Chapter Eight
Brock
Sometimes I look at her and think I would pay money just to know what she’s thinking. She sits there quietly a lot and I can almost see the wheels turning in her head. A girl who thinks is a precious animal as far as I’m concerned. It’s one of the things that attracts me to her the most. That, and her incredible smile, and her sense of humor, and the fact that she always smells good, and her eyes. Okay, there’s a whole list, and the more we hang out, the more things I find to like about her.
I haven’t asked her out on an official date since that night at the club. I’ve discovered that she seems so much more comfortable when we both act like we’re just hanging out. It’s been a great month. I’ve had a lot of fun with her, and she’s actually the best math tutor I ever had. I’m not just saying that because the last one had a booger that stuck out of his left nostril…all the time. She’s really smart, and she’s patient with me. If I don’t get it, she explains it again. Sometimes she has to lean across me to show me something and then I get to smell her, and I also get a clear shot of her nostrils…no boogers.
The problem with all of this hanging out is that now we’ve gotten into the friend zone. It’s not a bad thing. As a matter of fact it’s been great. I can talk to her about almost anything. I say almost, because I haven’t told her about the cancer yet. It’s too soon for all that. But everything else, we’ve talked about. But now we’re in this friend kind of place and I still want to kiss her so flipping bad that sometimes it feels like there’s this hot fire burning in my chest. The rules are pretty clear though. When you are friends with a girl, and hanging out and not dating, kissing is not completely acceptable.
I held her hand tonight. That was nice. I took hers, to help her down the dirt ramp, and I thought she’d pull it back right away. She didn’t, so I didn’t let go either. We walked through most of the tree farm, hand in hand. For some reason when we were in the pumpkin patch, talking about carving jack o’ lanterns, the desire to kiss her became almost overwhelming. I’m not sure why. She had this look on her face that made me wonder so much what she was thinking, I almost asked. I didn’t though. I just enjoyed the look. She’s so pretty and damn, I really want to kiss her.
I considered giving it a shot on the train. We were alone, except for the walking dead guys that kept popping out of the corn field. It was dark and romantic and every time one of the guys popped out, she’d grab on to my jacket. I envisioned being brave enough to throw my arm around her protectively, and while I had her there I could cover her lips with mine, and finally taste her kiss. I thought about it, but again I didn’t do it.
It’s so strange, because I’ve always been able to tell when a girl liked me and wanted me to kiss her. I think Molly likes me, maybe just a little more than a friend. But she protests a lot about not wanting to date, and not wanting a boyfriend, so I have to ask myself why would she be receptive to a kiss?
Last week we watched a movie together. It was one with Johnny Depp that I had seen a bunch of times. I like Johnny Depp, and when I was sick my dad used to buy me all of his movies and I’d watch them over and over in the hospital when Dad wasn’t watching football. I quoted this one part, before the girl on the screen said it. This may sound weird, but at that moment I thought she was going to actually kiss me. If I were smarter, I would have gone in for it right there. I don’t claim to be all that bright though, so here I am looking at her hair shine in the moonlight and her pretty dark eyes looking at me…still wanting to kiss her, so very badly.
We had done pretty much everything there was to do, and it was getting colder and the wind looked like it was blowing in some dark clouds. I asked her if she was ready to go. I wanted to get her home on the bike without getting soaked. She said yes, and then I remembered the pumpkins.
“Damn, I never saw Jake and Megan. Did they show up?” I said. Molly looked at her phone and said, “It’s only nine-thirty; they’re probably just on their way. We can get pumpkins anywhere though.” She was always so...flexible.
I smiled at her and said, “Okay, we better get going then before that black cloud up there opens up and we drown on the way home.” This was the sad part about having a Harley instead of a car. I can’t honestly say I can think of many others.
I took her hand again, feeling brave now and helped her up the dirt ramp to the parking lot. Just as we got there I heard a roll of thunder and then a clap of lightning. I looked up again and that black cloud was moving fast. “Maybe we should wait and have you ride home with Jake and Molly. I don’t want you to get sick or something from being soaked.”
She laughed and said, “That’s nice of you to worry, but I’m no wimp. I’ll be fine.”
You already are…fine. I think I stared at her too long after I thought that. What the hell were we talking about? Oh yeah, going home. I felt a fat drop of rain on my head, and then another and another. Suddenly it was like standing under a solid shower. We were a ways away from any shelter, and sitting on Suzie wasn’t going to help, so I did what any guy would do…I took her hand in mine and said, “May I have this dance?” I thought she would tell me I was crazy, or run for the corn shack. Instead, she smiled through the rain that was now beating against her pretty face and said, “Why certainly.” There was, of course, no music so I had to improvise. Now, I’m a musician. I should have a thousand or more songs in my head at any given time and be able to sing them all on demand. I usually do. But tonight, the only song I could recall the words and the tune to was by Aerosmith. I have no reason to lay here, scouts honor and all of that; it was the only song I could recall.
I used the hand I still had ahold of, and I pulled her close. I was trying to block some of the rain, but I also just really wanted to feel her close to me. It gave me kind of a light-headed feeling. I tilted my head down and put my lips close to her ear and sang, “I don’t want to close my eyes. I don’t want to fall asleep because I’ll miss you babe and I don’t want to miss a thing.”
I wasn’t sure what she thought about my song choice, but at this point I was into it and she hadn’t kneed me in the gonads so it was all good. I had one of her hands in mine and the other one on the lower part of her back as we moved our bodies together to the tune. My pulse was racing and every time I opened my eyes and looked at her I shuddered. I don’t think it was from the cold. I had never done this before, singing to a girl without any music at all while we danced, in a dirt parking lot next to a pumpkin patch. Okay if I had billed it that way to begin with, she probably would have said no. The spontaneity of it had made it that much more exciting, and I had never wanted to kiss her more than I did now.
I looked down at her face when I got to the part that says, “Even when I dream of you, the sweetest dream will never do and I miss you babe and I don’t want to miss a thing…” I wanted to tell her that was true. I had never even dreamt of a woman like her. As I looked at her, I saw and felt her take a deep breath and I could feel a little tremble in her hand that I wasn’t sure if it was for me or because she was cold and soaking wet. I liked thinking it was for me. My hands were shaking, and I knew it was because of her.
She had a smudge of mascara under her eyes, and her hair was now plastered to her head and I swear to God at that moment she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I couldn’t talk myself out of it anymore. If she objected, I would just shoulder the consequences. I was finally going to do it. I was going to kiss her.
As I finished the chorus of the song once more, I pulled my head up again slightly from where it was at next to her ear along the side of her cheek. This time, instead of rising up to look at her, I let it linger there. Our mouths were so close that all it would take was one gentle motion by either of us for our lips to meet. I took another deep breath and…
Just then, there was a flash of headlights and a honk of a car horn. I squinted through the rain and saw that it was Megan and Jake. I told myself that I was getting new friends the first thing in the morning. The friends that I have right now seriously suck. At this very moment I should be feeling Molly’s warm, sweet lips on mine. I despise them.
Molly looked at me and grinned. I think she knew I was going to kiss her. I think she wanted me too, maybe as much as I wanted to. Or maybe it was my imagination. Now I would never know.
I took her hand and we walked over to where Jake had his big head sticking out of the car window.
“What are you guys doing?” he said with a big, stupid grin.
I’ll remember this next time he wants me to leave so he can have a “romantic” evening with Megan. I’m going to sit on the couch in my SpongeBob boxers and play video games all night. I’m going to pass gas and scratch myself and leave my dirty socks in the living room. Oh! And…I’m going to leave the toilet seat up every time I went to the bathroom. That’ll teach him.
“We were going to leave, but it started raining…” Molly said. I wondered if she was thinking revenge too when Megan interrupted her with, “So you stopped in the dirt and danced?” Then she and Jake laughed like they were so proud of themselves for setting us up. Molly looked at me and rolled her eyes. Then back at Megan and said, “It was mud, which we are still standing in by the way. Now are you going to invite us in, or do you enjoy seeing us out here getting drenched?”
“Oh shoot!” Megan said, unlocking the back doors of her car. We got in, both of us shivering now and Megan said, “There’s a coffee shop in town about five miles back. You guys want to go there and warm up and see if it’s going to stop raining? I don’t want to ride a haunted train in this mess, and I’m sure you don’t want to ride that bike right now.”
I looked at Molly and she said, “Coffee sounds really good right now, I’m freezing.”
“Oh!” Megan said. “There’s a blanket in my trunk. Jake, will you get it for them please?”
Jake looked like he wanted to do anything but get out in the rain. It made me happy. His punishment was only just beginning…
He jumped out and literally ran to the trunk Megan had popped open and back to the car. The blanket he threw back to us was soaked just from those few seconds. I looked at Molly and said, “You take it, I’m fine.”
She surprised, and delighted me by saying, “No, you’re as cold and wet as I am. Scoot over here, we’ll both use it.”
I didn’t argue with that. I scooted close to her and she spread the blanket out across both of our laps. We snuggled together, and it was almost as good as our dance. Except that the moment for the kiss was over and I would have to find another. I looked up and saw Megan looking at us in the rearview mirror. I didn’t want to share our first kiss with anyone but Molly, so for now it could wait.