Of Confidence

Normally on a day that was going to consist of a day of traveling for at least eight hours Melanie would be slow to get ready, not excited for the plans that faced her. She would wake with a scowl on her lips from frustration of not being able to sleep in as long as she had preferred, but today was different.

She didn’t seem to care that she awaited an eight hour drive. She didn’t mind that she’d be sitting a van all day with a group of obnoxious boys. Nothing could wipe the smile off of her lips from the night before.

Melanie sat on the couch in the lobby of The Venetian Hotel and Casino waiting for the rest of the group to meet the few who were downstairs for check out. She fiddled with the hem of her t-shirt as she laid her head back on the leather couches cushion, closing her eyes.

She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t absolutely exhausted. After her and John had left the theatre the night before (and thanked his Aunt for pulling her executive strings and getting them a private tour of the venue) he had walked her down the strip, his large hand cupping hers the entire way. They walked at a leisurely pace each of them not wanting to make the night any shorter than necessary. By four thirty am they were completely worn out, and John walked Melanie to her hotel room leaving her with simple kiss on the lips and nothing more. And that was all she needed.

The rest of the night she lay sleepless, letting her thoughts take her on a journey with new questions arising at every corner. John had kissed her, held her hand, and treated her like a boy would his girlfriend…were they a couple now? Was this just John O’Callaghan playing with her mind again or was this finally for real? And, if this was for real, was she ready for it?

Melanie listened as someone cleared their throat and she felt the leather couch sink next to her as a body sat down. She kept her eyes closed and the person cleared their throat again, louder this time. She opened her right eye and had a tight smile on her lips. “Yes, Charlotte?”

“Do not ‘yes Charlotte’ me, Ms. Hendricks. What the heck happened last night?” Charlie asked, grabbing Melanie’s wrist and squeezing it tightly, an excited grin on her lips.

“Nothing,” she smiled, making Charlotte whine.

“Nothing? Yeah right! I saw John this morning and he looks just as giddy as you do right now,” the girl giggled. “He had that ‘I just got laid’ look on his face. Did someone get it in?”

Melanie erupted in a fit of laughter, “No! It definitely stayed out! Geez, get your mind out of the gutter!”

“Then tell me what happened! All I know is that John Oh sent Miss Taylor home and then this morning he has that same pathetic grin on as you do. You cannot lie to me!”

“He took me to a carnival, and then we got a private tour of The Phantom of the Opera theatre house,” Melanie smiled, reminiscing on the night before. “And, we sort of kissed.”

“Sort of? How the hell do you sort of kiss?” Charlotte asked, her fiery wit as bright as her hair.

“Oh my gosh,” Melanie rolled her eyes. “We kissed! Just kissed, full on, I was just being dramatic.”

“How many times did he kiss you? Did you make out?” Charlotte asked excitedly, folding her ankles under her thighs.

“We kissed once at the theatre and when he walked me to my room. No tongue, just sweet kisses,” she smiled.

The girl next to her let out a huge ‘awe’ before the two were no longer alone.

“Awe what?” Garrett asked, using the back of his hand to wipe the sleep out of his eyes.

“Nothing,” Charlotte said playfully but forcefully.

“Kennedy, you’re girlfriend is emotionally abusing me!” Garrett yelled, walking over to where Pat and Jared were falling asleep on a couch across the lobby.

Kennedy came and sat next to Charlotte on the couch, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, “That’s my girl.”

“So is the only person we’re waiting on John?” Melanie asked, trying to seem nonchalant about the fact that she was itching to be near him and wanted him down there.

Kennedy nodded his head, “As per usual. Why don’t you go up there and get him, yeah? I’ve already called him like six times.”

Charlie sat up in her seat and winked at Melanie, “Yes, you should go get him. Shoo.”

Melanie sighed overdramatically as she got up in her seat and began walking for the elevator. She felt nerves gather in her stomach as she pressed the button for the fourteenth floor where they had been staying. She walked down the hall slowly, trying to gather her thoughts in her head before she would have to come face to face with the boy. But even when her stomach felt somewhat calm when she knocked on the door of room 1412 as soon as he opened it she felt breathless.

The open door exposed John clad in tight blue skinny jeans and a white t-shirt, loose strands of his hair falling into his eyes. The left side of his lips pulled into a grin and Melanie felt as if she had gone back in time for in that smile she saw the boy from her childhood; the boy before all the pain. “Hey, Melanie,” he spoke softly.

She looked into his blue-green eyes, silently scolding herself for the blush that had already crept onto her cheeks. “Um, hi John,” Melanie spoke nervously, biting her bottom lip gently.

The boy in front of her ran his hand through his hair smoothly, “What can I do for you?”

She pulled on the bottom of her shirt, awkwardly just trying to find some sort of distraction to break the obvious tension. “The guys are all down stairs. They sent me to check if you were ready or not.”

John smiled, opening the door behind him more, exposing a bag at his feet, “Just getting ready to walk out, actually.”

“Oh, well do you want help?” She asked, gesturing to the bags.

He shook his head in oblige, “No, I’m a man,” he said, a smile on his lips.

Melanie giggled, “Oh of course, how silly of me.”

John laughed and picked his bags off the floor placing them onto his shoulder and following Melanie down the hallway and into the elevator. They got in silently.

“So, how’d you sleep?” John asked, breaking the awkward quietness between the two.

Melanie smiled, “Amazing, you?”

He smiled back at her, “I don’t think I’ve slept that well in quite a while.”

She wanted him to kiss her, to give her some sort of reassurance that last night but so far John had only kept a three feet distance between them, making her feel as if he regretted what he had done last night once again. She wished she was brave enough to reach out to him and confidently press her lips to his cheek with a soft good morning kiss, but John was already in control of this ‘relationship’, no matter how badly Melanie detested that factor.

“Me either,” she said in response, before leaving them in silence again. She listened to the soft dinging of the elevator marking as they hit each floor, just wondering what John could possibly be thinking right now.

Melanie felt his eyes on her and wasn’t surprised when he spoke, “Hey, Melanie?”

She smiled at the nervous tone in his voice, “Yeah John?”

He ran his hand through his hair and softly bit his lip, “Was last night okay? Like, did I cross a line?”

Melanie turned her baby blue eyes to John’s, a serious but elated look on her face, “No, John, you didn’t cross a line.”

John smiled, turning his eyes to the floor, “Good, because I can’t stop smiling like an idiot.”

She giggled, “Me either.”

The elevator came to its final stop at the casino level and they stepped off, beginning their walk to the lobby where the band would be expecting them. Melanie felt John grab her hand strongly, stopping her in her tracks.

She turned her eyes to him, “Everything okay?” She asked nervously, looking at the uneasy expression on his face.

He ran his hand through his sandy colored hair again, “Mel, can I-can I kiss you?”

Melanie smiled, before taking a small step closer to his towering body. “Please,” she said honestly.

He grinned at her before using his hand to cup her face, giving her the sweetest kiss on the lips. She felt goose bumps appearing on her skin as he kissed her bottom lips softly, repeating the action a number of times.

John pulled away, smiling as he looked into her eyes, “I’ve only been wanting to do that for what feels like forever now.”

Melanie giggled, taking his hand in hers, beginning to walk to the group but keeping her smirk facing him, “Looks like when we get home we have a lot of time to make up for then.”

___

Melanie smiled as the boy next to her stroked her hand softly with his thumb. He was too focused on the movie to realize that her thoughts were only on him and she thanked the low lighting for not letting him see her eyes always resting on his frame next to her.

She watched as John got a small grin on his lips and soon enough her thin frame was being pushed back flat onto the cushions of the couch, his tall body hovering over hers.

“I can see you looking at me,” John said with a smirk.

Melanie tried to hide the blush that came on her lips and she bit her bottom one softly. “Why would I ever be staring at you?”

“Because, I’m gorgeous,” he said teasingly.

“And humble,” she giggled.

“You know you think I’m handsome,” John smiled, burying his face into her neck.

“No, no, I have this new rule of only kissing ugly boys,” Melanie laughed, blushing as John softly put his hands on her hips.

He chuckled, “Well then, I hope I’m the ugliest boy in the world.”

She stared into his deep green eyes, a small smirk on her lips. “Mm-hmm the most unattractive boy I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“Eyes aren’t all either,” he replied laughing as Melanie’s mouth fell open in shock. They hadn’t talked about that night since before her graduation.

He looked are her unsurely, “Too soon to make jokes?”

Melanie gave him a sympathetic smile, “A little.”

John kissed her lips softly making butterflies arise in her stomach. “Sorry babe.”

She couldn’t help but to smile as she kissed him back, her hands entangling themselves in his soft hair. He bit her lip softly as he kissed her, making her get goose bumps along the plains of her skin. He pulled away slowly, his lips lingering on her cheek before sitting them both up on the couch.

Melanie smiled as he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. “John, can I ask you something?”

He nodded his head and looked into her eyes seriously, “Of course, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything is fine,” she said truthfully. “I just…a few months ago you said this was never going to happen in a billion years, and now I just don’t understand what changed to make you okay with us…with this.”

John nodded his head out of understanding and grasped her hand in his tightly. “Do you remember the summer of freshmen year when I got grounded?”

Melanie chuckled, remembering the days he was talking about like they were yesterday. John had gotten in trouble for sneaking out to Kennedy’s in the middle of the night so that he could go to a senior’s party and his fifteen year old body couldn’t handle the amount of alcohol he had taken in. He drunkenly called her and she stole her parent’s car and drove to pick him up illegally at the age of fourteen. “Yes, I remember.”

“Our friends all went to Garrett’s grandma’s cabin the next week, we had talked about it for months, and you stayed with me,” John said with a grin.

“I couldn’t go without my best friend, John,” she replied, tucking a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear.

“And then my Junior year when you got a date with that freaking douche bag that you had had a crush on for so long you skipped it to go to my Regional baseball game, simply because I asked you to be there,” he said reminiscing.

“It was important to you,” Melanie said. “Besides, Henry was kind of a dick.”

John looked at her incredulously, “Kind of?”

“Fine, he was a loser, so thank you for needing me at your game,” Melanie chuckled.

He smiled, “I was just jealous, and scared. I didn’t want you out with him.”

She was still confused, “How does this answer my question though?”

“When I told you that we would never happen I forgot about all of these things, Melanie. I need you in my life. You’re the only one who has always been there for me, even when I don’t deserve it. You amaze me,” John said at last, his eyes never leaving hers.

Melanie felt herself blushing as she buried her face into his neck, “I’ll never leave you, I promise.”