I Hate Liking You

“Hey David,” I tried not to sound to sheepish. “Cassy around?”

I shut the door behind me and walked into their living room.

It was the afternoon after the party; the afternoon after I’d woken up on the couch with the ONE person in the world I shouldn’t have. As far as I knew, no one knew that, but for some dumb reason, I was still embarrassed.

“Nah,” he shook his head, causing a few beads of sweat to fall off his already soaked hair. “It’s actually just me here right now, unless you count Jayk who won’t be conscious until supper. I was just playin‘ a little b-ball.”

I giggled as he rolled his eyes at his own comment. Jayk was a late sleeper.

“Well you didn’t happen to see any shoes or anything left here last night did you?” I asked him, returning to the mission that had brought me back to the VFC house.

“That’s everything,” he pointed to a small pile of clothing, purses, and other articles on the floor.

I started to dig through it while he walked into the kitchen. I heard him pour himself a glass of water.

Tacky purse….huge shoe….barf-covered jacket…. “Ah-ha!” I announced as I found my missing shoe, holding it in the air.

“If you want anything else feel free,” David said as he appeared in the living room once again.

“I wou- Oh….n-…” I stammered broken words out of my mouth as I looked up at him and realized that he was now only wearing a pair of shorts.

Every single muscle on his upper half gleamed in the afternoon sun from his previous basketball session. It was like a ripple spread through him as he moved to lean against the wall. Cheesy…yes. Realistic…yes.

“I umm….yeah...no, I’ll let someone else grab their own stuff,” I murmured as I tried to focus back on my task.

“Hey, did you guys find an earring? Silver, about this big…” I asked as I held up my hands indicating the size of the missing object.

“Hmmmm…” David took a sip of water from the glass he was holding. “Bobby mentioned he’d found one on him when he woke up his morning.”

I could feel my stomach drop a little.

David raised an eyebrow at me as a crooked smile appeared on his face. “What did you two do last night?”

I automatically shifted into protective mode.

“Ha!” I laughed. “What? With Bobby? No way man. Gawd…I can’t even think of him that way.”

David rolled his eyes at me.

“You’re terrible at lying Kate,” he stated, walking back into the kitchen.

“Well good thing I’m not lying then!” I shouted back, glad he wasn’t there to see my cheeks start to burn under my skin. “I just don’t like him, I never did!”

“Classic denial,” David said, walking back into the living room, cup-less.

“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes this time and started digging in the pile once more.

I don’t know what I was looking for. I’d already gone through everything and the only thing that I was still missing was my earring, which was apparently in the possession of Mr. Edner right now.

“Why do you deny it?” He asked as he grabbed my arm and pulled me up to face him.

“I do NOT deny it!” I said as I forcefully yanked my arm out of his grip.

As soon as I’d done it I knew I’d given myself away. There had been too much emphasis on the “not”. That had been the dumbest come-back ever.

David knew too. I could tell as I slowly lifted my eyes back up to his. He was nodding his head with a smirk.

“Riiiiight,” he said, folding his arms across his toned chest.

“Glad you believe me,” I spat back, but I could tell my face didn’t match my words. My cheeks were burning.

“So tell me this,” David said stepping towards me. “If I were Bobby right now, what would you do?”

“What?” I asked, very confused.

“Pretend I’m Bobby,” he said. “Pretend we’re alone. What would you say to me?”

I scoffed, but for some reason the look on his face told me refusing to play would not help my argument.

“Well,” I started, folding my own arms across my chest, “I’d say ‘Hey!’”

“Oh hey!” David lowered his voice a tad.

I laughed.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, still with the lowered voice.

“Well Bobby,” I forced myself to play along. “I was just looking for my earring. Have you seen it?”

I took a step towards him. Eliminating much of the personal space between us.

“Ahh..?” he thought as he scratched his nose.

That was something Bobby had always done. Whenever he was deep in thought he would sub-consciously scratch his nose with his hand. It was cute. Or he’d do it when he was nervous. I’d noticed it the day he asked me out on our first date.

“Was it a big one?” the sound of his voice brought me back to reality.

I had almost expected to see Bobby there in front of me. But that was stupid. I knew who I was talking to. It was…

“David…”

There were no more words. I now found myself inches from his face. His eyes weren’t brown like Bobby’s, although they had a brown in them. They were a soft green colour that spread out from the pupil, mixing with a brown that stretched the entire circumference of the iris. Captivating.

I didn’t know what was going on. My stomach was starting to flip flop.

The space between us was quickly closing.