Roxanne

009.

I was normally a very quiet and calm person. In fact, out of everything that I had been known for [which included dating Bryan Bates and being the lead in just about every school production] I was actually known most for just being so damn calm. Even in situations that most people would have anxiety attacks over, I was somehow able to keep my cool. My father was generally a very calm person, also, and so I believe that I had been lucky enough to pick that up from him over the past years of my life considering my mom was the exact opposite. I had never understood how anyone could worry as much as she ever did.

Well, previously.

Because as it was right now, despite how calm I had always been in the short life that I had lived, I was a nervous wreck. The worst part out of all it was most likely that if someone had asked me why I had turned into such a nervous wreck at 10:30 that morning and told me that my life had depended on an answer, I would have most likely been killed.

I had gotten up at nine that morning and took a long, relaxing shower seeing as I had woken up with a bit of butterflies knowing that within a few hours I’d be face to face with Billie and about to spend the day with him. Truth be told, the butterflies had been fluttering in my stomach all night long and it had stopped me from getting the good night of sleep that I had deserved. It was after my shower and a cup of coffee that I quickly made even though I wasn’t a coffee drinker in the least that I began to feel perhaps the first pangs of anxiety that I had ever felt in my life.

I had gone back up to my room to pick out an outfit and dry my rather bright hair when I first became frustrated due to the fact that my hair just wasn’t drying how it normally had and how I had been praying for it to. After about twenty minutes of fussing with it, I ended up throwing down my hair dryer in anger and took out my straightening iron.

While my straightening iron had been heating up in the bathroom, I left and went back into my room to take out the outfit that I had been subconsciously drawing in my mind for the past hour or so. All it had been was a simple strapless black and white polka-dotted sundress that had always been my favorite out of the many outfits that I owned. It was slightly tight around the chest and waist which did a fine job at showing off my figure and making my cleavage a bit noticeable [which I didn’t mind seeing how small I was in general] yet it didn’t make me look like a whore in the least. That one dress had always been the dress that I’d wear when trying to impress someone because of how it fit me.

I found myself yearning to impress Billie even though I couldn’t place my finger on as to why. Perhaps it was the fact that Billie was the first new man, let alone thing, in my life for the first time in years.

The town that I had grown up in back in Connecticut wasn’t exactly large and so I was accustomed to my small group of friends and family seeing as I was an only child. I had many friends in school, however there was only a small group that I was close enough to to consider my family. Now that none of my “family” was here with me, I was forced into meeting new people—such as Billie. Of course I had met new people throughout the years of my life, but they had never really made as much of an…impression on me as Billie did. Billie had been the first person in years that, even if for the rest of our lives we did only stay friends, I wanted to impress.

I’ll admit that the wanting to impress him far more than anyone else that I had seen in California also most likely had to do with the fact that he was an attractive male that so far seemed to be the opposite of Bryan Bates—even if his age did make him out of my league.

It also could have been that Billie was a complete stranger to me and/or I wasn’t good at rejection. I loved it when people liked me and I had a hard time handling it when people didn’t. It was probably my greatest weakness.

I had been happy with the way that my dress had fit me as I always had been, but that was about where my optimistic mood ended. After putting on my beloved dress I went back into the large bathroom that was connected to my bedroom and began to straighten my hair that went just below my chest. My bangs had been sweet enough to work with me, but that was about it. My hair seemed to have somehow gained its own mind and absolutely refused to do anything, such as straighten for me. Within ten minutes I ended up scowling loudly and throwing my iron onto the counter before me before angrily exiting the room to go in search for a pair of shoes and promising myself that I’d progress more with my hair later.

I didn’t want to be taller than Billie as I had been the other day back in the supermarket and so instead of wearing a pair of wedges like I had the habit of doing, I instead picked out a simple pair of Old Navy flip flops. I had noticed Billie’s eyes the other day when he seemed to notice that with my heels I was taller than him and I didn’t want to hurt the man’s pride by being taller than him. I couldn’t imagine any man being proud to be standing with a female that was younger and taller than them. It also didn’t seem right to me—to be taller than a guy. Every guy that I had ever known was not only taller than me, but much taller than me. Bryan had been a little over half a foot taller than me and I had thoroughly enjoyed it that way. Billie was taller than me, but only by an inch or so. I felt a bit bad for him and his lack of height.

For the third time that morning I returned to the bathroom, however this time I only shot a look of disgust to my hair in the mirror and then to the iron that lied on the sink. Instead of bothering to wrestle the appliance, I set my bag of makeup on the counter before me. I didn’t wear all that much makeup to begin with and so applying it shouldn’t have been hard. Then again, I had also been born with naturally straight hair and that had also found a way to screw me over that morning.

It was when I was struggling to apply my makeup that I began to feel angry with myself. My eyeliner, much like my hair, seemed to refuse working with me in any way at all. Over the duration of twenty minutes I had ended up applying eyeliner, then taking it off and then reapplying it multiple times. I hadn’t realized it much beforehand, but as I placed my eyeliner back down on the counter and picked up the hair straightener to once again attempt doing anything with my hair, I realized that I was indeed panicking. I wasn’t exactly flipping out or crying or throwing a fit or anything or the sort, yet my emotions were on haywire. I felt so damn nervous and angry at the same time—and at intimate objects.

While reapplying my eyeliner for what I believe had to be at least the fifth time, I had begun to worry that Billie would arrive on time and I’d still be up in the damn bathroom trying to get my hair and makeup right. I know that I had said that I had never felt the need to fuss over my hair and makeup, but I had also never felt the need to make the impression on someone as I wanted to make on Billie.

To add to my frustration, the thought of how I seemed to crave to impress Billie crossed my mind.

It was ridiculousI was ridiculous.

At the thought of how stupid I had been being all morning, I ended up placing my eyeliner on the sink and decided to just go and sit down for a moment to calm myself down. I refused to allow myself to continue to worry about what Billie would think about me anymore. After all, he didn’t seem to mind me too much beforehand—even after he had woken up to me practically wrapped around him on the plane. If anything, I would have thought that that would have turned him off from me.

By twelve o’clock I had somehow managed to reapply my makeup to what I considered perfection and style my hair as I had hoped to, much to my luck. After I checked my phone for what had to be at least the fifteenth time that morning, I grabbed it and made my way through the maze of my aunt’s house and into the kitchen.

It surprised me a bit that Billie hadn’t called me, I’ll admit to that. After the way Billie had made it sound the night before when it came to him and text messaging, I had quite honestly really expected to hear from him again before seeing him again today. The fact that I hadn’t heard anything from him at all since we had hung up the day before worried me just a bit but it wasn’t anything worth biting my nails over.

I knew that Billie and I had agreed on noon for the time that he’d pick me up from my aunt’s house, however a lot of people had a lot of different ideas of what “noon” meant. With that said, I did my absolute best to not become a bit too worried when the clock turned to 12:15 and there was no sign of him. A few times I had thought of quickly calling him and in order to not seem like too much of a pain in the ass I’d excuse it as wondering if he got my text message, however I fought with myself and ended up putting my phone down each time.

The last thing I wanted to do was seem like a pain in the ass and end anything before it ever had the chance to try to breathe.

I had never been stood up in my life and so I didn’t really know how the hell to deal with a man being late and/or standing me up. Bryan, although he was indeed a man, was always on time. If we had made a date for seven o’clock some night, my ex-boyfriend would show up at 6:59.

I on the other hand—I had no idea what the hell being on time meant.

It was for such a reason that I also forced myself to calm down when I saw that the clock read 12:30. I also had the problem that even though I knew it wasn’t acceptable for me to be as late to everything as much as I was, I let it slide yet did the exact opposite with others. I guess you could say that it made me a bit of a hypocrite when it came to timing. I was terrible at waiting for anything.

At 12:45 I couldn’t help myself much longer and allowed myself to worry a bit yet tried to keep myself from being too dramatic. Perhaps Billie’s phone had broken when he had tried to find out what the hell text messaging was and now not only did he not have my address, but he didn’t have my phone number either. Perhaps he had been so angry with trying to find my damn text message that he decided to fuck it all and just decided that I wasn’t worth the hassle.

It wasn’t as if I was assuming that the man had a bad temper—I had seen it firsthand.

I cringed at the thought of Billie’s temper, because it made my theories all the more real. Instead of just imagining the scenarios that had been running through my mind, I found myself beginning to believe them.

What the hell would I have done if Billie never showed up?

I would have wanted to call him and tell him how much of a stupid sonofabitch he was, however I knew that I never would have had the balls to do so. I had a terribly strong filter when it came to my mind and mouth and most, if not all of my rude thoughts only ever stated thoughts. I’m not sure whether it was to my advantage or not.

It was when I began to wonder if perhaps Billie had gone to find my aunt’s house, had gotten lost and realized that I wasn’t worth the trouble when I finally noticed a knocking at the door and the doorbell being run. I dropped my phone that I had been subconsciously playing with onto the marble counter and quite clumsily moved throughout my aunt’s house to the two large glass doors in the foyer. It took me a few seconds or so to figure out how to un-lock all the locks on the doors, but when I was finally able to, I heaved open the doors.

On the large porch on the other side of the doorway stood the short faux-blonde haired man that I had been worrying over for the past three or so hours.

Truth be told, I wanted to fire questions at him, such as what the hell took him so long, but each question I had been asking myself for the past hour seemed to be forgotten as a crooked smile appeared on Billie’s clean-shaven face. It was the first time I had ever seen him that he hadn’t had some kind of facial hair. He managed to pull it off either way, though.

“Hi,” Billie greeted slowly. He laughed nervously and took a hand out of his pants to grip the back of his neck with. I grinned and watched as he rocked back and forth on his feet. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I was almost here on time, but I forgot my wallet.” He sighed. “Then my keys…and then my cell phone.”

Any anger that I had been feeling towards the hour-late man seemed to handle itself because I realized that I was really just so damn happy that he was actually there, standing before me.

The first thing I noticed about Billie had to be that not only was he wearing a pair of pants that weren’t about two-sizes too small, but for the first time he wasn’t wearing jeans. Instead of jeans, Billie was wearing black shorts that were a bit frayed at the ends and held up by a leather belt thought they still sat a bit low on his hips. Hanging just above the leather belt was the same black and blue striped t-shirt that he had been wearing the last time I had seen him. His tattoos were yet again, unsurprisingly the first things to catch my eyes—especially in the light that the sun was shining down on them. I wasn’t going to complain though because I had nothing to complain about.

When I didn’t respond for a minute or so, Billie chuckled slightly nervously and twisted his head to the side a bit. “Are you plotting my death for being late?” He asked slowly.

At his words, a small giggle escaped my lips and a soft blush began to creep across my cheeks. I hadn’t realized that I had been staring at him and I don’t believe he realized it either, thankfully. “No, no, it’s fine.” True, it was fine now, but I don’t believe I would have agreed that his tardiness was fine fifteen or so minutes ago. I stepped back a couple feet into my aunt’s foyer and allowed Billie to step in after me. “I just have to grab my phone and things; you can come in if you want.”

I looked up from the glass door that I had closed gently behind Billie to see him watching me over his shoulder. At the sight of seeing his eyes that were covered by a pair of sunglasses that I assumed to be focused on me considering his head followed me as I walked, the blush on my lips didn’t bother to hold back. Once I realized that I was blushing, I only made the mistake of blushing even more. I had always had the problem of blushing too much throughout all of my life, however I can’t recall a time where I had ever blushed this much.

Though, I don’t think I could recall a time where a man and woman stared at each other so damn much, either.

In order to hide the bright shade of pink that my cheeks had turned, instead of turning and speaking to Billie, I quickly jogged into the kitchen to grab my phone and shut off the television. Unfortunately, all awkwardness was not avoided due to the fact that when I turned around from shutting off the television in my aunt’s kitchen I collided with Billie’s body. We both stumbled a bit, but I found myself quickly being steadied by two strong hands that had somehow placed themselves on my shoulders. At the realization that we had both collided with each other, Billie chuckled while I giggled. Considering that we were now face to face and not even half a foot away from each other, the vibrancy of the color of my cheeks was easy to see.

A crooked grin caused the corners of Billie’s lips to be tugged back over his yellow and crooked teeth. “Are your cheeks permanently pink?” He asked.

By now Billie had removed his sunglasses and so I was forced to face the amusement not only on his face but also in his eyes. I scowled, though didn’t make any movement to push Billie away despite my embarrassment and how close we were. Billie laughed and gently slid a thumb over my left cheek.

The movement shouldn’t have surprised me seeing as I had already figured out that Billie was a very touchy guy, however all the knowledge in the world about Billie probably wouldn’t have stopped my heart’s beating to double in speed.

I swallowed thickly at the feeling of his surprisingly rough thumb brushing over my cheek. I probably would have moved had my feet not felt as if they had been disconnected from my body and my brain hadn’t shut down completely. I believe I had forgotten how to breathe for a few seconds as we stood there. To go along with the feeling of my lungs not receiving any air, I had become almost positive that my stomach had either dropped to just about as far as possible in my body or had risen as high as possible in my throat. For a moment I was almost positive and incredibly worried that I was going to become sick.

The grin on Billie’s lips didn’t cease to exist as our eyes connected and although I had already known that they were green from briefly seeing them before, I had never had the time to really notice how green they were. They weren’t outstandingly green to the point where they were too green, but instead they were a dark, pale green with even a bit of brown. If it had been possible to fall in love with someone’s eyes, then I do believe that I had done so at that moment.

My eyes disconnected from Billie’s and slowly trailed down to his nose and to the faint traces of where the hair of his face grew even though it was obvious that he had just shaved. My eyes bounced off of a few freckles that were scatted around his cheek and jaw and then focused in on his imperfect teeth that were still pressed together as he grinned. They were indeed crooked, just as I had noticed, but at the same time I don’t think I would have liked them nearly as much if they had been straight.

And despite everything—the fact that I knew literally nothing about Billie other than the fact that he was too old for me, the fact that he was too old for me and the fact that I had come to this state promising that I wouldn’t get involved with any man at all, I couldn’t stop my mind from wondering what Billie would have done if I had closed the few inches between our faces and replaced the grin that was still on that face of his with my own lips.

I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what I would have done had either of us made the move that I was so pathetically imagining. I couldn’t stop my mind from wondering what it would have felt like—if his lips were as rough from the biting it looked like he did or the complete opposite. I wanted to know if he tasted as he smelt—faintly of cigarettes yet somewhat strongly of cologne.

The thought concerned—no, it scared the hell out of me to where I felt myself and saw myself literally shudder as if I had felt a chill even though it was the middle of summer. Billie must have noticed my movement, also, because as soon as the chill that ran down my spine was gone, so was his hand. In fact, he had even gone as far as to take a step back.

His quick movement led me to believe that perhaps I wasn’t the only one in that kitchen to be a bit frightened.

Despite the atmosphere that we had created for ourselves in my aunt’s room, Billie somehow managed to regain his composure and the grin that had occupied his lips only a few seconds ago had reappeared. “Are you hungry?” He asked without missing a beat. I couldn’t help but wonder if the man had felt anything in the past few minutes or if he really was much better at regaining his composure than I.

In order to not look like the small teenage girl that I certainly felt like at the moment, I grinned back at Billie and forced my mind to focus on the present rather than the past. “I haven’t eaten all day.”

Billie chuckled. “You poor, starving girl,” he teased. “I was thinking we could go to my friend’s diner.” He shrugged. “It’s in Emeryville, but that’s not all that far away if you’re alright with it.”

A small, playful grin toyed at my lips as I pulled my dress down to smooth it out. I wasn’t a picky eater in the least and so wherever Billie wanted to go, as long as it was casual, was absolutely fine with me. I absolutely hated dining at fancy restaurants.“And what if I’m not?” I asked.

A look of shock took over Billie’s expressions and I think for a moment he didn’t realize that I had been joking. When he did, though, he laughed and lifted a hand to run his fingers over his lips as if deep in thought. He then shrugged. “Then I guess you’ll just have to sit in the car as I go in and eat.”

I laughed and placed my hand on my hip like a small girl that wasn’t getting her way or an aggravated wife. “What if I refused to go?”

I liked the fact that Billie didn’t allow things between us to stay awkward. Quite honestly, I couldn’t think of any other male I knew that would have disregarded the awkwardness exactly as Billie had. I don’t know what the hell I would have done right about then had the moment officially gone awkward.

However, at the same time, I was also a bit disappointed that what had happened only a few minutes ago was completely disregarded so damn quickly.

The playful grin from Billie’s lips faded into a solemn expression. He shrugged again and picked up his car keys from the marble counter behind him. “Then I guess that I’ll just have to leave and go eat on my own.”

Without saying anything else, Billie left my aunt’s kitchen and began towards the foyer in order to leave the house. I couldn’t help but giggle as I quickly paced after tattooed man and grabbed onto one of his colorful arms. Billie took an unsteady step back in surprise yet he somehow managed to keep us from falling on our asses for the second time in the half hour that we had been together. Once seeing me standing there with both of my hands wrapped around one of his arms, Billie tilted his head to the side and cocked an eyebrow.

“Would you really have left? I asked. I knew that Billie would have of course answered yes seeing as our whole conversation was pretty much based on sarcasm.

“I’m a growing boy,” Billie responded.

I whacked Billie’s arm lightly and he laughed. Without bothering to let go of Billie’s right arm, I pulled him through my aunt’s home and into the foyer where the two glass doors that he had just come through a little while ago were. I would have let Billie’s arm go had I thought he had minded that I was holding into it, however I don’t believe he did mind by the genuine smile that was on his face. Although it may sound incredibly odd, I liked the feel of Billie. He wasn’t a tense man in the least and I believe that the way he avoided awkward silences such as the one that could have been created before had to do with it. Holding onto Billie or having him hold onto me was rather…relaxing in a sort of way.

And it wasn’t as if we were holding hands or anything.

Holding into Billie’s hand probably would have been crossing the line of friendship that we had wordlessly agreed to and whether or not we ever decided to hesitantly step over that line would come in time—a time that would most certainly not be a lunch date that wasn’t even a “date” at all.

To be honest, the thought of ever crossing any sort of line with Billie, even with something as small and insignificant as holding hands worried me a bit. It wasn’t as if I had never held hands with anyone before because that wasn’t the case at all. I enjoyed holding hands with people and it had never made a difference to me about who it was. I had been born a natural cuddler in just about every damn way, even if it wasn’t cuddling that wasn’t being done at all. My characteristics had never bothered me when I had been with anyone else before and I had never been shy at the simple thought of contact with someone before.

But then there was Billie.

Something about him, although I’m not quite sure what to be exact, made the butterflies in my stomach flutter a bit quicker and the blush on my cheeks to become a bit more prominent.

He made me nervous and I think I liked it.