La Vie En Rose

What You Can't Control - The Morning Of

“You know, Tim and mom made a huge mistake getting me this laptop.” Lola stated as she sat cross-legged on my bed, with her brand new macbook pro set up in front of her. “They are just fueling my addiction to trolling.”

I let out a light laugh at my sister’s comment as I stood at my closet, organizing my dresses. It was the day after Christmas, St. Stevens day to be exact. Yesterday went rather smoothly. It was like any other Christmas: presents were exchanged, Frank Sinatra was the soundtrack to our lives, Christmas movies on ABC Family played on the tv for Cole while the rest of us prepared dinner, ate until we couldn’t breathe and finished off the night with some major family bonding by popping in one of our mother’s favorite old movie ‘Roman Holiday’.

Present wise, I was very very gratified. Tim, I guess you could say, wanted to spoil us a little bit. He didn’t actually have to buy for our affection since we have already accepted him into the family but, he definitely liked surprising us. And he did that exactly: Christmas morning, Lola was given a brand new laptop and I was given a pair of Christian Louboutin heels. If I can recall correctly, a single happy tear was shed from my eye and I said something along the lines of ‘Dear God...they’re beautiful.’ I instantly felt bad that I only got him the latest season of The Office and a book about sail boats. He seemed content, nonetheless.

It was a pretty relaxing and festive day. Tim was happy, Lola was happy, Cole was hyper and my mom, mainly, was happy. Even I was happy, especially when I managed to sneak in a little bit of John time at the end of the day. Three-thirty in the morning, to be exact. I’d like to think of it as ‘saving the best for last’.

A simple text from John saying ‘Come outside.’ had me ripping my bed covers back, slipping on my white furry slippers (they were on sale in Target, alright? Don’t judge me.), tip-toeing down the stairs like a mouse and grabbing my jacket from the coat rack within seconds. When I saw John waiting for me at the end of my driveway with a smile, I jumped the couple of steps to the concrete and ran up to him. I immediately wrapped my arms around his neck and elevated myself onto my toes to reach his lips with mine.

“Merry Christmas, pretty girl.” John said with a dorky smile on his face while he took my hands in his and playfully laced our fingers together. “I missed you.”

I laughed at him. “John, I saw you last night.”

“Felt like years ago.” He kissed my cheek before pulling me towards his house. “I have a present for you.”

I immediately panicked when he said that. It never occurred to me to buy John a Christmas present. Oh God, I was a terrible person.

John noticed my panic-stricken expression and laughed again before tugging me towards his car. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing big.”

“John, I...never got you anything.” I admitted. “I’m such a shitty person.”

John gave me an incredulous look before speaking. “You aren’t shitty in the slightest. I promise, it’s nothing big, I just made you something.”

Oh God, even worse...he made me something. It wasn’t like some object he bought at a store, it was something he put thought into and worked on. This was bad. This was very, very bad.

He opened the passenger door to his Mercedes car for me, a look of amusement on his face. I hesitated for a moment, wondering where on earth we were going. He closed the door silently, shooting a quick glance at his house before running over to the drivers side.

“Where are we going!?” I asked John once he got into the car and instructed me to fasten my seatbelt.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he gave me a knowing smile before turning on the engine, pushing the handle into reverse and backing out of his driveway.

I shook my head, crossing my arms across my chest. “You just LOVE being all mysterious and cryptic and dark, don’t you?”

He laughed loudly at that. “That, I do.”

“Ugh.”

“Don’t worry, Gigi.” He laughed once more. “We’re almost there.”

And he wasn’t lying. A couple of quick turns and pauses at Stop signs later, John had turned into the empty parking lot of Chestnut Park. He parked the car right opposite the park so the infamous fountain in the middle of the park could be seen faintly in the distance. It was quite a sight to behold - I guess the lamps were turned off after some point in the night because it was just complete blackness surrounding the well-lit fountain. It looked like it was floating but that could just be my lack of sleep and imagination blending together.

“See? Not so bad.” John said happily.

“Are we going in the park?” I enquired. “I don’t think thats safe. There could be psycho serial killers crouching in the bushes just waiting for their prey. John, we will be their prey if we get out of this car. I was watching a program, actually, on CNN about neighborhood parks are targeted as-”

“Don’t worry, we’re not leaving the car.” John cut me off, laughing his cute little laugh. My heart always melted at the sound of it. It was just so innocent and light, it made me want to pinch his cheeks right off his face.

John kept the engine running but turned off the headlights. It took a couple of moments for my eyes to adjust. Luckily, I could just about see the contour of John’s face, thanks to the dull light coming from the radio on the dashboard.

“What are we-”

“Check the glove box.” John cut me off once more, nodding towards the little compartment in front of me.

I narrowed my eyes at John, a smile appearing on my lips. I sat forward, pressing my lips together firmly and pulling the glove box open. A miniature light flicked on the minute I opened it, revealing the car manuel, John’s drivers registration and... a carefully stacked pile of blank CDs, wrapped tightly with a red ribbon. I gasped and looked at John before attentively pulling it out.

“They’re mix cds.” John explained as I peered down quietly at the package in my lap. “I figured I would burn you a couple of songs I think you’d enjoy. I even put some rough recording of new songs I’m working on too. You know, something you can listen to on the airplane when you fly back to the east coast.”

That feeling of my heart swelling up with adoration filled my chest. I looked at John with a look of complete fondness. “John, no one has ever made me mix cds before.” I was at a complete loss for words. This was the cutest thing anyone has ever done for me. This even beat the drawing Cole did for me the other day.

“I figured it would mean a lot more than buying some CD for you.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

Oh my God, what did I do to deserve a guy like John O’Callaghan?

I leaned over and planted a small kiss on his lips. Oh boy, he smelled good. “Thank you. I love them.”

“How about we start on one of them?” He suggested. “You know, before we go back home.”

“Sounds good to me.” I answered, carefully un-tying the bow and opening the first cd. I picked it out, popped it into the cd player. A couple of seconds later, a rhythm guitar started to play, vocals and drumming following suit.

“Who’s this?” I asked, scooting closer to John as he put his arm around me.

“‘Brighten.’” He answered as he mindlessly twirled the ends of my hair with his fingers. “They’re good friends of mine, actually. Justin has a great voice.”

“Hmm..” I nodded, listening along to the music. “I like it.”

It didn’t take very long for John and I to start kissing and when I say kissing, I actually mean full on making-out. I swear, the minute our lips meet, nothing else in the world matters. I forget about all the deadlines back on the east coast, the stress over the fashion show I’m planning, the anxiousness of leaving Arizona once more. John’s kisses creates a whole other feeling for me that I don’t feel often: tranquility.

I don’t recall exactly, but at some point, we managed to pull ourselves into the backseat of his car to continue our little dance. We didn’t go all the way, mind you, but hands were definitely roaming and articles of clothing were being unbuttoned and pushed up...like my shirt, for example.

John and I didn’t get home until roughly five am. It was still dark out and thankfully, no one found out about me sneaking out of the house. When I got back upstairs to my bedroom, I contemplated on waking Lola up and telling her what happened, but I decided I wanted to keep this a secret. It was more exciting, I figured. I felt like I was a young teenager again, who was breaking all the rules. With the biggest smile on my face, I kicked off my slippers, jumped into bed and pulled the covers tightly up to my chin.

My plan to keep my rendezvous with John a secret from Lola, however, had fallen through when I woke up this morning to find her figure towering over me.

“You have a bruise the size of TEXAS on your neck.” Lola jabbed a finger at my neck, making me wince and slapping her hand away. “You snuck out last night with John, didn’t you, you dirty whore!”

Caught. After several minutes of her interrogating me, she pulled me out of bed, dragged me into the bathroom and grabbed the nearest bottle of foundation.

“Mom would fucking freak if she saw this hickey.” Lola stated as she pushed my head to the left and started applying the make-up. Seconds later, she gasped. “I just found another one! Oh my God, you horndog. Did you guys finally bang last night or something?”

I pulled away from Lola with a shocked look. “NO!” I answered quickly. “We just...messed around.”

“God Gigi, when are you gonna tap that? Times running out, you know. You’re leaving in a week.” She said as she continued rubbing the foundation against the mark John left on my neck last night.

“Lola, you and I...we have different views on sex. I can’t bring myself to just bang a guy I like. I need to trust him. It has to feel right, you know? Call me old fashioned, but I like waiting. I want it to be right.” I sighed, watching Lola make the mark disappear in the mirror. “I need to know the guy cares for me.”

“By the looks of things, John cares a lot about you.” Lola said, starring at my neck. “He left another hickey on your collarbone...”

John hasn’t left my mind the whole day either. Last night’s escapades have definitely put me in the best form, I knew that much. I was in such a good mood, in fact, that I helped my mother clean the kitchen, took the trash out, did my laundry and even cleaned the bathroom up.

Now, it was the early evening and Lola was keeping me company in my room while we listened to the mix cds John made me. He was definitely spot on with all the songs he burned me. I literally enjoyed every song he put on them. Some songs were familiar but for the most part, they were foreign. It was beyond refreshing.

While Lola sat quietly, typing furiously at her laptop, and I attended to my fresh laundry, a loud scream suddenly erupted from downstairs. I whipped my head around to look at Lola, hoping it was just my imagination but Lola was looking back at me with the same expression. Another scream shrieked from downstairs. It was our mom.

“KIDS!” We heard her yell. “GET DOWN HERE, QUICK!!”

Lola and I immediately dropped what we were doing and legged it out of my bedroom. Immediately, the worst case scenarios were running through my mind as I ran after Lola down the stairs. Frantically, I jumped the last two stairs. God, oh please God, don’t let anyone be dead in my kitchen.

But everyone was fine when Lola and I reached the kitchen. So fine, in fact, that my mom was practically choking Tim as she laughed out loudly. Ok now, I was confused.

“Did something happen!?” Lola asked loudly over our mother’s hysteria. She was acting nuts. Cole, who had now arrived next to me, looked up at me with a confused look.

Our mom turned around to face us and grinned. “Kids! Tim just proposed!”

“Proposed?” Lola, Cole and I asked in unison.

“We’re-” She squealed again. Oh my God, I have never seen my own mother act like this before. “We’re getting MARRIED!!”

Lola and I exchanged a look before starring at our mom. “WHAT!?”

Lola, Cole and I immediately broke into a loud cheer. Lola and I, especially, started squealing along with our mom. Tim just watched us with an amused expression.

“Oh mom!” I hugged her tightly. “Congratulations!”

“I never thought I would see the day!” Lola exclaimed as she hugged mom and Tim. “This is so exciting! When is the wedding!? Where is it going to be!?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Lola.” My mom laughed. “He only just proposed. We haven’t worked anything out.”

“Oh my God.” I clapped. “A wedding! How exciting!”

“Come on everyone.” Tim put his arm around our mom and grinned. “This calls for celebration! I have some champagne in the fridge and Cole, I got you a chocolate milk.”

“Yay!” Cole cheered.