What Are You Waiting For?

“Hey honey, who are your friends?” Ian’s mom said in a sweet voice, smiling at Riley and I.

We waved in response. I felt slightly awkward.

“That’s Nick, and that’s Riley. They need a ride home because their ride left them here.” Ian explained, getting in the car.

“Oh, well that’s no good. I guess I could give them rides. I just need addresses.” Ian’s mom said, looking back at us.

“Actually, we were both wondering if we could hang out at your place for a little bit, get to know you better, ya know? What do you say?” Riley asked.

I stared at him, wondering what was wrong with him. Wondering why he thought it was okay to invite us over to Ian’s house after we just barely met him today. And include me even though I said nothing of the sort. I just rolled my eyes and looked back at Ian, who was looking at his mom.

“They can come over for a little bit.” She said.

Ian looked back at us and smiled at us as we took off from the parking lot, on the way to his house.
I didn’t mind spending time with Ian, I was looking forward to it, but I couldn’t help but feel like Riley was pushing us on Ian a little too fast. I didn’t want him to get like, afraid of us or anything.

I felt my shoulder get poked.

I looked over and saw Riley looking at me, concerned. “What’s wrong?” He mouthed.

I sighed. “I just feel like this is going too fast.” I whispered quietly.

He gave me a guilty look. “I’m sorry, you’re right. Do you just wanna go home?”

“No, no.” I said, putting my hand up, smirking at him a little. “It’s alright, I can deal with this.”

Riley gave me a mischievous look. “Nick has a crush.”

“It took you this long to figure out?” I asked, blushing.

“Well no, it’s just confirmed now.”

I hit Riley softly as we pulled into Ian’s driveway. The outside of his house looked nice, but I know not to judge a book by its cover.

“Hey, this isn’t far from our house, only about three blocks away. That’s awesome!” Riley said.

When I looked around and noticed that everything looked slightly familiar, I smiled to myself.

We got into the house, and the house was just as nice on the inside as it was on the outside. It was so clean and tidy compared to Riley’s house. Probably because Ian doesn’t have two lazy ass brothers who don’t clean up after themselves.

“Your house is nice.” I said, looking around at all the decorations on the walls.

“Thanks.” Ian said, sounding embarrassed, which was totally cute.

We all set our backpacks down by his front door and turned to look at each other.

Ian looked nervous, like he didn’t know what to do. “So what do you wanna do?”

“Movie?” I asked, glancing at Ian, then Riley.

“Sounds good to me.” Riley said, and probably for a much less innocent reason than “just because”.

“What movie are you feeling?” He asked.

“Surprise us.” I said, sitting on one of the ends of the couch, while Riley took the other end.

He so did that on purpose.

I tried peaking to see what movie Ian picked, but he was too sneaky. He grabbed the remote and came to sit on the couch with us, sitting just inches from me.

I almost giggled, but suppressed it.

When I saw the menu screen for Dead Silence, I almost jumped out of my seat and left. “I don’t like ventriloquist dummies. At all.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to bury your face in something when they pop up.” I heard Riley say, not even having to look at his face to tell what he was implying.

Ian pressed the dreaded “play” button and the movie commenced. I was basically on the edge of my seat before the movie even started. I brought my legs up to my chest and tried hiding behind my knees, but it failed.

I was already gripping Ian’s arm for dear life before the really scary stuff happened, and I jumped into his lap, hiding my face in his chest, when the really scary stuff came on. I felt bad for clinging to him, but it felt nice; it was very comforting.

“Sorry about this.” I said into his chest, feeling like a nuisance.

“It’s alright, don’t worry about it.” Ian said quietly in my ear.

The next natural step for him to take would’ve been kissing of the cheek, petting of the hair, calling me pet names, or any combination of those three. When none of those happened, I got a little sad, but then snapped out of it.

I’ve barely known this (amazing) guy for a day and I’m expecting kisses and cute names?

I shooed those thoughts out of my head and continued hiding my face in Ian’s chest, peaking every once in a while to see if the scary dolls went away, then regretting it as an image of Mary Shaw popped on the screen. I was seriously about to cry.

Ian started running his fingers over my back lightly, like he was scratching my back, trying to comfort me. It was working wonders.

By the time the movie was over, I got comfortable in Ian’s lap, my arms around his neck, and he didn’t seem to mind it at all.

“Where would your bathroom be?” Riley asked, getting up to stretch.

“Go down the hall and take a right and it’s at the end of the hall.” Ian instructed.

“Thanks.” He disappeared down the hallway, leaving Ian and I alone in the living room, still cuddled up like we were dating or something.

“I vow never to watch that movie again.” I said, looking at Ian with puppy eyes.

Ian smiled. “I’m pretty sure we will just so I have an excuse for you to cuddle with me.”

I turned into a bright red cherry tomato and hid my face.

“Hey.” He whispered.

I looked up at him, uncontrollably smiling.

He placed a small, soft kiss on the tip of my nose. “Don’t be embarrassed.”

I emitted a small giggle and unwillingly got off of Ian’s lap. “We should probably get going. Riley’s mom probably has no idea where we are.”

Ian started pouting a little, probably unintentionally, and it made me want to hug him tight and never let go, never leave him.

Ian beat me to the hugging part, though, wrapping his arms around me, squeezing tightly. “I know this it going to sound totally weird, and I won’t be offended if you never talk to me again, since we’ve only known each other for a day and most people wouldn’t say this-”

“Just say it, Ian.” I cut his rambling short, laughing a little at how cute he is when he’s nervous.

“I like you, Nick. A lot.” He said quietly, hiding his face from my eyes.

My heart rate increased rapidly as a huge smile spread across my lips. “I knew something amazing was going to happen the moment I first saw you.”

He looked up at me, smiling as widely as I was. “Really?”

I kissed his cheek, placing my hand on the other, pulling away slowly. “Really.”