Sometimes Resisting Is Easier Than Giving In

“Steingarten.” I repeated and sighed. “S-T-E-I-N-G-A-R-T-E-N.”
This receptionist was so incompetent it hurt. I waited as patiently as I could fake while she searched for my schedule in her papers upon papers. Thank God I got here early.
“Found it!” She said handing me a paper.
I handed it back to her.
“That’s yesterday’s schedule. I need today’s, with my other classes.”
“Oh dear, it is.” She said looking at it and then looking through her papers again.
“Emmy?” I heard Darren ask.
“Hey!” I turned around to face him.
He approached me with a huge smile.
“Bet you thought you’d gotten rid of me, huh?” He asked leaning against the counter.
His smell hit me hard. I tried discreetly to take in as much as possible of it. He smelled amazing.
“Oh damn. You caught me.” I joked.
He laughed. I bit my lip but released it before he could see.
“Still funny I see.” He commented.
“Great mood too.” I replied smiling.
“How come?” He wondered.
“Found today’s.” The receptionist said saving me from having to scramble to find a good answer.
Darren grabbed it out of her hand before I could and scanned it. A smile formed on his lips. I didn’t know why though.
“I’m still supposed to show you around today. They weren’t lying when they said our schedules were close.” He started walking and expected me to follow. “We have two classes again.”
“Oh? That makes four of eight.” I said.
“Good thing you’re still not annoying.”
“Why’s that?”
“Mmm, mostly because you’re a girl and I like girls. Also because you’ve got one hell of an interesting name Emmeline Steingarten. Nineteen letters. Woo!”
I mentally checked to see if he was right. He was.
“You’re quick with numbers.” I noted.
“You’re not.” He chuckled.
“Weakness. Forgot you were a chemistry major, you have to be a good book keeper and good with numbers or you’ll die.”
“Eh, or something a little less tragic.” He allowed. “Physics is pretty up there though. Are you gonna go for a Ph. D?”
“Maybe. I haven’t decided.”
“You should. It would sound cool. Emmeline Steingarten Ph. D.” He smiled.
“Sounds wicked.” I agreed.
“How about Dr. Emmeline Steingarten Ph. D or Dr. Steingarten Ph. D?”
“Too busy, besides the last one sounds too manly.”
“Go for Ph. D. I will.”
“You you’ll be Darren…” I realized that I didn’t know his last name.
“Dursch.”
“Darren Dursch Ph. D.”
“Mmm but I get that all the time already.” He smiled.
I looked at him blankly.
“Pretty huge…” He gestured with his hand at his pants.
“Oh! …Eww!” I said pushing him lightly away.
He laughed.
“You’ve never heard that one before?”
“Nah, I don’t think so.” I wondered why I hadn’t heard that from Jack or Alex.
My first class of the day was without Darren, my second was with him, we ate lunch together, after that I had class without him again, and finally class with him.
When we walked out of class he walked with me to the parking lot.
“Could you give me a ride to work? I would normally drive there on my own but my car died and my friend skipped school.” He asked.
“Yea, hop in. It’s no problem.”
“Thanks.” He said tossing his books into the back seat of my car.
“Where do you work?”
“The Photo Shop. It’s like two blocks from here.”
“I know where that is. My friend goes that all the time.”
“Really? Sweet then I don’t have to give you directions.” He smiled.
As we drove to the Photo Shop we talked about the classes I had. He told me things about each of my teachers and things to watch out for in the classes with them. I was thankful that he was a junior and knew all these things. We also covered a few things that I might need to remember in some of the classes we had together but not to worry about it because he’d be with me.
We pulled up in front of the store and he started taking out his snakebites. I just watched him.
“Company image.” He clarified.
“Oh.”
Then Darren pushed his hair back off his forehead and smoothed it into an acceptable shape. He didn’t look too bad with it back.
“Also company image.” He rolled his eyes and shoved himself into a sweatshirt. “Can’t have visible tattoos either.”
“Man, that’s strict.”
“But eighteen dollars and hour is worth it. See you tomorrow.” He said grabbing his books.
Courtney walked out of the store just as Darren was getting out of the car.
“Hey Courtney!” We both said at the same time.
She stopped and looked at the both of us. He looked at me. She looked to him and then back to me.
“You know her?” We asked each other at the same time.
“Creepy.” We both said at the same time referring to our time responses.
We laughed. I waited for him to go first to stop this weirdness.
“That was weird. Uhm, but you know Courtney?”
“Yea, we’re besties!” Courtney said coming to my side of the car.
“Oh was she the friend you mentioned before?” He asked, our previous conversation clicking in his mind.
I nodded.
“We should hang sometime. All of us.” Courtney said.
“For sure.” Darren smiled at me and only me.
He said a quick good-bye after that and ducked into the store.
“Ride?” I asked Courtney.
“Yes, please.”
She got in on the passenger side and put her bag of photo materials in the back seat.
“I’m setting up a darkroom in the extra bathroom that we don’t use. My mom said I could. I blacked out the window while you were at school today. It gets real dark in there now.”
“Can’t wait to see it, or rather, not see it.”

The two months that it took to bring about the day before the boys came home arrived faster than I had expected. I was almost done with the summer semester of school and getting ready for the fall by choosing classes. I was hoping that Darren and I got some elective classes together. We knew we’d have English and History together at least since we already had them.
Darren, Courtney, and I would hang out outside of school on the weekends that he wasn’t doing some extreme sport with his guy friends. He’d tried taking us with him once or twice but we were terrible. Skateboarding and BMX were just not something that we were good at. His friends had a good laugh at trying to teach us but there was really no hope in it. At least we could all have a good time together.
Courtney could not stop bugging me for an answer as to whether or not I liked Darren. I think she suspected I did but wanted to hear it from my lips. I wouldn’t tell her because it was my only way of driving her nuts. I mean I did like Darren, a lot, but if I admitted that to her she’d bring up Alex and I didn’t want to think about him.
It was Friday and Darren and I were getting our things together to leave. The bell had just rung and people rushed to leave the classes.
“So glad it’s the weekend! My friends are coming home and I wont be alone in that house anymore!” I grinned as we walked out.
“Yay!” Darren smiled at me. “When are the coming home?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’ll just have to wait until next weekend it all.”
“For what?” Now I was curious.
“Well… I was going to ask if you would like to hang Sunday. I’m not doing anything that day and I though that just you and I could hang, you know without Courtney there.”
“Yea, I would love that. I wont be stuck with my friends all day. They’ll probably want to sleep and what not.”
“So then would it be okay if I told you that I was hoping this could be a date?” He asked shyly.
“A date?” I asked when we reached the parking lot.
He nodded.
“Yea, can’t wait. When and where?”
“Uh, six. We can grab dinner at Ruby’s and then go from there.”
“I love that place. It’s on. I’ll meet you there.”
“Great! See you Sunday.”
I watched him walk away and bit my lip. This was really happening! I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy.
As soon as I made it into my car my phone started ringing. I knew it was Courtney from the caller ID and figured she needed a ride home or a ride to somewhere so I answered.
“What did you say?” She demanded excitedly before I could get a word in.
“About what?” I asked holding the phone slightly away from my ear.
“Darren!” She said in a ‘duh’ tone. “Are you going?”
“Yea, I am.” I smiled.
I knew what was coming and help the phone away from my ear while Courtney squealed in excitement.
“I’ll call you back Court, I have to get out of here.”
“I’m going to meet you at home.”
“Great.”

After a night and almost full day of giggling about the date I had scored with Darren it was time to go pick up the boys from the airport. Courtney was ready to go the second it turned five o’clock. I told her to calm down because I didn’t want to wait an hour for their plane to touch down and then another half an hour for them to get off of it.
I was excited to see them as well, I was just afraid of the greeting I was going to get from Alex. It wasn’t so much the greeting that scared me; it was knowing that I was going on a date with another guy and him trying to kiss me when we met up after two months. On top of that I was going to have to tell him about the date eventually because he’d probably ask to hang out all day tomorrow.
When we did get in the car Courtney put in Put Up Or Shut Up and played it loudly, I allowed her to do this because she was excited to see her boyfriend and have time with him that wouldn’t be interrupted by shows or interviews.
“This is so awesome. I have a boyfriend and you’re going to have one by tomorrow night! We could go on double dates!” She yelled over the music.
“Yea, maybe.” I agreed.
There wouldn’t be anything weird with that would there? Well maybe there would be. I mean Zack had tried to get me to be with Alex and now I was dating a new guy. Maybe we wouldn’t do that. But for the sake of getting Courtney to shut up I agreed so that she could dream up something.
The airport was looming in the distance and Courtney begged me to drive faster, claiming that she could see their plane docked at the unloading station. I drove slower to make her squirm.
We made it to the airport eventually and she was out of the car in no time. I had to jog to catch up with her at the cross walk. She was dancing in hopes that it would take away the knowledge of the seconds passing away, the seconds she was in close proximity with Zack but not touching him. I rolled my eyes when she sprinted across the crosswalk as the light turned green.
“I can see them!” She shouted in front of me and broke into a full run.
I sighed and walked at a normal pace. She flew though the sliding doors and I made it though a few seconds after it. It was quick enough to see her run at Zack, taking a flying leap at him, his face spread into a huge grin and hold his arms out for her, and them to topple to the ground hugging.
Jack sprang up from the bench yelling for her to get off Zack until he realized who it was.
“My bad. I thought you were a crazy fan.” I heard him say as I approached.
“Emmy!” Rian smiled pointing at me.
I pointed back.
He jogged over to me and pulled me into a hug.
“Missed you.” He mumbled into my shoulder.
“I missed you more. It’s so quiet in your place with out you and Alex.”
“Well now we’re home for a while and you wont be lonely.”
Jack ran over and put his arms around the both of us.
“Group hug!” He squeaked trying his hardest to pick the both of us up.
“Oh Jackie-o!” I squeaked extending my arm to hug him as well.
Rian steeped out of the hug and let Jack and I have a moment. We exchanged the ‘I missed you’s’ and hugged for a while.
When I pulled out of that hug arms slipped around my waist. I turned, knowing who it was, and hugged Alex. He nuzzled his face into my neck and kissed it. I was hoping that would be the extent of all the kissing. He squeezed me tighter than Rian and Jack put together and picked me up off the ground.
“God I missed you!” He sighed as he put my down.
“Me too.”
I pulled out of the hug.
“Are you staying the night with us?” Rian asked.
“No, I can’t. I have homework and you guys probably want to get to bed.” I said noticing how sleepy they all looked.
Zack and Courtney had gotten up off the floor by now but were still hugging and kissing each other hello. I went over to them and was able to get a quick hello with Zack and hug before going back to Rian, Jack, and Alex.
“So who am I giving a ride home?” I asked.
“Just me and Rian. Jack and Zack are going home together in a cab since they live near each other.”
“Mmm that means Courtney is going with you Jack. I have a feeling her and Zack won’t be separated for a few days.”
Jack made a face.
“You guys ready to get home?” I asked looking at Alex and Rian.
“Yea, I’m so tired and I miss my bed.” Rian said picking his suitcase up off the ground.
Alex nodded and we headed out after saying good-bye to everyone else.
Alex fell asleep in the back of my car, sprawled out as much as he could over the back seat. I made sure to drive carefully so as not to wake him. Rian was dosing off in the front passenger seat. Neither of them were good for much conversation.
When we got home I had to wake Alex up and drag him into the house with the promise of seeing Sebastian. Sebastian was hopping all over the place and Alex seemed to wake up for a little to say hi.
I left them at their house, claiming I had to get an essay done before the weekend was over. I just didn’t want to get sucked into spending the night with Alex as he slept on me. Any other day I would have loved to let him, but now that I had a date I was acting like I had a boyfriend.