And You're Just What I Need...

“you told me nothing happened!” dakota yells at me once I finally make it down for dinner.

“nothing happened.” I repeat my words from earlier.

“then why is my soon to be husband telling me that you guys kissed?!”

I groan and glare at Adam. “we did not kiss. He kissed me. There’s a difference.”

“so the date tonight?”

“you told her?!” I question Adam.

He shakes his head no, “I told Finn, Finn told her.”

I look at the engaged couple, “Dakota, if I tell you something, you can’t go and tell Finn. Finn, the same goes for you, got it?”

“just to warn you, she’s not really the dating type.” Dakota tries to whisper to him. She’s not really good at whispering though.

“hmm, well, that works with me.” Adam replies smugly.

“oh, ha, no, she’s virgin.”

“Dakota!” finn and i both yell at her.

“what?”

“that is defiantly not something you share to everybody.” Finn explains to her. He has been teaching her manners since his family is really big on all of that. Not that he doesn’t love her the way she is, just that, if he gets cut from his family’s money he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“well, it’s true.”

Adam looks over at me then, the moment i look up, “actually,” i start, turning towards dakota, “it’s not.”

“you’re not virgin?”

Finn could feel the awkwardness, “adam, how about we go..,” he paused, trying to think of an excuse.

“play halo,” i finish for him.

“yeah, halo, sounds good.” Adam gets up and they walk into the rec room.

"You’re not virgin?” Dakota asks once the boys are gone.

“but, how?” she stutters out.

“it was in Italy”

“I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me.” she was mad. More than mad, pissed.

“It wasn’t a big deal to me. the guy was in Italy, it all happened in Italy, and I sort of pushed Italy out of my head. So, to me, it still hasn’t happened.”

“but you could have told me at least. I’ve been thinking you’re still virgin!”

“I’m sorry.” I say, knowing that those words didn’t really mean anything to her, but it was worth a shot.

“sorry isn’t going to fix this one. You should’ve told me.”

“I know, but I didn’t and there isn’t anything to do about it now.”

“what about the past five years?”

“it only happened in Italy.” I tell her.

"You haven’t since?”

I shake my head no, “god woman! You’re crazy!”

“are you mad?”

“very.” She says and then walks upstairs to her room. She wasn’t joking and I knew it. I knew when Dakota was pissed and this was one of those rare times. I move into the living room and flip on the morning cartoons. The thought that my daughter was watching these right now popped into my head and I shook it out. I couldn’t think that way. The guys both walk out of the rec room and upstairs, leaving me down here all alone.

After about another hour with no one coming down, I decide I should go up. I push myself off the sofa and go to my room, getting dressed. It was only 1 in the afternoon, but I didn’t want to be here anymore. Finn and Dakota were in their room talking while Adam was in his room. I walk to Adam’s room and knock on his door lightly. “come in.” he calls out. I open the door and take a few steps in. Adam was lying on his bed reading a book and he sets it down, looking at me, “oh, hi,” he says when he sees that it’s me. I’m guessing he was expecting Finn.

“hey.” I say, sort of nervous now. What the hell was I thinking?!?!

“what’s up?”

“I was wondering if we could go out now…” I trail off.

“at one?” I nod, “well, what I had planned doesn’t start until six…”

“oh.”

"You want out of here, don’t you?” he asks, and I nod shyly again, “well then, I don’t see any harm in getting out of the house. Let me change and then we can go, okay?”

“yeah, I’ll be in my room.” He nods and I leave. I organize my books and start on my cd collection when Adam knocks on my door.

“ready?” he asks, stepping in.

“yeah,” I set down the stack of CDs in my hand and stand up. Instead of walking out the door, Adam walks to the stack of CDs I just set down. “what are you doing?” I ask.

“getting tunes for the car ride.” He picks up the stack before I can argue, “The Who? Cake?” he asks. I couldn’t tell if he was shocked or just didn’t know who they were.

"You know who they are, right?”

“of course, I just wouldn’t think you’d have their CDs.”

I walk over and grab the Cake album, Comfort Eagle, out of Adams hand and walk out of the room, pausing in the doorway and looking over my shoulder, “coming?” I ask.

Adam shakes his head like I just woke him from a daydream. I smirk and continue walking out to his car. He jogs up to catch up to me and slides into the drivers side turning on the car. I push in the CD.

“so, where do you want to go?” he asks, pulling out of the driveway.

I shrug, “my driver yesterday was this really rude guy who didn’t point out any fun destinations to me.” I point out.

“well then, I’ll just have to fix that, now won’t I?”

we drove a little in silence until he speaks up, “what would you change your eye color to if you could change them?”

“violet,” I answer instantly, not thinking about how crazy the question was until after answering it. “that was a really random question.” I point out.

He ignores my comment about the question, "You’d actually change them?!” he sounds shocked.

"You asked, I answered.”

“but your eyes are so awesome. They have like, sunflowers in the middle of them.”

“burst of sun is what I call it, but sunflowers work also.” My eyes were hazel and the center, around the pupil, was orange-ish in a sort of flowery way. It was pretty awesome, but I’d still rather have violet eyes.

My favorite song by Cake comes on and before I have a chance to start singing along with it Adam fills my spot. I stare at him, surprised for a second, before joining in. There was something about his voice though, that made it hard for me to concentrate on the words as much as I usually do.

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond
I want a girl who knows what's best
I want a girl with shoes that cut
And eyes that burn like cigarettes
I want a girl with the right allocations
Who's fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack
She's playing with her jewelry
She's putting up her hair
She's touring the facility
And picking up slack
I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnng jacket......
I want a girl who gets up early
I want a girl who stays up late
I want a girl with uninterrupted prosperity
Who uses a machete to cut through red tape
With fingernails that shine like justice
And a voice that is dark like tinted glass
She is fast and thorough
And sharp as a tack
She's touring the facility
And picking up slack
I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnng.... lonnng jacket
I want a girl with a smooth liquidation
I want a girl with good dividends
At Citibank we will meet accidentally
We'll start to talk when she borrows my pen
She wants a car with a cupholder arm rest
She wants a car that will get her there
She's changing her name from Kitty to Karen
She's trading her MG for a white Chrysler La Baron
I want a girl with a short skirt and a lonnnnggggggggg jacket

I was grinning by the end of the song. "You have a really pretty smile.” Adam mentions, pulling into a bowling alley.

“I know.”

“wow, modest much?”

I just smile bigger, “so we’re bowling?” I ask, deverting my eyes from his and to the sign in front of us.

“huh?” he asks, confused and then looks to where I’m looking, “oh, no, there’s a pool table in the back.”

He gets out and comes around to open my door, “we’re playing pool for two hours?” I ask.

“well yeah, best game ever.” He says like it’s obvious. Which is funny, because it is obvious to me, I love playing pool. But I’m not stupid, I know why he chose the game and I wasn’t going to let him down on his fun. So I act like I’m not good.

“I haven’t played since I was like ten.” I tell him as we enter the back room of the alley.

“I bet you’ll get the hang of it.” he takes two cues off the rack as I set up the balls.

“If I recall, I’m horrible at breaking it, so you can start.” I say, backing away so that he can break them. When he finishes I go to one side and position my cue wrong on purpose. I hear Adam try not to let me hear him laugh, “well come on then, show me how to position the cue if you’re going to laugh at me.” I turn back around and moments later I feel him behind me. I smile as he positions my arms correctly, his hands on top of mine.

“now pull back and then push forward he says into my ear, I nod and do as he says, hitting three striped into the corner pocket.

“yah! I got one in!” I practically scream. Adam laughs as I do a little winning dance.

He grabs my hand and twirls me back to him. “and now you get to go again,” he says, helping me reposition.

For once, it was actually fun pretending to be bad at this. Better than beating him at every round and the game being over in five minutes, that’s for sure.

The first game finishes in about an hour (I missed a lot of shots) with Adam winning, of course.

Adam has me break the second one without him helping, even though I beg him to. He says that I can do it and blah, blah, blah. I turn back around to the table and smirk since I knew exactly how to break it. Adam goes after me and strikes, giving me an advantage. Since he wasn’t going to help me this game, I decide that it’s fair if I play to my fool advantage. I position the ball and then my cue, pulling back, pushing forward and getting four stripes in the corner pockets. I go to the ball that was now near the right corner and shoot, getting stripes five in on the left side pocket.

I sneak a peek at Adams face before taking my third shot, missing it by a centimeter.

"You knew how to play pool, didn’t you?” he asks as I walk back over to him.

“hmm, maybe. Or maybe you’re just a really good teacher. Guess you’ll never know though.” I start to go chalk my cue but Adam grabs me quick around the waist.

“Juliana.” He says sternly, looking down at me.

I smile innocently, “The only reason you chose pool was because you thought I didn’t know how to play. Pool, bowling, and golf are the three games where guys can touch the girls the most while at the same time teaching them how to play the game. It just wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t give you what you were expecting.” He was still holding onto me, but it wasn’t like I was pushing him off. I actually liked his hands there, it felt comforting. He didn’t say anything and was actually staring at me like he was trying to figure me out or something. My stomach growls loudly. Actually, loudly doesn’t even describe it. It was like this roar of hunger.

“hungry are we?” Adam asks, chuckling.

“do I even have to answer that? of course I’m hungry!”

“well, we’ll eat then. I don’t feel like playing pool after you totally figured out my…”

"You’re techniques at winning girls over?” I try to help him finish his sentence.

“I wasn’t going to put it so straight forward, but yes.” My stomach growls again, “okay, okay, we’ll go get food.” Adam says, and grabs my handing, dragging me out to the food court area.

I practically swallow my platter of nachos before Adam is even close to being done with his. I take a sip of my shake as he looks at me like I’m crazy, "You’re not pregnant again, are you?” Adam asks.

“ha, you’re funny.” I say, stealing one of his chips.

“hey! Save some room for dinner.”

“I’m hungry, give me a break.” I say, stealing another chip.

He pushes my shake in front of me, "You have to finish your shake before you get anymore of my food.” He orders me, pushing my chocolate shake closer to me.

I ignore him and grab another chip, dipping it in my shake, “have you ever tried this?” I ask before taking a bite.

“I can’t say I have” he replies with a disgusted face on.

“huh, it’s good. Used to be my favorite food before I got pregnant.”

“and then it wasn’t?”

“yeah, it tasted horrible during the pregnancy.”

“if that was normal food for you, what was your pregnancy food?”

“I craved salad.”

He bursts out laughing, "You’re kidding, right?”

I shake my head no, “nope.” I grab another chip and dip in my shake and then hand it to Adam, “try it.” I tell him. To my surprise he just eats it out of my hand. “I meant take it and eat it, I’m not trying feed you here.” He chews, pondering if he likes it or not and then swallows.

“if I touched it and didn’t like it, then I couldn’t say you force fed me this stuff. But I like it.”

I roll my eyes and finish my shake feeling satisfied. “done?” he asks. I nod and we leave. “so, where are we going?” I ask as we drive off.

"You so don’t get to know.”

“fine.” I cross my arms and pout.

“I got you a job by the way, you start Monday.”

“why’d you do that?”

“cause you’re going to need a job.”

“I wasn’t planning on staying long,”

“but Dakota plans on you staying long. You don’t have to take it, I’m pretty sure you’ll love it though.”

“Where is it?” I ask.

“Dorias”

“which is??”

“a bakery.”

I nod and stay silent. Adam was really fun, and obviously I liked him. But if he doesn’t know who I really am, then he’s dating me while being in love with someone else. Even if that someone else is me, but still, he doesn’t know.

“why did you want to go out with me?” I blurt out my thoughts.

"You want me to tell you why I want to date you?”

“well, you said you were in love with this other girl just last night and then this morning you ask me out. I don’t get it.”

"You’re too smart for your own good, you know that?” he ignores my question.

“and you’re not. If you don’t answer the question you won’t have any chance with me, if you’re honest though, then that changes things.”

“fine, but just to warn you, this makes me sound like a jerk.” I nod even though he can’t see it, he sighs and then begins, “I do love Skye. That was four years ago though, and not only that, but I knew her for like three months. Since she never contacted me I don’t know what’s going on. She could be dead, married, or even lesbian for all I know. Plus the chances of running into her again are slim to none. And…” he stops there.

“and what?”

“never mind, I don’t have anything to say after the and.”

“sure you don’t.” it was about another hour until we got to the town we were going to. During that time we asked each other what our favorite this and that. Adam pulls into a busy gravel parking lot and finds a spot.

“wait right here.” He says and then grabs a basket from the back and runs to the field in front of us. I lose him in the crowd and then about five minutes later he appears, opens my door and grabs my hand.

“what is this?” I ask over the loudness of the crowd. He puts up a finger motioning one second and pulls me toward a tree. It was a lot quieter back here.

“it’s a music video festival.” I raise my eyebrows confused, “this organization gets the rights to use all these songs and then people make music videos to them. It’s actually pretty awesome.”

Adam had set out a blanket that had a bunch of different foods on it. we talked and ate (more) food and all that good stuff. The music was actually pretty popular tunes and some of the videos were really professionally done. I wonder who came up with the idea to do this. The music video festival, not the picnic.

“do you want to dance?” Adam asks, as the song title “A moment like this” flashes on the screen. A bunch of couples were already up and dancing and so I decided what the hell.

“sure.” He gets up and then pulls me up and we start slow dancing. The lyrics start and I can’t help but think the first verse describes this situation perfectly. “What if I told you it was all meant to be. Would you believe me, would you agree? It’s almost that feeling we met before. So tell me that you don’t think I’m crazy when I tell you love has come here and now.” The breeze was blowing the tree branches around and couples everywhere were dancing. Girls ran through yelling “Cooties!” with boys chasing close behind. I close my eyes and rest my head on Adams shoulder while we sway to the music. Around the end, Adam lifts my chin and kisses me tenderly. I can’t help but think this really is the best moment of my life.