You know what?” Leslie asked, continuing to work on the periodic table. “You need to meet Travis. I think he would help you out a lot.”
Quite possibly. Blake nodded, deciding that he did want to meet Travis, not only for his spiritual guidance and mentorship but… well, because of Leslie…
“When would I do that?” he asked.
“After church on Sunday,” she said, smiling. “You’ll be there, right?”
Most definitely.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
And he didn’t miss it. Not that he would have, but with the extra motivation of knowing that Leslie would be watching for him, Blake found himself more than eager to get out of bed early that Sunday, making his way past his father, who looked befuddled as Blake left the house all dressed up on a Sunday of all days.
No time to explain it to the old man, as if Blake cared what he thought anyway.
He made it to church and over to Sunday school, where he was too late to make much conversation with anyone, apart from catching Leslie’s eye and smiling back as she grinned at him. For the rest of the hour, though, his mind wasn’t on Leslie but on the lesson, about the story Jesus told about the sower, about the good seed in the good soil.
Blake found himself praying that his heart would be good soil, that it would yield a great harvest, even as the youth pastor spoke Leslie’s name out loud.
“And Leslie has nursery duty today,” he said, reading from a sheet.
Yes, a lot of the youth rotated on nursery duty, which was great as far as ministry went, but it meant that Blake wouldn’t be able to sit next to her during the worship service like he’d been planning. It also meant the he wouldn’t be able to have her introduce him to Travis.
But that mattered far less than the sobering truth that he wouldn’t get to talk to her until after the service, he thought, as he watched her leave early, right before they prayed and the youth minister dismissed them all.
He had a plan. He was going to ask her out.
He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to say when he followed her out, but he knew that this was his chance. They were around one another at school, but she was easier to talk to here, probably because she wasn’t busy taking notes in class or moving in between the hallways in a mob of people. Also, all of his friends would be watching him at school, and Blake knew that this talk with Leslie would probably involve some awkwardness on his part.
Awkwardness. Because he liked her. And because she wasn’t going to be easily won over like all the other girls who had come before her. No, he would have to try, really try, and that made him nervous.
He’d given himself a little pep talk as he’d tracked her down in the hallway where she was walking towards the nursery, keeping a respectable distance between them as he found his nerve and prepared to stop her and ask her out.
“Leslie?” he said, just as he got close enough to her that he wouldn’t have to yell to be heard.
She turned at the sound of his voice and gave him a smile. “I know what you want.”
Her. He wanted her.
He forced the thought out of his mind. “What?”
“I told you I’d introduce you to Travis,” she said. “I totally forgot all about nursery.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” he said.
“Holly can introduce you,” she said. “You’ve met Holly. Or Brooke. You met her, too.”
He had. But he didn’t care about Holly or Brooke or Travis or any of them at the moment.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Well, then,” she smiled. “I’ll see you.”
“Wait, Leslie,” he said. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
He watched the hesitation on her face. “Oh? What did you want to talk to me about?”
This was it. Do or die. He called up his confidence, a leftover from the old Blake.
“I wanted to ask you out.” He blinked. “On a date.”
Smooooooth.
“A date?” she asked, looking confused.
Was it that unbelievable?
“Yeah,” he said, feeling a little breathless as she watched him. “I wanted to take you out. On a date.”
Suddenly, for the first time since he’d met her, Leslie looked shy and uncertain.
But there was a small smile on her lips that made his heart soar.
She was thinking about it. She was actually thinking about telling him yes, going out with him…
“On a date,” she repeated. “When?”
“Are you free on Friday?” he asked. Then, he remembered that he wasn’t. “Oh, no, sorry. I have a football game.”
“I know,” she said, that shyness there again. “I was planning on coming to the game.”
“You were?” he asked. He wasn’t sure he’d ever remembered her coming to a game. Not like he would have noticed before this year, but these past several weeks, he’d been watching…
She smiled again, a little more certain this time. “I wanted to watch you.”
Well.
Suddenly, he thought about how she’d smiled at him in class as she’d tapped his forehead with her pencil. How she’d leaned over him. How she always met his eyes in Sunday school and at Bible study.
Was it possible that she… that she might like him?
Maybe. It was looking like more and more of a certainty as she smiled at him again.
He took this as the green light that it obviously was.
“Come to the game on Friday, then,” he said. “And then, I’ll come and take you out on Saturday night.”
And she smiled in response.
“It’s a date, then.”
For the rest of the day and the week that ensued, Blake felt like he was winning in a way that he’d never won before.
That Friday night, they lost the game. And it wasn’t just any loss. No, it had been a spectacular loss. Blake hadn’t cared much at all about it, though, his mind on the stands, on Leslie sitting there, and on the smile he’d seen her give him as he’d turned from the field at the end of a failed play, looking for her.
Maybe she was why he’d played so poorly that night. His dad had been furious later on when he’d gotten home, telling his son that the game had been the worst he’d ever seen.
But Blake took it in stride, going back to his room and reminding himself that they hadn’t been projected to win that one anyway.
Besides, who cared about football? All he could think of that night was Leslie.
He took the early shift at work the next morning, finishing up in time to get back home and shower, change clothes, and get himself looking presentable before heading to Leslie’s house to pick her up. He’d been nervous, and that feeling only amplified when her brother, Travis, was the one to open the door when he rang the doorbell.
“Blake Young,” Travis had said, taking him in, his expression void of any kind of indication of what he truly thought about his sister going out that night.
Blake hadn’t met him that Sunday after all. No, his mind had been on Leslie and on the date. Then the rest of the week had been the same, with the added bonus of seeing her every day and talking with her, finding himself flirting with her, the old Blake coming back in a new way, a better way, as every word he said made Leslie smile and laugh.
No, he hadn’t been thinking about Travis.
But he was thinking about him as the older man stared him down at the front door.
Blake had gone for the most confident smile he could manage. “Mr. Collins, sir.”
Travis had waved this away. “It’s just Travis, kid. Come on in. Leslie’s almost ready.”
He’d come inside almost sheepishly, more nervous than he’d been when Travis looked him over again.
“You joined the church a couple of months ago,” he noted.
“Yes, sir,” Blake answered. “Came to Christ a couple of months ago.”
“I figured,” Travis nodded, sizing him up. “Good for you. Although I guess the saving work of Christ in your life isn’t your doing as much as it is His, huh?”
What was the appropriate response to this? Blake had no idea, so he simply nodded.
Travis sighed. “You’ll have her home by a decent hour?”
“Of course,” Blake agreed. “Whenever you say.”
“Midnight.”
That didn’t come from Travis, who merely frowned as he looked towards the stairs, where Leslie was now making her way down.
Beautiful. She was so beautiful. Blake found himself smiling at just the sight of her, the memories of all the different words they’d exchanged that week coming back to his mind.
She’d smiled the same as she’d looked at him.
“Midnight?” Travis echoed what she’d said. “That seems a little late. How about ten?”
“Ten,” she exhaled. “Really, Travis? I’m seventeen.”
“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s make it eight.”
“Good grief,” she sighed, glancing over at Blake. “Are your parents annoying like this?”
She had no idea what it was like living life with his parents.
“Fine,” Travis sighed. “Eleven.”
Leslie grinned at the compromise, rushing down the rest of the stairs and giving him a quick kiss to the cheek. “Accepted.”
“And you’ve got your phone on you?” he asked.
“Got it.”
This seemed to be enough for Travis. Or at least, he would pretend like it was.
“Good to meet you, Blake,” he said, watching the younger man warily.
Was he like this with all of Leslie’s dates? Had he been this way with the boyfriends she’d had?
Blake didn’t give it a second thought as he opened the door of his truck for her, then drove her out to the restaurant he’d picked out, pulling out her chair from the table, then sitting down and smiling as she’d talked about the test they’d taken on Friday in chemistry.
But his mind went back to Travis eventually, as soon as they placed their orders and the waiter walked away, with Leslie looking down at the table nervously.
“Is your brother like that with all of your boyfriends?” he asked, imagining how many times her brother must have done the same act.
Leslie smiled up at him then averted her eyes again.
“I’ve never had a boyfriend,” she said softly, glancing away at the last minute as if this was a confession of some sort.
He tried to remember if he’d ever heard of her being paired up with anyone else. If he’d ever seen her with anyone else…
No one. There had been no one.
“Really?” he asked.
“Really,” she said, her eyes still on her hands as they fidgeted lightly on the table, her bottom lip between her teeth.
She was nervous about telling him this.
She’d been nervous since they’d sat down at the table. Maybe even earlier than that. Not like that was unusual, though. He’d been more nervous than she was.
But still…
“Have you ever… have you ever been on a date before?” he asked.
She took a breath, and he regretted asking the question. But only for a moment.
She looked up at him, a bright smile on her face.
“This is my first date,” she said, a little wavering nervousness in her voice. But then she swallowed and spoke up again. “Not that I haven’t been asked before. But I never said yes.”
Why not?
Blake couldn’t keep himself from asking the question.
“Why not?”
“Because,” she said, shrugging, her face turning a delicate pink.
She was so different that the loud, rude girl he’d first gotten to know before everything had changed.
“Come on, Leslie,” he pressed, and she smiled as he said her name. “Why not?”
“I figured it was worth waiting for the right guy to come along.”
She looked up at him meaningfully.
If this had come from any other girl at any other point in his life, Blake would have been scared away. It was just a date, and here Leslie Collins was, already making it sound as though she’d decided that he was the right guy for her. Too much, too soon – that’s exactly what he would have thought earlier.
How well did they know one another? Was it possible that all that they’d been through with Ben and his death had united them in some strange way?
Blake would have been scared away by any kind of connection like this earlier in his life.
But this was Leslie Collins. And he was a different person now.
So instead of saying anything, he reached across the table and took her hand in his, knowing that he was exactly where he was meant to be.
The night was ending too soon.
They’d gone from dinner to a movie, a move he’d regretted later because there was only so much talking they could do as the chick flick he was certain that Leslie would enjoy played out before them, cutting off the great talk they’d been having up until that point.
He’d never get tired of talking to her. He marveled at this, at how the words rushed from them both, astounding him with their ease, with the naturalness of this friendship that they had formed in such a short while. They should have gotten to know one another a lot earlier, he mused at several points, but would it have been the same without Christ, without all that had happened, without that moment at the church when they’d understood one another better than Blake had perhaps ever understood anyone?
He wasn’t sure, but as she held his hand as he drove, he found himself thinking about friendship, about attraction, about love.
Love. That was a crazy thought, wasn’t it? One date in with this girl, though, and…
“I like doing it,” she said, an enthusiastic smile on her face.
He’d been asking about her cupcake business, about the delivery she’d made earlier in the day for a small wedding at the church, and about how she already had some cupcakes ready for a baby shower for tomorrow afternoon between services.
“And you’re good at it,” he said, thinking about how she’d been making a cupcake delivery the first time he’d really noticed her. “I mean, that’s what I’ve heard. A profitable business.”
“A profitable small business,” she said, waving this away. But he could see the small hint of pride in her eyes. “But how can you say that with any authority?”
“Because I hear things about it,” he said, glancing over at her. “You’re the cupcake queen.”
Her smile brightened at this, and she let out a little laugh. “Cupcake queen. I’m good with that.”
He found himself smiling as well, so glad to have pleased her. All night she’d been smiling like this, and he couldn’t get over each and every tender look she sent his way.
“My girlfriend is the cupcake queen,” he said. “And I’ve never even had one.”
Girlfriend. He’d said it. He hadn’t planned on saying it. It just came out naturally, like it was meant to be.
He shot a look over at Leslie, encouraged by the joy in her expression. Girlfriend. That had done it.
She was okay with it. And he was more than okay with it.
“Never had one what?” she asked.
Easy. Just like that. No need to talk it over. It just was.
“I’ve never had one of your cupcakes,” he said, putting his hand to his chest while keeping one on the steering wheel. “And it hurts my heart a little.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “It’s not like everyone in town has had them.”
“Chase has,” he said. “Pretty sure he snuck one out of the PTA lunch you had when the teachers were doing all their meetings before school started.”
“No doubt about it.”
He was about to mention that Jordan and Ben Sanders had gotten a couple as well, but the thought of Ben Sanders stilled his words in his throat. She was his girlfriend now, and he didn’t want her to think of him like she had before when she’d gotten onto him in chemistry. How would she feel about him if he brought up again how bad he really was, how what she’d seen at that senior meeting was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to who he’d been?
No, he wanted her to know who he was becoming. That’s all.
“Well, you can try one of my cupcakes tonight,” she said, an unexpected shy edge to her voice.
“I can?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got a lot of extras that I didn’t use for the wedding today,” she said, looking down at her hands, folded neatly on her lap. “They’re all iced to look like bridesmaids, which is admittedly a little girly.”
“I’d expect no less from the cupcake queen,” he said.
“They’re chocolate, if you like that,” she laughed, smiling at him even more warmly.
“I love chocolate,” he said. “Does that mean I can walk you to your front door?”
He didn’t walk girls to their front doors. He didn’t pay for dinner or open doors or do any of those things. But he’d done them all for Leslie Collins because she was different, because he was different, because already this was something very different…
Girlfriend.
She smiled. “Yeah, I guess it does.”
He stared at the pink cupcake fifteen minutes later, waiting to get the green light.
Leslie’s brother was (thankfully) back in his room and not in the kitchen. Leslie’s sisters weren’t in the kitchen either, which had Blake thanking God for big favors. He’d been tempted to reach out and pull her to him as soon as they’d gotten alone, to lower his lips to hers and kiss her, but she’d moved right past him.
Cupcakes. She hadn’t been kidding when she said she had extras. There were neat and even rows of the leftovers left in a carrying case that Leslie had brought to the counter, motioning him to sit on a stool as she prepped him for that first taste.
He didn’t realize she was so militant about it all until she swatted his hand away from the cupcake she was holding, as he’d tried to grab it then scarf it down without preamble. But she’d winked at him after she’d done it, so he’d sat obediently at the counter, waiting.
She took this business seriously.
“And be honest with me,” she said, so in her element in the kitchen as she turned to him with the cupcake still held out in one hand, a look of severity in her eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s amazing if it’s just mediocre. Because flattery gets you nowhere when it comes to baked goods.”
“Flattery gets me nowhere,” he said, tentatively reaching out and taking it from her hand.
She didn’t swat him again. Winning.
“Not with baked goods because I know baked goods, and I’ll know if you’re lying.”
“Okay,” he said, pulling the paper from the bottom of the treat, smiling as he considered his next words. “Flattery gets me nowhere when it comes to baked goods. What about flattery when it comes to telling you that you’re beautiful?”
He’d done it. She was smiling again.
“And telling you that tonight has been the best night I think I’ve ever had?”
“Hmm,” she murmured.
“And saying that I have the most amazing girlfriend.”
He’d said it again. She was still smiling.
“I think that kind of flattery might work,” she said.
Score.
“Will it work well enough that I might get a good night kiss?”
Bold perhaps, but he really wanted to kiss her.
“Maybe,” she said softly.
And he wanted to do it then, right then, just like he had when he’d walked in the kitchen, knowing how easy it would be now to lean over and finally kiss her –
“The cupcake,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Eat the cupcake first.”
Well, she was serious about her work. Just then, he’d caught a glimpse of the no nonsense girl he’d known before. Or thought he’d known, at least, as she smiled at him.
“Okay, okay…”
He took a bite as she watched him with anticipation, biting her lip just slightly as he chewed carefully, thoughtfully.
Amazing. The best he’d ever had. Leslie wasn’t just a great student and a good girl. She was also someone with a real future in business, a gifted person who would go far in life.
“Well?” she asked, giving him time to get a second bite in, her smile growing as he went for a third, finishing it off.
“I’m in love,” he said dramatically. With the cupcake or with the woman who’d made it? Maybe both.
“High praise,” she laughed. “But you looked just as excited about your dinner earlier. Maybe you loved that cheeseburger just as much.”
“No,” he said, taking the napkin she’d set by his cupcake and wiping his mouth. “This was different.”
“Describe it to me,” she said, sitting across from him at the counter, resting her chin on her hands.
Describe it. Hard to do that when his mind had shifted from the dessert to her, that beautiful face, those sparkling eyes, those lips…
“Sweet,” he said softly. “Soft. Surprising, at first, because the taste is… well, it starts off subtle, like it’s just any old cupcake. But then, once you really get into it…”
“Yeah?” she asked, her grin spreading wider. She knew all about her cupcakes and what it was like to experience them, and her grin was likely all about how she was taking his words and thinking about what she did best.
But he wasn’t even thinking about cupcakes anymore.
“It’s almost like a kiss,” he said, his voice even softer now, his heart pounding in his chest as he moved closer to her, raising up his hand to touch her cheek.
She didn’t blush. She didn’t do anything but watch him with interest.
“The cupcake?” she asked. “How?”
She was still thinking about her work. That was who she was, though. Blake loved that.
But he wanted her to think about something else.
“It starts off as something simple,” he said, moving even closer, noting that Leslie’s breath hitched just slightly as he did so. “Simple… but then, it leads to something deeper, more real…”
“Oh,” she said. “But it –”
Before she could speak aloud another thought about cupcakes, his lips were on hers, taking the words from her mouth with tenderness and gentleness until she moved closer as well, her baking all but forgotten on the counter as she sighed and returned his affection, so much so that he was certain that she could taste just a little of what he’d experienced.
Love.
It wasn’t such a crazy thought after all.