Have You Ever?

My alarm woke me up the next morning. I looked at the time: 6:30. I took extra time getting dressed this morning, for some reason. It was never like me to make sure I looked perfect, especially for school. I would just throw on some jeans and that would be it. But, today was different. I made sure my jeans fit just right, and my hair stayed in the right place. I even put on make up, which is something I rarely think of doing.
I grabbed my backpack and went downstairs. Charlye and my mom were sitting at the island eating breakfast.
“ Good morning mom, good morning Charlye.”
“ Good morning.” My mom said, smiling at me. Charlye gave me a sort of grunt and an eye roll, before turning back to her food.
What is her problem?
“ Mom, do you know our next door neighbors?” I asked as I grabbed a bagel and put it on a paper plate.
“ The Lopez’s? Yes, I met their mom, Maria, yesterday. She was nice.”
“ Yeah, they invited us over for dinner tomorrow and-”
Before I could say anything else, Charlye opened her mouth.
“ We are not going.”
Both me and my mom gave her a puzzled look. Charlye was the one that was obsessed with boys, and here she was denying the chance to go hang out in a house with 3 of them?
“ Why?”
“ Because…” Me and my mom stared at her as she tried to think of a good excuse.
“ Because what?” I finally asked her when I saw that she wasn’t going anywhere with this. “ Is this because Daniel wasn’t paying attention to you yesterday?”
“ It’s not because of that.” She said. Her leg started bouncing like it did every time she was lying.
“ Uh huh. Sure, Charlye. It’s the first time a boy even pays any attention to me and you can’t handle it.”
I picked up my backpack and stormed outside. This was just like Charlye. She always had to have everything for herself. I mean Daniel was a boy for Christ sakes. She could at least let me have one out of the millions out there.
“ Um…are you okay?” I looked over and saw TJ leaning over his fence. He had on jeans and a deep green shirt that made his eyes pop out more.
“ No!” I screamed. He looked at me curiously.
“ Well, somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
He started laughing until I threw him a glare, then he shut up and looked at me seriously.
“ Look, if it helps, I can drive you to school.” He threw me one of those Lopez smiles and waited for my answer.
“ Okay.”
I followed him to his garage. It was one of those manual ones that you had to lift up to open.
“ So, where are Daniel and Christian?” I asked as TJ went to open his old school garage.
“ Um…Daniel went in his car and Christian chose to skateboard to school with a few of his friends.”
“ Friends? It’s like, his second day here and he has friends?” TJ shrugged his shoulders, looked over his shoulder, and smiled at me.
“ Christian is very…charismatic I guess. He’s a people person.
I smiled back at TJ. He turned around and lifted up the garage door. What I saw left me breathless. Instead of a nice, normal, safe, car, there was shiny red motorcycle. TJ gently tossed me a black helmet.
“ Ready to go?” He asked, sitting on the bike.
“ On that?”
“ It’s not a that!” He exclaimed as if I was insulting it. “ It’s a girl. Her name is Lola.”
“ You named it?”
“ No, I named her.”
I looked at TJ like he was crazy. He probably was. Only a crazy person would drive a girl motorcycle and name it Lola.
“I’m not going to school with you on Lola.”
He took off the helmet and looked at me with his piercing green eyes.
“ Come on Crystina. The school is only a few blocks away. If you think I’m going to fast or something, then I could stop and ride beside you while you walk.”
I looked at him, debating whether to get on his death trap or not. I thought about saying no, but there was something about his eyes that got me to say yes. Yeah, and I know that sounds corny, but who cares? I’m about to ride a motorcycle.
“ Alright.” I agreed as I hopped on the back of his bike and slipped the helmet on my head. The engine started, and I loosely wrapped my fingers around TJ’s waist. I heard him laughed, and suddenly became embarrassed that I was doing something wrong.
“ What?”
“ Your going to have to hold on way tighter than that, unless you want to go flying off.”
I glared at him through the helmet and wrapped my arms tightly around him, causing me to scoot closer to him. The engine roared again.
“ Ready?” TJ asked me.
“ As ready as I’ll ever be.”