One of Those Rainy Days

Hey, wait a sec. This may not be such a bad thing.

I glanced up at him, and he was standing with his arms crossed. “They ditched us,” he said. I nodded.

“Yup.” I popped my “p.”

“Do you have a guitar?” he asked. Random much? I nodded, and walked back to my room, grabbing my lime green acoustic, handing it to him. “Nice,” he said, laughing. I rolled my eyes. I’d had the thing since about fourth grade, and I didn’t know how to play very well, so it was in pretty good condition. We spent a good half hour messing around with the guitar, and he played me a few songs before finally asking me which one of theirs was my favorite.

“Tie,” I replied. “Between Hello Beautiful and Take a Breath.” Before I could finish my sentence, he started playing the chords to Hello Beautiful. I hummed along, singing the parts I knew with him, and looking away whenever he made eye contact. It was just…too weird. Having Nick Jonas sing me a song in the middle of the living room. With my lime green guitar, none the less.

“Whadya wanna do now?” he asked, once my guitar was back on its stand in the corner of my room. He glanced outside, and I looked too. It’d stopped raining for the moment.

“Wanna take a walk?”

“How about to the park?” He smiled and nodded, and I grabbed my aero hoodie off the side table, and switched my uggs for a pair of slip on blue Vans, ditching my phone in case it started raining again. I mean, we were walking three blocks down the street. What kind of shenanigans could we get into?

We walked the three blocks, talking pretty much the entire way. In the short time, I discovered something else about him I didn’t know-he knew Disco Curtis. His parents actually knew the lead singer, Tanner’s, parents from when they were kids, and they’d hung out when Tanner would come back to LA to visit (he was originally from here, but moved to TX when he was like, ten). As soon as the park was in sight, I sprinted (carefully) towards the swings. I didn’t give a crap whether the seat was wet or not. I was gonna swing. I jumped on the first one I could reach, and started propelling myself in the air. Nick wasn’t far behind, grabbing the swing to my right and doing the same thing.

“On the count of three, we jump, okay?” I suggested loudly over the squeaking of the swings. He nodded, and I started counting down. “Three…two…one!” We both jumped off, landing about seven feet from the swings, rolling onto our sides, laughing crazily.

“I haven’t done that in so long,” he finally gasped, laying on his back. I could feel the wet earth starting to seep into my blue hoodie, but I didn’t really care.

“Me either.” I smiled happily, looking up at the still-grey sky.

“What took you and Michelle so long in the kitchen earlier?” he asked suddenly. “You seemed kind of pissed when you came out.” The question surprised me, but, for some reason, I didn’t want to lie to Nick. So I told him what had happened with Robby-about the text messages and Facebook status.

“God, this guy’s a douche!” he said, shocked. “What’s his number?”

“Uhmm,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “I don’t think he’s quite your type.” Nick rolled his eyes.

“I meant so we could call him-bitch him out or something.” I sat up quickly.

“Nick, no!”

“Yes!” he said, pulling out his phone. “This guy was an ass to you, and I don’t really appreciate that.” I smiled sheepishly, and then, still hesitantly, racked my brain for the half of Robby’s phone number I couldn’t remember. I finally had a full number, and we dialed it. “I hope this is right,” Nick said. I nodded. He put it on speaker, and someone picked up.

“Shhh, shhh,” the voice on the other line said. “I don’t know who it is.” A girl giggled in the background. “Hello?” I recognized the voice as Robby’s.

“Hey, it’s Dylan,” I said.

“Oh, hey Dylan!” he said brightly. A little too brightly.

“How’s your grandma?” I asked.

“She’s fine! Out laying by the pool, you know.” I glanced up at the sky, and then back to Nick, rolling my eyes. I don’t know how I believed this guy the first time he lied. He had no imagination.

“Must be getting soaked by the rain, then.”

“Oh, well..yeah. She’s from…Oregon, so she’s used to it.” I looked to Nick. He was giving me a look that said “What the fuck is with this guy?” I shrugged.

“I’m sure.” I smiled. “Well, just wanted to let you know that I got your message,” I started. “And it’s totally cool that you can’t hang tonight.”

“It is?”

“Fore sure!” I said perkily. “But if you ever,” I started back up, trying to maintain my perkyness. “Ever so much as mention anything about us to anyone, or if I catch wind of you ditching another girl to go screw around with your Grandma,” I said the last word sarcastically. “again, I swear to God every Senior in our school will know all about the cute little noises and things you said when we were out by the quad.” There was silence. Complete and utter silence from the other line. Until a girls voice said “Baby, what’s wrong?” I knew the voice. All too well, in fact. It was, as I’d suspected, Kayla. Robby shooed her away, and then came on the line finally.

“Psh, bitch, like you could do any better than me. You’re just a little slut who’d do any one who passed a glance at you.” I looked at Nick, wide eyed. This was the first time anyone had ever said anything like that to me. Nick spoke this time.

“Hi, Robby? Yeah, this is Nick. Nick Jonas?” The line went silent again. “If I hear anything about you or any of your little friends saying anything like that to Dylan again, I will personally make sure that Big Rob-you know, my four hundred pound body guard-has a little chat with you.” And then, like that, Nick pressed end call, a triumphant smile on his lips. I put my head back. “You okay?”

“I’m…fine.” I said. “I’m perfect actually.” And then, I busted out laughing again. “That. Was. Awesome.” Nick laughed with me, his smile wide and bright. “You didn’t have to do that, you know,” I said once our laughter died down. He looked at me, his arms folded behind his head.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why?” I asked, a little afraid of the answer.

“Because…” He sighed, and looked back up at the sky. There was a grey cloud-darker than the others-about to drift over our heads. “Because I like you.” I smiled. But before I could say anything back, I felt rain on my face. And as I sat back up, shocked, it started pouring. “Crap!” Nick sat up as quickly as I had, and stood, grabbing my hand and pulling me up with him, and then started running towards a large tunnel under one of the playgrounds. There were a few minor puddles at the bottom, but he crawled in, pulling me after him. We sat, catching our breaths for a few minutes. We were back pretty much in the same position we’d been in on the couch. He was sitting up against the wall of the tunnel, and I was sitting up against his chest, between his legs, our hands still intertwined. We sat like that for a few minutes, listening to the rain pouring down on either side of us and each other’s erratic breathing.

When we both seemed to have calmed down, he started doing that thing with his finger again, where he traced patterns on the back of my hand. I looked up at him. He looked down at me. And, before I knew it, our faces were getting closer and closer. But then, he stopped. And moved, pulling me with him. We were going back out into the rain.

“Nick,” I started, following him out of the tunnel. Rain pounded on my head, and I pulled my hood over my hair, trying to keep from getting soaked. “What are you-

But I didn’t get to finish my question. Because right then, Nick grabbed me, pulled me close to him, and crushed his lips to mine. It was a short, sweet kiss, maybe four seconds long, but it felt like a gazillion years.

Oh Jesus. I sound like one of those cheesy romance novels my mom is always reading. But, hey, what can I do? It’s just how things happened.

Nick pulled his face from my own, one of his arms lacing around my waist, the other cupping my cheek around my own arms, which were around his neck already. “W-what was that?” I asked, shocked. Raindrops were hitting my forehead and chest, which was still exposed to the rain, and I could feel my shirt and cami getting soaked.

“In the game,” Nick said. “You said you’d never been kissed in the rain.” I could feel my face splitting into a grin.

“And you’d never kissed a blonde,” I replied, biting my lip. He grinned back, stroking my cheek with his thumb.

“Guess we both gotta come up with new things to say next time we play.” I grinned, and then, without even thinking, leaned back in and kissed him again. This time, it was more passionate-rough. I lightly tugged at the hair on the back of his neck and he put at my bottom lip. Damn, this guy knew how to kiss.

When we stopped, I knew that most of my body was completely soaked. What I’d forgotten was that I was wearing all white, except, of course, for my black and white zebra bra. As we pulled apart, I looked down, and muttered “Well, this is emberassing.” Nick saw what I was looking at and just about died of laughter. I rolled my eyes.

“Ha-ha,” I said sarcastically, zipping up my hoodie. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks.

“Aw, you look cute when you blush.” I smiled, and grabbed his hand, starting to walk back home. We were about half way there when Michelle’s Mustang pulled up next to us.

“Need a lift?” Joe shouted from the passenger seat.

“Sorry, we don’t take rides from strangers,” I said, pretending to ignore him.

“Fine, we don’t give rides to raccoons.” I stopped in my tracks, shocked, and my hands flew up to my face, trying to wipe off any excess eyeliner that’d smeared.

“He was just kidding, babe,” Nick whispered in my ear, once again giving me the shivers. We got into the car, and Michelle gave me a knowing look. I smiled at her, and she raised her eyebrows at me in the rearview mirror, and then glanced back at mine and Nick’s joined hands in the back seat. The rain came down harder and harder as we got closer to the house.

“Gosh, this weather bites,” Joe said, unbuckling once we got in the garage.

“Yep,” I said, glancing at Nick. “Guess it’s just one of those rainy days.”