Wake up Under the Sun

It was kind of like a one-night stand, only less shameful.

We had spent the entire night talking and getting to know each other, opening up more than either of us probably should have. We didn’t return to the group, instead we laid side-by-side on his bed, staring at the ceiling as we practically blurted out all of our insecurities and skeletons. We had completely lost track of time until drunken Lex stumbled into his room around 5am, whining to go home. When he drove us home, he grabbed my arm before I could leave his car and asked for my number so he could call me later.

I never heard from him.

I wasn’t entirely ruined but I understood. Why would he call a girl he had only spent some odd hours with? And, on top of that, he was hesitant on introducing himself to me in the beginning anyway, so I couldn’t blame him if those fears came back once he returned home.

But a boy is a boy, and there definitely were plenty of them here. So it was no big deal that almost 10 days had gone by without hearing from John. I had busied myself with filling out job applications, going to interviews, and finally landing a job at Forever 21. In that short amount of time, I had caught a few boys looking at me and I had even looked in their direction, too.

It was late Sunday afternoon and I was cleaning up the jewelry counter when someone tried to get my attention. “Ma’am?”

I turned slowly. “How can I help you?”

I saw a few familiar faces wandering around near the cash registers, pretending they weren’t really in this store. He stared at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

“So, there’s this girl,” he started, looking down at his shoes now. “And I think I might have messed up with her a little bit. I was hoping to make it up to her and heard she liked the color pink, and dresses.”

I felt my lips twitch into a small smile. “I don’t think that shade of pink is the right one.”

“Laney, I’m sorry I didn’t call,” John apologized. “There’s really no excuse for it but things with the band-”

“John,” I interrupted. “It’s fine. I don’t expect to go from strange girl you just met to replacing your band’s priority.”

“You aren’t a strange girl, Lane. And I want to buy you something to make up for me being an ass, okay? So just tell me which dress you want so I can take you dancing.”

I heard a snort from behind us and I turned sharply, startled by the ungodly noise. It was Garrett and his face was bright red from laughing. “You’re going dancing? Like, you’re gonna tango?”

“Shut up, Gar,” John groaned. “I thought I told you not to butt in.”

Garrett shrugged nonchalantly and trudged away. I watched him go for a minute, processing the things he said. He was right to laugh. There was no way John could be any good at traditional dance. He was too tall and lanky, he had to be clumsy and uncordinated.

“You don’t have to buy me anything,” I told him finally.

He sighed loudly. “Lane. I’m taking you out somewhere, then. And I’m going to buy you something whether or not you tell me what you prefer.”

I sighed, too, and walked over to the dress I had my eyes on since before I was hired. I had no reason to wear it so I never bought it for myself but I handed it to him, taking the other one out of his hands in the process.

“This doesn’t mean I approve of you buying me something,” I reminded him when a sly smirk crept onto his face.

“Why don’t you wear this tonight? We’re playing a show in town and I want you to come,” John offered.

“I thought you were taking me dancing?” I laughed softly as we walked back to where he had found the first dress.

“I mean, we could always go dancing,” he said uneasily, scratching the back of his neck. “I can’t say I’ll be any good at it, though. I was mostly talking myself up to look less like the jerk I’m sure you think I am.”

I was about to reply when I heard my manager scolding me from a few feet away. I had obviously been neglecting my job, busy being blindly swept off my feet.

“Shit, I got you in trouble. Awesome, I’m an even bigger ass now,” John cursed under his breath. “I’ll pick you up at 6, okay? I’ll drop this off with Lex.”

I couldn’t help but laugh to myself as John practically ran away from me and up toward the register.

The remaining three hours of my shift were the longest three hours I’ve lived through. I was skipping on my way out of the mall, virtually floating to my crappy old car. The ride home was short and sweet, the excitement that 6 o’clock held taking over my entire thought processes. I was making up scenarios in my mind of how the night would go, most totally unrealistic for the timeframe. We were new friends, he wasn’t going to show up with roses.

“John came by,” Lex said from the couch.

“He came by the store first,” I replied as I fell into the recliner. “Hey Loren.”

He laughed, “Hey Laney.”

“I think he likes you,” Lex stated bluntly.

“Why? Because he bought me a dress?” I questioned.

Lex smiled sweetly, the smile that meant she was right and she was about to tell me exactly why. “He doesn’t spend Friday nights in his bedroom just talking to a girl.”

“Yeah, he mentioned that,” I said as I stood. It was almost 5:40; I had to start getting ready. “I’m not really expecting much, Lex. I’m not naïve enough to think after one night he’ll ask me to go on a date with him and we’ll eventually fall madly in love and get married. He didn’t even talk to me for, what, 9 or 10 days?”

Lex and Loren laughed. “Okay,” Lex said with a nod. “I’m just saying that he’s kind of going out of his norm for you.”

As I quietly made my way to my bedroom, I thought over what she was getting at. While John and I hadn’t gotten into any sort of serious conversation about relationships, he mentioned having a line of girlfriends he wished he hadn’t bothered with. Nothing more than that was said, nothing less. I wasn’t going to let Lex’s bias sway me on this whatever-it-was we had happening between us.

I pushed opened the door and stepped into the comfort of my room. I shut the door and locked it, just in case Lex decided to enter without knocking first like she often did. When I turned around, I saw the dress lying on my bed and a little index card sat on top of it.

Remember, 6 sharp. You won’t be disappointed.

ps, sorry for getting you in trouble at work

I smiled and quickly changed out of my jeans and blouse. I changed into the dress, searching for a cardigan. I had piles of clean clothes sitting all around my room, just waiting for me to put them away, and of course the cardigan I wanted was at the bottom of one of the piles. I tried to carefully get it out from under the pile but failed, the shirts and jeans slipping off the counter and onto the floor. I stared blankly at the mess, a loud sigh escaping my lips.

“Laney!” Lex bellowed.

“What?” I yelled back, haphazardly picking up the articles of clothing and tossing them onto my bed. When Lex didn’t answer, I opened my door to yell again. “Wha- Oh.”

I startled away from the door when I saw John standing in the way. He was wearing a black button-up shirt and a pair of jeans, the same ones as earlier I’d bet. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and the top buttons were undone. His hair was much neater than it had been, sweeping off to the side smoothly and ruffled a bit in the back.

“You look good,” I said to him, the shock wearing off. I walked back into my room to finish picking up after myself. “Like a real heartthrob.”

“Hey, don’t hate,” he teased, following slowly behind me. “Someone did a good job picking out that dress, huh?”

I laughed. “Yeah, I did a good job.”

He opened his mouth to retaliate but he knew he had nothing witty to say in return. I grinned cheekily at him, grabbed my purse and headed for the door. John closed the door behind us and we said goodbye to Lex and Loren.

“So where is this concert at?” I asked curiously, feeling slightly awkward in the passenger seat of his truck.

He quickly glanced at me. “A bar.”

I pursed my lips and turned my attention to the scenery passing by. We sat in silence, listening to the static radio station. I looked back to John. He had a small smile playing at his lips as he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel.

“Hey Lane,” he said absently.

“Yeah?”

“I really am sorry I didn’t call you,” he said, looking at me once he stopped at the red light. He turned onto a residential street, his focus back on the road.

“It’s fine,” I replied easily. “It’s not like I was sitting by the phone.”

“You sure about that one?” he laughed as he pulled into someone’s driveway. A boy walked outside and smiled goofily. “Scoot closer to me.”

I did as I was told, scooting so close to John that our legs were touching. He looked down at me and our connected legs and smiled.

“I’m positive. I wasn’t waiting for you to call,” I tried to assert myself.

The passenger door opened and the boy hopped in. John smiled at me before his eyes moved past mine and met the boy’s. “Halvo, this is Delaney. Laney, this is Eric Halvorsen. My best friend since we were babies.”

“Pretty much,” Eric laughed and held his hand out to me. “It’s nice to meet you. John hasn’t shut up about you.”

“Wow,” John said loudly as he reversed out of the driveway. “Wow, Halvo.”

“So you’ve been talking about me, huh?” I teased, poking him in the side. “And you’re giving me crap for waiting for you to call?”

“You didn’t call her?” Eric boomed, his laugh taking over the soft buzz of the radio station. “You’re such a pansy, dude. You told me you did.”

“Whatever,” John mumbled grumpily.

“He totally went back and forth for days, asking me if he should call you or not,” Eric informed me. “He was acting like a little girl.”

I laughed lightly, looking up at John. His eyebrows were furrowed together, obviously distraught by his best friend being a blabbermouth.

“I think it’s cute,” I said, patting John’s knee lightly. “The heartthrob got nervous.”

John huffed. “I didn’t get nervous. I was just curious if it would be too forward to call you, since we had only talked that once. I wasn’t sure if we were friends or not.”

Eric laughed slightly. “I think you two are friends. I mean, if you’ve already established nicknames and petnames and all of that jazz, you’re friends.”

John and I looked at each other briefly. He smirked and I couldn’t help but smile in return, too. He ruffled my hair, “Yeah, I guess that’s true. My little Laney.”

I smacked his hand away from my head. “And you’re just the pitiful heartthrob.”

He placed his hand over his heart. “Ouch, Laney. That’s not how you treat your new best friend.”

And there I was, a new best friend at my side after only being back in Arizona for a few weeks. It was more than I had when I left and it was more than I could ask for considering how long I’d been back. But I definitely wasn’t going to complain.