This Is How It's Supposed to Be.

“So…be ready? I'll be there in ten.”

I smiled and hung up, shaking my head. Garrett was coming over –in ten minutes– and we were going into town, because as he said, we “hadn’t had any Garrett-Caleb time since summer started.” I pointed out that summer had only started three days ago, but he’d just told me to shut up, because we were going to have a Garrett-Caleb day anyway.

It didn’t take long to get ready, as usual. It was hot out (again), so I tossed my hair into a ponytail, and threw on some jeans...something I’d later come to regret. Garrett arrived right on time, 11:00 am on the dot. My mother opened the door and let him in, and a moment later he knocked on my door and poked his head down the stairs. I hurried up, knowing he would wait, but wouldn’t like it. Caitlyn was in the living room when we walked out, pretending to watch the morning news while I knew her eyes were really on me.

She made kissy faces as I passed, and I hoped that Garrett wasn’t looking. I checked to make sure my mom wasn’t looking, either (which she wasn’t; she was in the kitchen, trying to offer Garrett money to pay, which, of course, he refused to take), and then flipped her off, hurrying back so I could get Garrett before we ended up staying home all day.

We got into the car and I apologized for my mother, but he just laughed and said not to worry. He sped away, and we sang along to The Early November, full blast with the windows open as always. We stopped at the Marketplace, at the Cold Stone at the end of the line of shops. It was always more than crowded inside, and with the heat, today was no exception. We got in line right away, tenth or so behind other teenagers and parents with little kids. He insisted on paying, despite my protesting. He always did that whenever it was just the two of us, and a lot of times if Pat or John or Eric was with us. I always said that I wouldn’t let him, and I wasn’t going to today, but there was a long line in front of us and I could already feel the stares of angry customers burning into my back as we argued.

"I'm paying!" He said, pulling out his wallet and pushing me away.

“Fine,” I grumbled. He paid and we took our dishes outside, where we wandered around a bit outside of the stores, finally settling on a bench. Normally we would have stayed inside in the air conditioning, with our legs stuck to the plastic seat covers that matched the cheesy wrought-iron tables scattered around the shop. But everyone else had that idea, too, because there wasn’t an empty seat or standing room in the entire store. So we ended up outside, sitting on a wood-and-metal park style bench, trying to eat our ice cream before it turned to mush.

I knew as soon as we sat down on the bench that jeans were not a good idea. The fact that they were a little too small wasn’t helping either, but it was too late to do anything, and if I complained Garrett would have ended up trying to buy me a pair of shorts or something. He couldn’t have been much better off than I was. I recognized his jeans to be from a couple of years ago, and so full of holes you could tell right away that they were his favorite by far. He was smarter than I was in the shirt department, choosing a loose white v-neck. Even after five years of living in Arizona, I still had the horrible habit of wearing dark shirts, especially when I was going out –which always meant I spent the afternoon in the sun, wishing I’d thought to wear something else.

We didn’t really talk at all, instead choosing to sit in silence and shovel spoonful after spoonful of ice cream into our mouths. Finally, when he was scraping the bottom of his cardboard bowl, Garrett asked, “So…what’s up?”

I snorted, laughing and almost coughing up my ice cream. “Not much, you?”

“What’s so funny?” He was laughing now, too, smiling a real, genuine, smile, something I hadn’t seen in far too long. It was fun, just sitting there with him, laughing at what was essentially nothing at all, knowing that he was enjoying himself too. This was the Garrett I remembered from those first few years of school, when it was just the two of us. It was easy, talking about whatever we wanted (even though we’d chosen to not really talk about anything). I liked knowing that I was the one making him smile like this, like nothing in the world could bring us down.

“We’ve spent basically all week together, and you’re asking me what’s up?” I got up to throw out my spoon and bowl and Garrett followed suit, dragging me off by the wrist, telling me we were going to go walk around a bit.

The first block of shops was as far as we got before the heat became unbearable. After that we ducked into any store, regardless of what it was, just because it was shaded and had air conditioning. American Eagle, Journeys, Quiksilver and Wet Seal were as far as we got before it got boring, because neither of us were entertained at all by looking at clothes we had absolutely no intention of buying. So instead we made a game out of it, coming up with outrageous things to yell at each other across the store while we pawed through rack after rack of identical tee shirts, just to see what kind of reaction we could get out of people. When we got looks from employees or ran out of things to say, we’d walk out nonchalantly, as if we hadn’t just spent a good portion of the last few minutes being absolutely obnoxious.

The next store we went in, much to both mine and Garrett’s, surprise, was a Victoria’s Secret. To put it as an understatement, it was awkward. This was a store I avoided at pretty much all costs…and I had a feeling Garrett did, too. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe he and the guys came in here every now and then, just to look. It was the kind of behavior, that, to be honest, I expected from them. And maybe (and I shuttered to think about it), Garrett had come in here on his own to buy something for Lauren. I remembered him mentioning her birthday was a few weeks before the school year ended, and he did say that he hadn’t known what to get her…

I snapped out of it, remembering that he had, after much deliberation, settled on just taking her out and buying her a purse she’d been wanting. He was standing there, too, zoning out, and we were drawing stares, this time unintentionally.

I blinked a few times, knowing my cheeks were bright red, and pointed to the exit, starting to walk towards it. I didn’t feel Garrett behind me, though, and turned around. He was stopped mid-step, staring at a display of bright pink bras. He saw me looking at him and instantly flushed red, stared at me for a second and then quickly caught up to me, holding the door open so I could leave first.

That was the end of our adventures, we decided, not even needing to talk to make the decision. We headed back towards Cold Stone and Garrett’s car, stopping to buy a water out of the vending machine to share as we walked. The sun was starting to sink, too –we’d been out longer than we thought, apparently– and we hadn’t eaten anything other than ice cream all day.

“You wanna stop somewhere for food?” Garrett asked, lowering the car stereo so I could hear him.

I shrugged, “Sure, why not?”

We ended up turning around to go back to the marketplace, to the California Pizza Kitchen. I texted my mom and told her we’d be home later than planned, that we were eating now and would be home shortly after. She didn’t care, of course, but she thanked me for letting her know anyway. Garrett and I ate quickly, and then walked back to his car, where the radio got turned on at a lower volume than usual.

“Thanks for today,” I said, referring to not only him paying for everything, but for just inviting me out in the first place. “It was fun. Like old times.” Like before Lauren came around and screwed everything up.

He smiled again, teeth and all, “No problem. It was fun.”

We kind of sat there in silence, Garrett staring at the road and I out the window, radio volume turned back up, all the windows open. I was thinking back on the day, how much I really did enjoy it, our one afternoon of Caleb-Garrett time or whatever he had called it. I wanted every afternoon to be like that, so easy and natural and just plain, well, fun. I got a text from Caitlyn halfway home that asked if I washaving fun? ;) I didn't bother to answer it, because I knew the answer she expected was one that would be sarcastic and maybe even annoyed. The answer she wanted was a serious one, one where I admitted the feelings she thought I had. I didn’t answer because I wanted to send her a reply of the first kind, but I kind of realized that if I did that, I would have been lying. And sending a reply of the second type would mean that now, suddenly, whatever I thought I was feeling, this... crush I had, was actually happening.

I didn’t know if I wanted to face that just yet.